Adaptation of a "Single Story"

Recently I listened to a talk by a Nigerian woman on diversity called a "Single Story". In essence it was how we think of a country, a race or a group people based on a single story we hear about, experience etc. This she says is what lead to discrimination. Her talk was based on a collection of stories from her own experiences of how she herself discriminated and judged other based on a single story and how she experienced discrimination and judgement from others based on a single story.

When I listened to talk, it revealed more that the issue of diversity. For me it revealed many aspects of humanity itself. Our prejudices, our attitudes, our insensitivity's, inability forgive one another was all there in this one little talk. It was beautiful to listen to. So, I wanted to write a blog expanding and adding my thoughts on how we all from time to time get caught up in 'Single Stories" and how we ought to get out of them.

Think about it, the moment we like someone, we are caught up in a single story. We like/love someone because of something wonderful in them or something wonderful they did to us or because they are known to us. Now just because of that does it make this person a wonderful person? It's like a serial killer isn't it? They have a family and they love their children and wife or whoever in their lives but they go on other people's loved ones. But if you ask their wife and children, their would probably say "Oh my dad is a wonderful person": we are caught up in a single story.

In the same way, think of a person you hate, dislike. They may have done you wrong or your loved ones some wrong. But that alone doesn't make that person a bad person. In the world how many of us pass negative judgement on others, based on a story we hear from our friends, or an experienced had by a loved one?! Again we are caught up in a single story.

Some people, life itself becomes a single story. Death of a loved one, death of a child, the fact that they were raped or molested as a child becomes who they are that all other experiences in life fades away to leave them with the horror, anger, hatred of one experience they had for maybe only minutes in their lives. Isn't that sad?

The Buddha was so wise to point this out many centuries ago. He said that we should see things for what they are and not according to what we want them to be. We see things through prisms of Desire, Aversion and Delusion. The moment we wear these lenses we don't see the total picture. But we wear them anyway. We always carry these lenses with us and take them out at any given point of time when we encounter an object through any one of the senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and thinking).

But we never see that we put on these lenses. We are so used to wearing them all the time. It's like putting on sunglasses the moment the sun is out. The moment we encounter an object we put the lenses on usually the first two are in combination with the lens of Delusion. Then all is distorted. Anything that follows the contact, any thinking, speaking, acting is just simply wrong. Because it stems from a mis informed source.

So the Buddha said to investigate: to never to take things for what they are. Always to look and see until you see the same from many angles. This increases your chances of getting the story at least partially correct. If you are lucky you may get all the angles and see it properly. It's like taking a flight and climbing to greater heights. The big overwhelming tree suddenly becomes small and you also see that there is a river close by. So things are not that bad. But you have to get a bigger and better view.

It's hard to do this. To remove yourself from a single story to making a larger story or a story with many angles. Because sometimes, we begin to see things that we don't necessarily want to see. Sometimes we want the story to unfold in a certain way but as we start investigating we start seeing things we don't like. This makes us uncomfortable. Well, this is the beauty of the Buddha's teachings. He said that we should always bend our knowledge and our understanding to our direct experiences. Not the other way about. So truth take precedence even if we have to drop all of our pre-formed knowledge, even at the expense of great discomfort.

I loved this talk, not only because she spoke with great clarity, openness, insight, but because the talk contained many aspects of humanity which she did not explore. It also, for me, contained many aspects of the teachings of Buddha that I have come to cherish and that I try to apply into my life.