What's True?

navigating a world where stories are stronger than truth

When we peel away layers of stories and beliefs, we find bare truths resting at the heart of existence:

Everything that arises in form changes.

Everything is influenced by and influencing something else.

These were recognised by the Buddha thousands of years ago and confirmed more recently by quantum physics.

So in a world where stories have become stronger than truth, what we do know is this: everything is connected; everything is changing; and everything belongs to the great web of life.

These are good places to start when we no longer know if the things we see, watch or hear are true. Photographs, videos and audio are now as empty of substance as the 1s and 0s that dance across a processor’s circuitry. Yet we’re still basing our views on these stories, and these views are still justifying actions.

Electrical pulses switching across silicon gates designed to hijack limbic responses are becoming arbitrators of truth.

But not being able to trust these outer authorities so blindly may not be such a bad thing - the information we’re exposed to has always been manipulated, after all.

The greatest danger is not that what we’re told may not be true. It’s that we fall into argument, creating conflict around conflict rather than looking for peace.

During the pandemic, I wrote this poem when people around me were defining themselves according to differing perspectives and views; when “who’s camp do you belong to?” became a more important question than “how can we help those in need?”

---

​The River

There are moments when nature's beauty 
Reminds me once again what I know but forget 
When I wrestle with stories on the banks of the river 
And imagine the water to divide two sides

So I breathe deep and full 
And with eyes and heart open I enter the river 
Leaving certainty behind 
As it carries life forwards towards the sea

And trust begins to grow a new kind of freedom 
That’s relaxed yet ready to respond as it must 
Creative, engaged, unique to us all
Whilst currents of truth emerge from the silence

So while banks are buffeted and battered 
By those who shout their beliefs across the waves
Today I remember who I am
I remember why I’m here

The river my guide to the sea

---

Some things haven’t changed much. The river of life continues to flow between both sides even as we hurl abuse from one bank of relative truth to the other.

And then there are moments when intimacy with life reminds us what’s really true: that everything is connected, everything is changing, and everything belongs to the great web of life.

These truths are radical. As a starting point, they show us that any belief which dehumanises another person or group, is simply untrue.

But it doesn’t stop there, because if evil doesn’t exist as something separate and solid outside ourselves, it cannot be eradicated by eliminating it. Taking sides then becomes irrelevant as we embrace complexity with love and self-responsibility.

What does this mean?

Complexity means the symptom of imbalance that we see at the surface is the end result of an iceberg of conditions beneath the surface.

Self-responsibility recognises that we are inseparable to that iceberg, and asks us to discover where those same actions are alive in ourselves.

Love reminds us that everything exists in relationship, and invites us to give something back.

Give something back

Often, we enter a room or meet a person with judgement at the foreground. Is this space good enough? Are you good enough? Am I getting what I want?

What would happen if we turned that around, and approached each moment holding what we love so close that we choose to offer it to this moment?

How would the world transform if rather than fighting for who’s truth is true, we recognised what’s hurting and chose to give hurt what it needs?

Truth points to complexity, which highlights self-responsibility, which illuminates love. I have so much trust in all of you to create amazing things in this world in your own unique ways. The small offering I give back is to help you remember what you love; to help you recognise and release reactivity; to help you feel what is true and give back with all your heart.

The tools of love

We are blessed with access to so many tools these days. These are some of mine:

Yoga - transforms the way we experience the body, heart and mind: when grounded, awake, open, relaxed and spacious we have more room for life, just as it is.

Meditation, psychological enquiry and emotional intelligence - together transform our capacity to be lovingly present with what arises in body, heart and mind, so that we’re less reactive and more responsive.

The Buddha’s teachings - offer an elegant map for stepping out of reactivity, pointing towards a liberated existence founded on tangible, observable truths.

Indigenous wisdom - expands our vision from personal or human-centric to one that includes the whole cosmos as a field of relationships, calling us to enter into right-relationship with gratitude, humility and respect.

Join me?

Yoga and Meditation Retreat: There are a few spaces left for this year’s silent retreat in France from September 29 - October 5. If you are longing for time, space, support, practices and teachings to bring you lovingly close to whatever is true right now, you are so welcome to join us, whatever your experience. You can find out more here and register your interest here.

Yoga and Meditation Class: After 5 years away from weekly drop-in yoga and meditation classes, I’m returning next Friday September 5th! We’ll be at HOME studio in Primrose Hill, London, each Friday from 10.30am-12.30pm. It will be a weekly mini-retreat where we share a deeply heartfelt practice open to all levels. For the time being it’s in-person only: I really want us to be able to feel each other’s presence as a community, practising alongside each other, being very human together - all the aspects of Sangha which disappear into the ether when we go online. Please book your place here!

Let’s take gentle care of our innermost experience, so that whatever we offer to the world - whether building a school or greeting a child coming home from that school - comes from a place of truth: deeply connected, always changing forever belonging.

A place called love.