It doesn’t look like anything to me – Work Still in Progress

Those of you who are fans of the HBO series Westworld will recognized this quote as a running theme through the show. It’s the reflexive response of the “hosts” (robots) whenever they encounter something that their programming can’t possible comprehend. In a larger sense it’s a reaction borne of a limited, strictly prescribed perspective of a larger reality.

This got me thinking about the Buddhist concept of dharma, or reality-as-it-is; Buddhist philosophy is based on the concept that human suffering arises from the disparity between a person’s view of reality and the actual state of things. I’m often made aware of how my own perspective colors and creates my own sense of reality, and how my own (limited!) experiences determine how I encounter the world at large.

I feel like we all tend to get stuck in our own little corner of reality and our own limited view of what we think to be true. It goes without saying that this is evident in the daily news cycle – it amazes me how different factions can have such opposing reactions to the same set of facts.

Whenever I feel like my I’m having a reflexive reaction to anything in life I find it really helpful to step back and think how I might be triggered by events or ideas that challenge my own world view. Then it can become a meditation on that event or idea as something that simply is, rather than how I feel about it (which are two very different things).

So, here’s a little meditation for all of us – a series of images that may have different meanings to different people, some irreverent, some serious. The idea is to observe, but not to react, at least immediately. Don’t worry, we’ll start easy…