I took a philosophy class a while back and I remember reading about Dharma and Samsara and I thought it may help explain where the writers got some of their ideas for names and such.
1. Dharma~Pretty much in the buddhist religion it means Natural Law and Reality. Can be considered The Way of Higher Truth. That's just the basic meaning wiki has pages of interesting reading. This may be stereotypical but buddism is a major Asian religion and "A Buddha is considered to be a person who discovers the true nature of reality through years of study..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma
2. Middle Way~
"The middle way discovered by a Perfect One avoids both extremes; it gives vision, it gives knowledge, and it leads to peace, to direct acquaintance, to discovery, to nirvana." Could explain the continued flashbacks and the fact that characters are continually looking within themselves and changing. Boone, Shannon, Charlie, Locke [I never said for the better
], Anna-Lucia, Hurley and so on and so forth.
3.Wheel of Samsara/Life/ and other such words~ Basically it is a wheel that represents birth,life,death but if one can reach enlightenment they leave the wheel because they will not die for they have reached nirvana and immortality. Now in this wheel six worlds are represented (though I swear I have seen some with 8).
- The World of Devas or Gods
- The World of Asuras (Demigods, Titans, Fighting Demons)
- The World of Humans
- The World of Animals
- The World of Petras (hungry ghosts)
- The World of Hell
The island may represent more then one of the worlds. The humans of course. The Pretas could be the monster (though the formal discription of the Pretas does not match). The Devas would match the monster much better, it may also explain Walt and the theory that he can appear in places by will of mind.
I think that all of these could represent what the island was used for by the scientists. Them trying to find nirvana and break the wheel of samsara to achieve immortality. They may have discovered it hence their disappearence or failed to find the answers, but The Others of continued the search. And maybe they removed people from the Losties they believe will hold people back from finding Nirvana, hence they believe their good.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_of_life
