Guard Your Senses

When I walk without a camera, my own shutter opens, and the moment’s light prints on my own silver gut. —Annie Dillard

When I walk without a camera, my own shutter opens, and the moment’s light prints on my own silver gut. —Annie Dillard

Our attention is a rare and precious resource.

There is so much pain and misery in our world. Newspapers tell us about division, suffering, and inhumanity. Cheap content and trivia crowd our screens. We stare.

We click. We go numb.Why do we choose to look at so many unpleasant things?

In Buddhist philosophy, there are six "sense doors" or perceptual gateways. Each door makes up the totality of our consciousness.We experience the world through seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and the mind.

Each experience has a feeling tone that can be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Out of love, duty, or goodness, we often choose to look at what is unpleasant.Compassion impels us to look toward those in pain. We can sit with a friend who is grieving. We can listen to a child who is suffering.

Justice calls us to see discrimination, oppression, and poverty.Our sense doors can lead us into action.

Out of love and respect for ourselves, we need to turn away more often from low quality and senseless media.Instead, we can turn toward the beauty in ourselves, in each other, and in the natural world.

We can support our mental health and well-being by being guardians of our sense doors.