How do you think this book, The World is Made of Stories by David R. Loy, helps you fathom the relationship between "religion" and "literature" and between the stories we hear and the ones we live?
When reading The World is Made of Stories, I couldn't help but think that all literature is written on moral premise, and therefore, religious premise. We are inherently religious creatures, as moral and ethical ideology spills into almost every facet of our existence (and every facet of our existence, according to this book, is a story.) The stories we live by are moral stories, ethical stories, questions of "Why do bad things happen to good people?" and "Why am I suffering? Do I deserve to? What is the meaning of my life?" In this sense, the stories of others help to shape our own story; the stories we are told growing up are what create the stories of our lives, our relationships, what we value and what we expect to achieve. Likewise, the stories we read in books as adults or as children can also change our experience of reality, the "story of our life."
It would appear that we are all spiritual beings searching for a spiritual realm of truth; an understanding within ourselves, a liberation from the stories that tie us to our roles and to the identities of others. Literature reflects this, as most literature is an exploration of the human experience, questioning the purpose of our lives, the way we effect others and history, and the collective truths that transcend history. Literature draws attention to the less apparent stories that dictate our lives, allowing us to view these stories at a certain distance so we can analyze them. However, the stories that we live by every day are invisible to us, a clear lens that we see through without realizing its own color or texture. Much of literature reflects history, and history itself is a story. Rewrite the story, rewrite history, rewrite literature, rewrite the lens, rewrite the self....
But what of the self outside the story? If our experience of the world is our own narrative, and we can change those narratives by changing our ideology and values, then what remains cohesive and constant? This is where questions of nothingness and Nirvana enter the picture (nothingness and Nirvana being, of course, another story.) As The World is Made of Stories says, "For identity to change, there must be something other than that narrative, something that is not bound by it."
After reading the text, I agree with the premise that we are coauthors of our lives, with the ability to direct our own stories, at least to a certain extent. However, I believe this only happens after Nirvana, after an essential realization of the permanent self. Nirvana is an inherent "knowing" of reality and an interconnectedness with the true Author, the Self that is in all things, and the transient emptiness of all things in relation to that Self. Perhaps Nirvana is our own innate ability to create of ourselves the perfect story, one that we can predict, which we feel is already written because we are instinctively awakened to the causality in all things. One doesn't need to understand the rings in a pond when one has become the rings in the pond.
I always feel that there is too much emphasis on emptiness and nothingness in many discussions on Nirvana... it is not that Nirvana is "empty" or "nothing," but rather, that all other things become "empty" and "nothing" in relation to it. "It is not understood by those who understand It. It is understood by those who understand It not." (Upanishads) This is the difference between concept and experience. You can describe bondage, but one does not consciously experience one's own bondage when one has only ever been bound. In the same way, one can conceptualize liberation until one is liberated, when it becomes a state of being, and then all description and explanation becomes meaningless. You can only know freedom; you can only live freedom; you cannot draw it or set rules to it or describe it to others.
As Nirvana is an ineffable experience, can that experience be "Storied"? Not the results of the experience, or the path leading to it, but the experience in and of itself, one that is self contained, yet transcends all causal reality. Is Nirvana therefore the Self that is beyond narrative? Is Nirvana the Self that began all narrative? Or is Nirvana the ability to see all life as narrative, and to detach from it, observing all things with an impartial eye? These questions are largely unanswerable, but I would like to write into my own life's narrative that yes, Nirvana is the Author beyond the story, which writes the story according to the events prescribed in our hearts, which, given an honest understanding of our Selves, allow us to know the reason for our lives, our own significance, and our own fragile transience. In this sense, literature and Nirvana serve the same purpose: to allow us the impartiality to examine our own narratives and perhaps coauthor new ones.
No comments:
Post a Comment