Buddhism: What is this moment?

This is actually last week's post, but I forgot to put it up here.

Last week my re-acquaintance with Buddhism took its all familiar turn toward confusion and muddled lessons.  The biggest problem I have in my practice is often that I twist or forget what I'm supposed to be doing.  I find that when I focus on my spiritual practice, it's so easy to delve into other aspects-religion, the metaphysical, guardians, guides, etc.-that I forget I'm simply here to experience the moment.  Of course, the Buddhist peer or teacher would probably say this is my ego attempting to distract me from itself and I would wager that this is most likely accurate.

While my practice appears to be losing sincere focus, I can say that my meditation and daily mindfulness practice has begun to bear some fruit.  Although still not easily identifiable, I've begun to recognize my own conditioning and its inherent suffering.

Two Sundays ago I was watching this video about Buddhism and the narrator was talking about "identity."  He mentioned how we tend to define ourselves by our permanent identity and yet we don't have one.  There is no permanent identity that moves from one moment to the next.  So, what are we holding on to exactly? I thought this was the perfect embodiment and teaching of the three lessons/realizations of Buddhism: 1) all is suffering, 2) all is impermanent, and 3) nothing has any self.

Rodney Smith's book taught me two lessons last week.  Firstly, and perhaps the most important because I'm often wondering how will I know if my actions or words are wise or unwise, ego serves my needs based upon fears and desires.  Thus, if my words or actions are based from my fears or desires I know they are coming from an unwise place.

Secondly, Smith talks about how our conditioning teaches us to resist our fears and things that are contrary to our  beliefs.  He says to overcome this resistance we should simply surrender to the moment.  To be honest, I'm not a fan of the word "surrender".  I prefer to simply say "drop my barriers."  I think it more accurately describes what is happening or what Smith describes is happening.

As I muddle through my murky lessons of no-self, suffering, and impermanence, I will leave everyone with these two questions- "Who are you? What is this moment?"