Memory's Like That

I studied British colonial history in India. An account written by a British historian is very different than one written by an Indian historian.

Is one of them lying? No, they’re probably honorable scholars, both of them, but they each see and remember in different ways. Memory’s like that.

So when you explore memory, just observe that memories come and go; and when they’re gone consciousness is what remains.

Consciousness is now. This the path, here and now, the way it is.

Use what is happening now as the path rather than going along with the idea that you are somebody from the past who needs to practice to get rid of all your defilements in order to become enlightened in the future. That is just a self you create and believe in.


* * * * *


Try taking a guilty memory and deliberately sustaining it. Think of some terrible thing you’ve done in the past, then determine to keep it in your consciousness for five minutes.

By trying to keep thinking about it, you will find how difficult it is to sustain.

But when that same memory arises and you resist it or wallow in it or believe in it, then it can hang around the whole day. A whole lifetime can be filled with guilt and remorse.

Every time you’re
aware of what
you’re thinking,
you’re getting to
be an expert.


* * * * *


At first it may seem like emotions and desires are much stronger, that it’s impossible to simply be aware.

You may have only a few brief moments of awareness and then back into the raging storm.

It may seem hopeless, but it’s not. The more you test it out, investigate and trust this awareness, then more stable it becomes.

The seemingly invincible power of the emotional qualities, obsessions, and habits will lose that sense of being the stronger force.

You will find that your real strength is in awareness, not in controlling the ocean and waves and cyclones and tsunamis and all the rest that you can’t possible ever control anyway.

It’s only in trusting in this one point—here and now—that you realize liberation.


Extract from: Attending to the Here and Now, by Venerable Ajahn Sumedho