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Buddhism and What We Take to be True

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The First Adjustment

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I can remember one of the first lies I ever told.

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On my first day of kindergarten, we sat on small chairs with boxes of crayons at our feet. At some point, I took a few crayons from another child’s box and added them to mine. I’m not sure why I did it. Maybe I liked the colours, or maybe I just wanted more crayons than everyone else.

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At that age, I barely understood that some things belonged to certain people. At home, my sisters had their things and I had mine, but I was still unclear about the rules of ownership. To me, the crayons just seemed to be there, ready to use.

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It didn’t take long for the other child to react. First came the wide, disbelieving stare. Then the lower lip began to tremble. A few seconds later, the tears arrived, and a few seconds after that, a teacher came over to find out what had happened.

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In that moment, I realised something important. If the crayons were found in my box, I would get in trouble. I didn’t know exactly what kind of trouble it would be, first day of school and all, but I knew it wouldn’t be good.

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Without any conscious thought on my part, a solution presented itself. While the teacher was focused on the crying child, I quietly slipped the crayons into another child’s box. From my point of view, the problem was solved.

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Looking back, I’m struck by how quickly my mind changed the story. The only thing that changed was where the crayons were, but right away, the story of what happened shifted. The blame moved to someone else. I don’t remember what happened after that, but I remember how it felt.

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Even as a child, I understood how blame worked. Trouble usually follows whoever is linked to the evidence. By moving the crayons, I changed the story.

Back then, I wasn’t thinking about things like identity or reputation. I was a kid. I just wanted to avoid getting caught. The fastest way was to move the evidence, and what started as taking a few crayons turned into something more complicated — a quiet and meaningful change in the story.

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The evidence was gone, the story shifted, and for a while, the problem seemed to go away.

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Or at least, that’s how it seemed. What stayed with me wasn’t the event itself, but the realisation of how easily the mind changes things when it feels threatened.

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That small childhood memory holds something that has lasted into adulthood: when we feel exposed, we often change the story.

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There’s nothing especially unusual about this.

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The mind is constantly trying to make sense of what it encounters. It works with partial information, fills in gaps, and assembles a version of events that feels complete enough to act on.

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What we experience doesn’t arrive as a finished picture. It comes in pieces — sights, sounds, impressions — and is quickly shaped into something that feels coherent. That process happens so naturally that it usually goes unnoticed.

In Buddhist thought, this is taken as a starting point. What we take to be solid or certain is often built from changing conditions — perception, memory, repetition, and the influence of others. As those conditions shift, the story can shift as well, even if it once felt settled.

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Seen this way, the question isn’t whether stories exist, but how they form, and how easily they come to feel like the truth.

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Small Adjustments

Even if it feels a bit uncomfortable, we all stretch the truth almost every day. Usually, these aren’t big lies, just small changes we make while talking to others.

Think about something as ordinary as a cup of coffee. Someone pours it for you, maybe it’s a bit too strong or too weak, but you still say, “That’s a great cup of coffee, Madge. Thanks.”

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It might not be the best cup you’ve ever had, but it’s easy to say something nice. No one gets hurt by this small exaggeration. In fact, it often makes the moment a little more pleasant.

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We make other small changes when we get invited somewhere. Maybe your coworkers ask you out for a beer on Friday night. You smile and say something friendly, even if you’d rather stay home. What you say isn’t exactly untrue, but it helps keep things easy and avoids awkwardness.

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There are also little assumptions we hear in daily conversations. Someone might say, “I’m sure you won’t mind doing this small favour for me.” Maybe you do mind a bit, but the way it’s said makes it easier just to go along with it.

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• a polite exaggeration

• a softened refusal

• a presumption that nudges agreement

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None of these moments really feel like serious lies. They’re just small changes that help us get along with others and avoid arguments or awkwardness. Often, they protect someone’s feelings or make things less uncomfortable.

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Psychologists who study how we talk to each other have noticed the same thing. When people are asked about honesty, most admit they sometimes bend the truth. But those same people often think others are less honest than they are.