Our lives seem to consist of a string of moments. I get up in the morning, and the moments just tick off as I go through the day. And usually, we greet each moment, if we’re honest about it, with a little twist of a reaction in our mind. And that reaction is: “I like this, but I don’t like that.” Or, “I’m neutral about it.” It’s the same with the people who cross our path: “I like them,” or “I don’t like them,” or “I haven’t thought about it.” Particularly, this is how we respond to the tasks that confront us during the day: “I don’t want to do that; it doesn’t suit me.” Or, “It’s okay with me; I’m glad to do that.” We live as if we have a little judge that’s sitting inside of us, wagging a finger at everything. Now, we’re not really living our life; we’re just trying to get it all fixed so it suits the judge. We can’t enjoy our experience or other people because the judgment and the emotion, this concoction in our head, runs our life.
Our practice enables us to take the ordinary moments of our life—one after another—and experience them without judging, trying to fix, holding tightly, or running away. Suppose I’m a quiet person, and I meet somebody who is noisy and boisterous. My first thought may be, “I don’t like her.” The judgment has already pushed me into withdrawing. The only thing we know is the fact that we are reacting. Often, we don’t even notice we are reacting; we just react, react, react, and react. It probably occurs a thousand times a day—almost constantly.
– Charlotte Joko Beck, Ordinary Wonder: Zen Life and Practice