Being in the moment

In the book, Everyday Zen by Charlotte Joco Beck, I found the chapter Practicing with Relationships to be helpful As far as what it means to live in the moment.

After asking the question "So how is all this related to no-time, no-self?", she goes on to talk about how after a quarrel at breakfast, we're still upset at lunch time and thinking about how we're going to fix it. "What does exist? What's real? There is just my upset right now, at lunch. It's my story." Describing what happened at breakfast is not what happened. It's my story. What is real is the feelings I'm having and the chattering is a manifestation of that physical energy. "Outside of the physical experience, there is nothing else that's real."

How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth

'The Making Of Biblical Womanhood' Tackles Contradictions In Religious Practice

The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth

Easter

The English word Easter, which parallels the German word Ostern, is of uncertain origin. One view, expounded by the Venerable Bede in the 8th century, was that it derived from Eostre, or Eostrae, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring and fertility. This view presumes that Christians appropriated pagan names and holidays for their highest festivals. Given the determination with which Christians combated all forms of paganism (the belief in multiple deities), this appears a rather dubious presumption. There is now widespread consensus that the word derives from the Christian designation of Easter week as in albis, a Latin phrase that was understood as the plural of alba (“dawn”) and became eostarum in Old High German, the precursor of the modern German and English term. The Latin and Greek Pascha (“Passover”) provides the root for Pâques, the French word for Easter.

This bit from Brittanica debunks one of my favorite pokes at Christianity. That's a good thing but I looked it up because I was going to say how little meaning I find in the Easter week rituals. This was one of our first opportunities to re-enter the church's sanctuary and I did not find it a moving experience as others did. I like the teachings of Jesus and his example but I find less and less enthusiasm for what the church has made of him.

I continue to study then and have sits both by myself and with a monthly group. It just makes a lot of sense to me and the practice seems so sincere by those I listen to and read. I am impressed by the sincerity of so many Christians. That is why I'm in an uncomfortable place where I don't want it to seem that I am being critical by not accepting orthodox Christianity. I haven't really had that conversation with anybody although I've had it many times in my mind.

The Buddha and Jesus

Despite vast differences between Christianity and Buddhism, and a variety of

traditions within each, their points of similarity are fascinating and their study can be

immensely fruitful, as this collection of studies reveals. For Christians (indeed for each

of the religions in the Abrahamic tradition) a personal God who is engaged in mankind’s

story is central. Belief in a personal God may not be central to the Buddha’s teachings.

For Buddhists and Christians what is common is the human journey, and the desire to

assist each person’s own path to inner conversion and spiritual maturity.

Forward to The Buddha and Jesus, An Anthology of Articles by Jesuits engaged in

Buddhist Studies and Inter-religious Dialogue. 2015

Holding and rejecting, these are but skillful lies

The essence of Buddhist teaching is "when you hear just hear, and when you smell, just smell, and when you see, just see, and when you taste, just taste." Be present to the present moment. This is the same as avoiding grasping and aversion. Whatever comes, comes and whatever goes, goes. There is no self there holding on to whatever it might be. This is liberating. It is not about self-improvement. It is simply enjoying the journey. Enjoying the mystery of life without having to be preoccupied with working it out; where it's going, how I can control it's destiny. It's just moment to moment fullness in life. There is a place for reflection. Reflection is part of many spiritual traditions. The Catholic tradition of contemplative prayer is one of reflection. It's okay if it's not a preoccupied self-reflection but a reflection on the big picture with a sense of wonder and enjoying what it looks like.

The Ordinary Mind Zen School Sydney podcast: Dharma talks given by Geoff Dawson.

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“An Open Spacious Response To Life.”

Charlotte Joko Beck

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Wise human beings, who ‘see things as they are’, renounce attachment and clinging, transform the energy of desire into awareness and understanding, and eventually transcend the conditioned realm of form becoming.

Dependent Arising: Bhikkhu Bodhi - from the Ashoka course The Buddha's Teaching As It Is