I see a book with a selection of Buddhist verses, each with a commentary by the Dalai Lama. It is a beautiful book with one verse on each page. The commentary for the first verse talks about freedom outside of and within stories, and the importance of emphasizing freedom within stories for those with a western mindset.
This is something has drawn my interest in waking life as well.
Recognizing a story as a story, there is a release or softening of identification with the story. What I really am is not the story with its viewpoint and corresponding identity and role. There is a freedom outside of stories here, through finding what I am as outside of the story.
And there is also a freedom within stories. A freedom to use stories as a temporary guide for exploration, choice and action. And the more I am familiar with different stories, recognize the grain of truth in each one, and explore when each one may be helpful and less helpful, there is a freedom to chose among a larger number of stories. And these include overarching stories – for instance integral frameworks – that help organize a wide range of other stories. It may seem overwhelming at first since there is an infinite number of stories, but there is always just one at a time, and also a limited number of types of stories. Many are variations or elaborations of the same basic one, such as I need them to love/approve of me, I need to defend a viewpoint and identity, I need to survive etc.
Even people who seem well established in the first form of freedom may be limited in the second form of freedom. They may habitually use a limited number of stories as practical guides, overlooking the gold in their reversals and in a variety of other stories.
As Byron Katie says, I am enlightened or not to a story, and that is the story that happens here now. Always new, fresh, different.
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Initial outline….
- dream: freedom outside and within stories
- freedom outside of stories
- notice is not what I am, release identification out of (including story of me + separate I as doer, observer etc.)
- (but can still be locked into using some stories as practical guidelines, and not other stories – including their reversals)
- freedom w/in stories
- freedom to use any story and any permutation of any story as guideline (sometimes)
- examine the stories, find the grain of truth in each reversal, find when and where it may be a helpful guideline (for attention, exploration, action)
- freedom to use any story and any permutation of any story as guideline (sometimes)
- byron katie, only enlightened or not to a story
- enlightened or not to whatever story happens here now
- freedom outside of stories