Our stories are how we make sense of our internal and external worlds, the way we weave our thoughts, both consciously and unconsciously, how we talk about ourselves, how we talk about others, how we frame a certain situation...
Understanding and growing awareness around the personal stories we weave is another way to work with our thoughts and emotions. Through the stories we weave we can also become more creative with how we live, we can learn to become more compassionate, more kind, more loving in our relationships towards ourselves and others.
The way we're going to be looking at stories here is a little different than how we might normally use the word "story." As normally, we use the word "story" to represent something written, something spoken, something that's representing a historical viewpoint or maybe fantasy or something like that. Obviously, movies are also stories, plays, dramas; those are all stories. But here I'd like to use the word "story" to also represent our own internal dialogue. Of course, spoken narratives, how we speak about ourselves to ourselves, how we speak about ourselves to others, how we basically share in our life experiences. And to me, being a Dharma practitioner, I think this is a really interesting way to also work with thoughts and emotions by understanding them through the lens of “story.”
So, our stories are how we make sense of our internal and external worlds, the way we weave our thoughts, both consciously and unconsciously, how we talk about ourselves, how we talk about others, how we frame a certain situation or experience we have or a memory. I think we can look at all of this as forms of story, forms of narratives. These narratives are how we often make sense of a situation that happened to us, a memory, something that's going to happen in the future or happening currently.
In my own experience, in my own life, this is how I make sense of something, and I think a lot of us are like this. So, my whole take here is, why not become aware of that? Why not use those narratives, those ways of how we make sense to become aware of those narratives, to become aware of how we can both shape them for the good, for the better, and also how we can become aware of when those narratives are actually harmful or destructive towards ourselves and others and to learn how to shift them.
In my experience, if I'm not aware of and shifting narratives that may be harmful towards myself or others, or enhancing or encouraging ones that are beneficial, my agency becomes limited, as my narratives shape who I become. So, I just want to put that out there as a question for you to reflect on. Is that true for you? Are the narratives that spin in your mind, either unconsciously or consciously, feeding who you're becoming in that moment?
So, if we're not careful, we become more or less what we think. That's just another way to reflect and internalize what I'm talking about here. So, our stories, whether they're conscious or unconscious, become who we are. Of course, we're going to want to shape them, right? We have a lot of incentive to want to shape them if we start to look at it from that perspective. So, it's vital we learn and become aware of the stories that we're holding close.
Some of these stories can be based on accurate information; some of them can be memories that are semi-accurate or half-accurate, and sometimes there's a lot of projections spinning inside of us. For me, when I get in my head around something, and lots of projections start to swirl, I'm off to the races, spinning all kinds of stories that may have very little connection to reality. So, it's vital I become aware of these and start to shift the narratives I’m clinging to.
Obviously, meditation really helps with this because in meditation, we're cultivating awareness. We're cultivating a sense of non-judgmental watchfulness that allows us to become more aware of our narratives. This allows us to become more aware of what thoughts are proliferating and to activate a sense of choice. Of course, it’s challenging to pull ourselves away from thought rumination, and into more of an objective perception that can simply perceive a narrative without becoming it. That's why we practice meditation, and that's why often we're doing that for many months, years, etc., because our ability to work with our narratives more objectively comes out of the strength of the meditative awareness we cultivate.
I also want to acknowledge that stories are not inherently bad or good; stories are just stories. They're narratives; they're how we interpret our world and what actions we want and don’t want to take. So, all the time, our mind is weaving stories, trying to keep us happy and safe. Stories and narratives are not inherently bad because we can recognize through awareness which ones are actually serving us and which ones are not.
In Buddha Dharma, as we learn to connect with what's called prajna or non-dual wisdom, we also start to recognize that it's all a story, actually. It's all narrative. And because it's all narrative, it doesn't mean it's meaningless. It actually brings more meaning because as we grow our meditative awareness, we can start to have more agency over how we're interacting with those narratives. So, whether it's a positive, beneficial narrative or something destructive, we learn to interact with those narratives in a more fluid way. And then, we can reduce our harmful actions coming from destructive narratives, and increase the narratives that are going to bring more well-being, the narratives that come from our loving-kindness and compassion. But those narratives are also narratives.
This is a subtle yet important point. Buddhism is not saying that the good is more real or the beneficial is more real. No, it's equally a narrative. But because it's all a narrative, we can learn to shape it. And this is really, really good news. What do we want to weave? Do we want to weave a nightmare, or do we want to weave a dream that's going to be beneficial and compassionate for ourselves and others?
When our stories come from a place of love, compassion, and openness, we have a chance to heal ourselves and others. We have a chance to find more flexibility, fluidity, and of course, from a Buddhist perspective, a chance to find more liberation and freedom. So, one really helpful thing that I try to implement is, as I said, an awareness of my narratives in my thinking mind, the stories that I'm weaving in any given moment. And I try to hold those narratives lightly.
The purpose of meditation is not to reject or become dissociated from our stories; it's the ability to hold them more lightly. Now, of course, I, just like you, go up and down in that ability. I'm still a practitioner very much on the path, just keeping my head down, trying to do my work, trying to show up every day to my meditation cushion and in my life with awareness. But when I can, I try to hold my narratives lightly. And for me, awareness is what allows me to do that.
Our narratives are usually so fast, so swift to become identities, personalities, who and what we think we are, who and what we think others are, and the world around us. So, we have to shift that, and we shift that by creating more space. Another way to talk about meditative awareness and the benefits of it is we're creating or we're accessing more openness and space, and that allows us to work with these narratives in a different kind of way, with more ease, not so quick to identify with them, etc.
So, this is my aspiration: to weave more narratives and stories based on love, compassion, and wisdom. And it's what I will recommend here. Using our meditation practice, using any parts of our healing work, whatever that is, to understand our narratives and where they come from. But what's more important is that we develop some space within them, where we can have more agency, more choice in how we want to interact, and therefore, that can start to affect our conduct, our actions in the world, engaging in more loving, compassionate, and wise conduct with ourselves and others.