If I were to seek out the best example of a “grand narrative” or the same, the best “metanarrative” (a term popularized by Jean-François Lyotard in 1979), I would have to look towards India as offering the best example of what constitutes a true grand narrative of which Buddhism is not only a part of, but helps to extend and validate this ancient narrative which goes back to the beginning of the Vedas.
The core of this grand narrative is in each of us. Buddhists recognize it as the Buddha-nature which is in all creatures. We can imagine it as being somewhat like a lodestone which gives direction. Although this lodestone-like nature is in each of us it remains hidden from us by layers upon layers of navigation errors which painfully speak to our inability to spiritually navigate, accurately.
But more, the core of this grand narrative is our ultimate vocation, an ever present call from the absolute which we sense in some indefinite way through our conscience. Our dissatisfaction with life, this being our suffering, is really our ultimate vocation calling us and, at the same time, our rejection of it. This is an inner battle that goes on in each of us between the forces of good and evil. One part wants to look within for the Buddha-nature, the other wants to wallow in sense pleasure.
I need to add that this grand narrative also works through the whole of humanity not just a single race. The great Rishis and Buddhas of the past brought the eternal teachings into a temporal world for the sake of the many, not just the few. By their teachings, we sense the need to awaken from the sleep of finitude which is never other than suffering, and by this awakening take our rightful place in the universe fully awake.
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