"what are we suppose to be doing on a daily basis in Buddhism?"

I guess that's a legitimate question. And there's probably a legitimate answer.

What furrows my brow about this Google search is the suggestion (that I'm reading into it) of looking for answers or guidance outside of us. Like someone knows us better than we know or can know ourselves. I blanch at the idea that we're supposed to be doing anything, like we aren't what we think we are if we're not doing something sanctioned by someone else.

This has come up as an easy issue for me here in Taiwan where Buddhism is more conservative, dogmatic, authoritarian, and very much linked to Confucian Chinese culture. Easy issue because I don't buy it, never have. At a . . . "class" at a Chung Tai-affiliated . . . branch place, a nun admonished us, "To be a Buddhist you must be vegetarian, if you're not vegetarian, you're not Buddhist". Not that I care about being Buddhist or not, but I smiled and thought, "ok, I'm not Buddhist". Easy. Should I leave now?

And I would have thought the same thing even if I was vegetarian. I wouldn't have thought, with not a little bit of smug self-righteousness, "ah, I'm vegetarian. I belong here and she's speaking to me". Even if I was vegetarian, it was that dogmatic, authoritarian, patronizing tone that turned me off and brought out the snark in me.

And it was a "class", not a Dharma Talk. They even called it a class. The nun was there to teach us something. It wasn't a "talk". Very Chinese, Confucian, paternalistic. And it was a Chung Tai branch, but it wasn't a practice center. No one spoke of practice. This wasn't my only experience with Chung Tai, and from my experience and what I've heard, they're pretty bogus. I gather they're maybe the equivalent of Christian televangelists in the U.S.?

I thought about this today, too, because of ants.

I've always had ants in my apartment and until today I let them be. There weren't that many and their presence wasn't linked to any food source, so as far as I was concerned, they were out for a stroll. They weren't a problem until last night.

Funny how it works, I usually never get into bed without pulling back the covers and looking. I don't know what I expect to find, but in Taiwan you never know. Last night I didn't, and five minutes into falling asleep I felt something crawling on me. Suffice it to say, there were quite a few ants on my pillow and bed. This is the first time they ventured onto my bed, which is also why I've left them alone. I knew once they were in my bed, I would consider it a problem. I didn't freak out, but I killed them. It was a massacre. This morning they were still present and so I went out and got a Combat ant trap. They seem to be gone now. I killed them all.

I found myself asking, "Is it really cool for me to be killing things?" Then I was like, "Who am I asking?" What would that nun say? What would the main teacher at Dharma Drum Mountain monastery, who lived in solitude in the mountains and welcomed critters into his hermitage as friends, say? What would the Deer Park monks or Thich Nhat Hanh say? And how would I react if they told me what I did was wrong and bad, when I don't buy into black and white moralistic notions of wrong and bad?

What do I say when I wake up and find my bed covered with ants, and unless I kill them, I can think of no reason why they'd go away on their own accord? I say I do what I feel I have to do in a given situation. If I was a monk or a hermit I wouldn't have killed them, I would have thought further for some other solution. That would have been my commitment. But for who I am today, with my background yesterday, in the situation I've placed myself into here now and what I had for breakfast that morning and considering my horoscope, every time I think it through, killing them always falls within the realm of reason.

I'm not thrilled about it. I'm not completely remorseless about it, just not to the point of not killing them. Maybe on a daily basis, I'm not supposed to be massacring other living beings. But it always depends. Unless you're ready for sainthood, you might always find yourself in a situation where you're going to decide to kill those ants.

And if none of this is really helpful, then cultivating mindfulness is what you should be doing on a daily basis. There are good ways to do this and bad ways, better ways and worse ways. And some sort of meditation practice is the best way to anchor the mindfulness practice, which might take years to come to any fruition, depending on the depth of practice. But even a weak practice if maintained regularly for years will snowball into a substantial practice. I can almost guarantee that. Maintaining a weak practice for years is a substantial practice.