Each moment is wonderful

Our lives right now are one wonderful moment after another. Each moment is wonderful, if we see it that way. The issue is, every moment of our life is a transition from one thing into the other. Zen practice is about fully embracing that transition or that impermanence. It's about acting in each moment so that there's nothing sticking to each action or to each experience that we have. What is a common phrase that we hear all the time in Zen through the literature is, "just this;" just this laughing; just this walking; just this pain; just this waking up; just this going to sleep; just this lighting the candle. What it expresses is a Zen life is just each experience with nothing sticking to it at all. When you stand, just stand. When you light the incense, just light the incense. When you put out the candle, just put out the candle. There's no conceptual explanation or commentary on it. It's just the experience itself and we're completely one with the experience. And that is a zen life. So embrace that transition that's happening all the time without anything sticking to it. Don't cling to loneliness. Don't cling to sociability. When you're alone, just be alone. When you're in company, just be in company.

Geoff Dawson, The Ordinary Mind School of Sydney, January 18, 2022, Transitions

Curiosity and Obsession

In our heated reactions, the investigative, curious mode wasn't there. Instead of an observant curiosity, we are caught in a loop of obsession. We don't just observe our thoughts about the boss; instead, we believe that there's some validity in spinning off into our angry thoughts for hours on end, instead of seeing them for what they are, sensing the bodily contractions that grow out of them, and as much as we can, returning to doing something about the work problem. 

Sitting is exactly that: we're investigating our life. But when we get lost in our self-centered trains of thought, we're not investigating anymore, we're thinking about how bad it all is, or we're blaming somebody else, or we're blaming ourself.

Curiosity and Obsession page 196 Nothing Special by Charlotte Joko Beck

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If we're truly just noticing our obsessions and aren't caught in them, they tend to fade and die. We usually pursue our loops because we really want to get back into our self-centered thinking. The minute we simply observe our thinking, that self-centered attachment is severed, and the loop loses its fuel. We don't have to worry about endless noticing of thoughts. When we begin to sit, our obsessive thoughts or loops have a lot of energy, but that momentum dissipates as we sit for longer periods. More and more, our thoughts die down, and we are simply with our bodily sensations, with our life as it is.

Curiosity and Obsession page 198 Nothing Special by Charlotte Joko Beck

Is Consciousness Universal?

Is Consciousness Universal? is an interesting article about integrated information theory (IIT) as it leads up with content about Panpsychism and a discussion of contemporary thought. "Many, if not all, multicellular organisms experience pain and pleasure and can see and hear the sights and sounds of life." "Any complex system has the basic attributes of mind and has a minimal amount of consciousness in the sense that it feels like something to be that system. If the system falls apart, consciousness ceases to be; it doesn't feel like anything to be a broken system. And the more complex the system, the larger the repertoire of conscious states it can experience." "Electrical charge does not emerge from noncharged matter. It is the same, goes the logic, with consciousness. Consciousness comes with organized chunks of matter. It is immanent in the organization of the system. It is a property of complex entities and cannot be further reduced to the action of more elementary properties." "To be conscious, then, you need to be a single, integrated entity with a large repertoire of highly differentiated states." "Underlying this unity of consciousness is a multitude of causal interactions among the relevant parts of your brain. If parts of the brain become fragmented and balkanized, as occurs in deep sleep or in anesthesia, consciousness fades."

Tangible Grace and Vows

The baptism of Jesus is celebrated early in January in the Christian liturgical calendar. It is a time for people to think about thier own baptism. A sermon on this theme was about tangible faith and how baptism and communion are two ways Christians live in the tangible grace of God. What I found interesting is how the sermon ended up describing in a similar way what Buddhists do and mentioning vows. I had recently made an entry here that quickly looked at a comparison between the two faiths so it was even more interesting to hear the sermon which talked about being tangible grace by rejecting and resisting evil and loving all people and vowing to live into our vows by doing no harm. My Christian community believes it is necessary to be baptized once but renewing our baptismal vow is popular. The sermon continued about when we encounter water, we can experience the spirit moving, suggesting that this week we engage with God through water.

Two things stuck out to me in the sermon that show how Christianity and Buddhism can have similar conclusions on how we live our lives. One is that the taking of a vow which I also had a recent entry on. The other thought, that was expressed in the sermon, was being present with the example for this week being water.