Atheist Turned Believer

 A week or so ago, I checked out a book from the library entitled How to Train a Wild Elephant (and Other Adventures in Mindfulness) by Jan Chozen Bays, MD.  I've already decided that I'm going to have to buy a copy.  It's a very simply written book with a simple but profound thesis. As we've explored in previous posts, perfection comes through enlightenment, which, in turn, comes from mindfulness.  Mindfulness, as it happens, occurs in the present.  What Dr. Bays illustrates in her introduction is that we spend very little time living in the present.  We spend almost all of our time mentally being in the past, the future, or Fantasyland.  In the past, we find many regrets, in the future we find dreams, and in Fantasyland we work out how we should have done that job or how we're going to tell off the next goofball or any of a number of scenarios that, in all likelihood, will never come to pass. Dr. Bays points out that there's nothing inherently wrong...

 According to the Stats page, I've had 80 views so far today (and I'm typing at 3:00 in the afternoon).  This is amazing, as my average daily view count is closer to 1/2.  Further, that means that either I have more than one viewer, or someone has viewed some pages multiple times, since there are only 78 posts on this thing (this will make 79).  So, whoever you are, welcome!  I'm glad you came out to play today! I'm hoping that, at some point, someone decides to comment, since my original intention in creating this blog was to stimulate conversation.  If that happens, might I make a request that comments be polite, articulate and well intended?  By way of a bad example, let me describe a situation I endured yesterday. I was attending a staff office party - not my staff, not my office.  I was rather a third wheel.  I'm not even exactly sure why I was invited except that I happened to be in the building on other business when the party commence...

I think I'm down to two readers.  I may well lose them with this post. I've spent the last year examining the difference between Eastern and Western ideology and specifically how the Westernization of Christianity has been more detrimental than beneficial to the faith.  However, I've yet to deep-dive into the distinction.  Let me finally correct that oversight.  Throughout this dissertation, my Bible quotes will come from the Moffatt translation, partly because I love Prof. Moffatt's work, but mostly because it was the translation that my finger fell on when I reached onto my Bible shelf to research this piece. Virtually all Eastern belief systems - and also Western, in as far as it goes - agree on certain fundamental moral principles.  We have previously examined the tenets of Buddhism's Eightfold Path and their striking resemblance to Judaism's Ten Commandments. Just as notable is how these beliefs are echoed in the Ten Precepts of Daoism: be kind, be pure, be...