Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enrich, and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life.

Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye.

The moment we get what we want, we also get anxious about losing what we just got. It's a package deal. Does that mean wanting to be happy as an inherently flawed goal? Well that depends. If we are not

skillful in our pursuit of happiness, we actually create a vicious cycle of suffering by our attempts to end it.

If our source of happiness is rooted in what the Buddha called orderly concerns, such as seeking sense pleasures and avoiding

unpleasant sensations, attachment to wealth and praise, or aversion to loss and blame,

then we may gain temporary happiness, but it will be accompanied

by fear, restlessness, and concern, all of which make us miserable.

A life spent seeking pleasure and avoiding unpleasantness starts resembling an exhausting battlefield.

And if we let compliments get to our heads, we allow criticisms break our hearts.

Even if our happiness comes from achieving temporary peace of mind, we are still at risk of losing it to greed, hatred, and ignorance.

Let's consider a different definition of happiness.

Something less dependent on unstable, fleeting, fragile,

or unpredictable circumstances, and more closely related to equanimity,

which is not associated with the absence of challenges, it's the ability to remain calm and serene despite adversity.

Equanimity is synonymous with composure, which is a state of being balanced, collected, and in control of yourself.

So whenever I lose my cool, it does happen from time to time, I immediately check to see if I accidentally stepped in one of those worldly concerns the Buddha was talking about, such as attachment or version.

And sure enough, without fail, it always turns out that I have.

So I scrape it off, I acknowledge where I veered off my intended

path of equanimity and I regain composure. This doesn't mean I don't care about what goes on in the world.

Equanimity is not insensitivity nor apathy.

It means my efforts to make the world a better place

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