Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich, and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life. Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye.

I was invited to speak in Quartzite, Arizona last week at this year's RTR, an annual gathering in the desert for full and part-time van dwellers from all over the country.

I spoke, as I often do, about the importance of living in line with our core values so that what we think,

what we say, and what we do are all in alignment.

It's a way of ensuring undistrupted inner peace.

A woman raised her hand to ask the following question, for which I didn't have a good answer at

the time, but upon deeper reflection I've reached what I think is the core of the matter.

She described her internal conflict as follows.

On one hand, she was raised on a farm with many animals, from chickens to pigs, goats, and cows, some of whom were designated as pets which the

family never butchered nor ate, while others were strictly raised for consumption.

Even as a young girl, she didn't understand the distinction and now as an adult

she loves bacon, eats meat, and doesn't think twice about a chicken salad, but she still

has pet pigs, turkeys, sheep, and so on, whom she never eats.

She is struggling to make sense and peace with simultaneously loving animals yet eating

them as well.

She sees bacon as something, but Roger her pet pig as

someone. As a result she said she feels inauthentic. I initially thought the

conflict resulted from a lack of commitment to one way or the other.

To illustrate what I meant about commitment, I used the example of dating multiple people

at the same time, which is commonplace harmless and perfectly acceptable.

However, continuing to see other people after getting married creates conflict,

internal and otherwise, because a commitment has been made, a vow, a promise never to do that again.

...