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.

In our desperate attempts to make sense of the world, we tend to label everything and usually understand what things are by figuring out what they are not.

Cold is not hot, happiness is not suffering, dark isn't light, etc.

So even if we deeply believe in the Buddhist teaching of non-duality, that we are all one and everything is interconnected, and as much as I think labeling is what causes segregation, hatred, and even war,

maybe we can use our labeling habit and dualistic perspective

to work to our advantage.

Here's what I mean.

Saying Namastei means the divine within me acknowledges the divine within you.

It's a reminder that divinity resides in all of us and the greeting helps us regard

everyone as holy. This is easy to do when you are surrounded by loving, generous, and

considerate people who treat everybody with kindness and compassion, but what

happens when you come across someone rude, hostile, impatient, and greedy? It gets difficult to think of them as divine,

which is precisely why I think we need a term for the opposite of Namaste.

Something that says, The ego within me acknowledges the ego within you. It would

immediately make them more relatable and it would stop us from falling into the

trap of thinking ourselves superior to anyone. I've been half jokingly toying with this idea in my writing and

public talks for a few years, but the more I think about the benefits of having a term for

the opposite of Namaste, the sooner I believe we need to start using it.

Like everyone else, I have also acted out of ego numerous times in my life.

I've been selfish and inconsiderate of other people, And in many instances, I have surely overlooked the pain and suffering

that my decisions inflicted on others

by either knowingly or mindlessly buying clothes

...