On being the author, the actor and the witness

On being the author, the actor and the witness

As human beings we are actors on a stage,  we seem to be the authors although the story keeps going off from the way we thought it might go. But we are are also witnesses… and because I can witness my behavior, that makes me a moral being; because I can see that my actions and speech affect me and affect you...Even though I might think I am the author, the story line keeps going a different way, so its kind of improv too.  Life is a kind of improvisation, you try to do the best you can. -Ajahn Viradhammo

...usually a little bit of the story is enough; we don’t need to go back into our whole history…Knowing the story doesn’t solve it. What brings freedom is turning to face the root of that suffering, and the identity that’s constructed around it, going right into the center of it until one comes to its true emptiness. And wise psychotherapy must also do that in the same way that dharma practice does, because that’s how liberation happens.  - Jack Kornfield

For all its richness and glory, myth and story is the very trap that enslaves us. When we believe our own storyline...we delude ourselves.  -Barry Boyce

What we keep hidden may be something positive and precious... or it may be a shameful secret that we don’t want anyone to know... In any case, just by virtue of being kept hidden away, of being buried deep inside, it comes to be the thing we think of as defining who we really are, the thing we are that nobody sees.  -Barry Magid

In self-reflecting, after a while, you come to see that there are not so many story lines. In the Vipassana tradition, they say that you have the “top ten,” but you begin to see that there’s a set of even fewer patterns that you replay over and over. You don’t have to be a brilliant person to figure out what your habitual response to pain is going to be. Nor do you need to be a brilliant person to know that the habitual response never brings you the happiness you seek. But without the self-reflection, you will never catch the habitual response. ...Without self-reflection, you will go on doing it and thinking it is something new.  -Pema Chodron
 What would happen if I stopped believing that I’ve got a problem? That I’m insufficient, or unenlightened, or in need of improving? What would happen if I stopped believing I’m confused? If I stopped desperately searching for the truth? What would happen if I stopped worrying about where to go next?  What would we talk about? What would we do?  -Joan Tollifson

We can have a very different relationship with our past, depending on what story we tell about it. I’ve seen the act of storytelling transform people. I’ve certainly seen it transform myself. If we can change our thoughts, we can ultimately completely change our story.  -Catherine Burns