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.

There are five challenges to staying on the spiritual path of mindfulness, and one of them is this feeling of ill will toward others.

Wishing for something unpleasant to happen to someone else actually stems from something really

unpleasant happening within us. So today I am reminding myself

that hurt people hurt people because I've recently encountered someone so

rude, greedy, selfish, and hateful. I can only imagine how miserable of a life he must lead with so much anger and entitlement brewing inside of him that in his desperate attempt to feel good, superior, important, or powerful, he must view others as inferior and unworthy.

Feeling tall by cutting off the heads of other men is how Yogananda explained this disease.

As a fellow human, I am also infected by this disease. As a fellow human I am also infected by this disease and I

admit to sometimes feeling the impulse to be vindictive and hurtful right back.

But instead of trying to find ways to make his life miserable, I remind myself that he is already suffering enough or he wouldn't be treating people the way he does.

In fact, when I started looking at my own desire to hurt him, I realized that hurt people,

hurt people isn't just a saying. My desire to hurt him stemmed from my own hurt,

as if causing pain to someone else would relieve me of my own.

Now we know that thoughts become words and words become actions.

If I was a Zen master, maybe I could control my thoughts, but I'm not, so I do the next best thing. I use mindfulness to control my words and actions which is a really good place to start.

Mindfulness is that pause between impulse and response. I hope we can all increase that pause and treat ourselves

with kindness, patience, and generosity. So let's not act on ill will, thoughts, or even

give them room inside of us.

Feel them, release them, and then guide yourself to where Rumi wants to set up camp.

Beyond right and wrong, there is a field.

I will meet you there. Other than ill will toward

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