Is Truth a Story?

This article explores narrative dimensions of truth in conversation with ideas drawn from Buddhist philosophy and experiences from the author’s own life. Taking inspiration from the Sanskrit tradition, the article unfolds an argument stimulated by multiple denotations of the term satya (“truth”) ranging from propositional truth to nonlinguistic reality to moral imperative. In episodic fashion, the author pays tribute to some of the many teachers, both witting and unwitting, who have contributed to their understanding of truth as multiple, embodied, intersubjective, real, and like an illusion. Illustrated with examples of how to understand truth from the narrative, Madhyamaka, and epistemological streams of Indian thought, the article concludes with a plea for broadening our capacities to share multiple real worlds and truths with others by recognizing that truth is, in many ways, a story—a reality that in no way diminishes truth’s formidable existential, epistemic, and moral force.