If the Buddha Got Stuck_ A Handbook for Change on a Spiritual Path - Charlotte Sophia Kasl [45]
26. Play with the Kaleidoscope of Perception
Something has happened
To my understanding of existence
That now makes my heart always full of wonder
And kindness.
—HAFIZ,THE GIFT
Imagine five photographers all standing at the top of the same mountain taking photos in all directions. All their pictures would be different because the photographers would literally be looking through different lenses—both their own eyes and the eye of their cameras—and with different levels of light exposure. Is one picture more true than another? No, they are all true. Reality is elusive. Just as you see many colors when light reflects on a prism, there are often many right outcomes to a situation.
When we decide to paint a house, we walk around the whole house to assess the extent of the project—we don’t just look at the front and make an estimate. We notice the overhang, the decks, the number of windows, and the extra detail. It’s not just a matter of square feet; it’s about time, energy, difficulty, and number of coats of paint, as well as the weather forecast. To be unstuck, we do well to circle any situation or problem and ask: what are all the factors and possibilities and ways to perceive the situation?
Our concept that the sun rises is an illusion because the sun is still and we increasingly see it on the horizon as the earth turns toward the east. To play with this idea, the next time you watch the “sun rise” shift your focus and imagine yourself sitting on the earth as it turns toward the east with the sun coming into view. You can do the reverse with a sunset. The deeper purpose of this exploration is to get in the habit of rattling your mind and always entertaining the idea that a different perspective exists, possibly one beyond your comprehension. To get beyond your stuck places you repeatedly ask, “Is there some bigger truth beyond my grasp that I am unable to see from where I’m ‘standing’?”
Society’s perceptions of the physical world have been changing dramatically since the end of the Dark Ages. We’ve moved from believing the earth is flat or the sun moves around the earth to Newton’s mechanical interpretation, to the subatomic world of waves, particles, relationships, and potentialities. Just as so-called scientific facts have been shattered and left by the wayside over and over again, superstitious beliefs have repeatedly given way to scientific discovery.
For example, at one time people believed that if lightning struck a house and burned it down it was God’s retribution for some evil deed. Once Benjamin Franklin explored the phenomenon of lightning and created the lightning rod, those false beliefs were quickly dispelled. To live in reality is to ask ourselves, “Is this belief superstition, magical thinking, or based in reality?”
Part of learning to see the reality of a situation is to see it from the perspective of other people involved. In a riveting lecture by Pakistani journalist Amid Rashid, commenting on media coverage of the United States’ invasion of Iraq in March 2003, he said, “What you see on TV here in America and what everyone else in the world sees, especially in the Middle East, are like night and day—completely different.” If you are watching the news, being taught a theory or concept, ask yourself, “Who wrote the theory? What was omitted? Who benefits by it? Who is left out or harmed? Is there self-interest beneath the rhetoric?”
While I was driving along Route 12 from Lolo, Montana, to Idaho, once the path of the original Lewis and Clark trail, I stopped to read many of the historic signs describing and honoring their journey. The graffiti told a different story, largely from a Native American perspective—it referred to the trip as mapping the northwest to appropriate