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. There is an old story of a monk who one day decided to meditate alone away from the monastery.

So he gets into a boat and rows out to the middle of the lake,

throws in the anchor, closes his eyes, and begins the meditation.

After a long while of undisturbed silence,

he suddenly feels the bump of another boat colliding with his own.

With his eyes still closed, he feels his anger rising.

How could someone be so rude and inconsiderate?

By the time the monk opens his eyes,

he is furious and ready to berate whoever dared to disturb his meditation.

But when he opens his eyes, he sees an empty boat that probably got untethered from the dock

and floated to the middle of the lake.

At that moment, the monk understands that the anger was with the

month understands that the anger was within him, it only needed the bump of an external

object to provoke it out of him.

So whenever I come across someone who irritates me or provokes me to anger, I remind myself that it's just an empty boat.

The anger is within me.

An anger is like a mask covering hurt feelings or fear. And since it has somehow

become socially acceptable to publicly express frustration and irritation by

yelling, slamming doors, giving someone the finger or and the happening this day and age, but it's all just pain that comes out sideways in the form of anger,

and that's because sensitivity and vulnerability are still frowned upon as a sign of weakness,

especially with men, even though honesty and grace are significantly

...