There’s this brief instant, or maybe what the Buddhists mean when they talk about the space between breaths that one should strive to inhabit in meditation. If you’re very quiet, patient and attentive to the workings of your own mind, you’ll notice it, and it is difficult to see because it is marked by an absence. It’s the space between perceiving another person, and forming a harsh critical judgment. It’s a window of opportunity, the opportunity to choose to see that person in a different, truer light. A perception that invites contextual understanding instead of outright rejection based on mere projection. I find that my own mind is a healthier, happier place to live when I accept that invitation and make the choice to suspend judgment in favour of compassionate understanding.