About reality

I just discovered the website for The Institute for Applied Meditation based in Tucson. Here is something that I think is rich material for reflection:

The experience of reality breaks through as a surprise. You know it's reality because it's so much stronger than anything you could imagine, and it's not the way you thought it would be. If everything that happens to you is predictable, just as you thought it would be, you are probably imagining the way things are and blocking out what doesn't fit. The experience of continually learning is one of awe and wonder. Reality breaks through in your mind as a surprise, upsetting your model. The surprise is that you had assumed your perceptions and beliefs were already based on reality, and yet here is an event, a challenge, or an idea that cannot be accommodated. One of two things happens next: either you expand your model of reality, or you deny the new event and freeze your model. The first path leads to insight.

-- Puran Bair