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.

Those of us who don't work in the medical emergency law enforcement or public service sectors are staying home to stop the spread of this virus. Most of us are accustomed to routine, schedule, and staying busy.

So when we were advised to shelter in place, many people didn't know what to do with themselves.

It reminded me of my first day at the Japanese monastery.

We were shown to our meditation cushion in the Zendo.

Everyone sat down facing the wall. The bells chimed and that was it. We were not given

any instructions on what to do. There was no visible timer on the wall, counting down the minutes.

We just sat there in silence and waited for something to happen,

and many who have never tried meditating before found this lack of activity extremely difficult to handle.

Because we are typically surrounded by physical, visual, and auditory stimuli,

it can be a little jarring when everything suddenly stops. But if you've ever meditated before,

then you know that the moment you turn off the external,

it's not that everything stops. That's when the real work begins because then you can finally get in touch with

what's going on internally. And maybe that's why this practice is so foreign and scary.

The hardest thing for people to see is themselves. After we stare at that blank wall for a few hours each day, week after week, that wall became

a mirror. It started reflecting back to me everything about myself that I've been ignoring

or hiding since childhood, even stuff that I thought I'd already worked through and dealt with,

resurface so I can re-evaluate my personal responsibility for how my life has turned out and figure out

whose voice was in my head judging my every move.

And I finally have to ask myself why I do what I do. I think that's something that we rarely ask.

We figure it out. We know what to do, we know what to do next, we have

goals and dreams and missions, but we rarely ask ourselves why, like where did we pick that up?

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