I try not to spend time dwelling on the past. Sometimes I do, though, and then I mentally scold myself for dragging myself through all that dirt yet again.
Sometimes, though, some past recollection will pop into my head, prompted by something happening in the present moment. These aren't remembrances I've stopped to ponder or pity myself over — they're just tiny fragments of memories that appear unbidden. I don't think there's any way to prevent that.
But I wish there were. I wish I could turn them off. I wish I could lock the front door against them. I wish keeping the blinds drawn would hold them at bay.
Of course, I know the Buddhst teaching about memories and the past, and sometimes it helps to focus on that teaching. Sometimes.
My unpleasant memories outnumber my pleasant memories by a ratio of a thousand to one, going from earliest childhood to dinner last night. The earliest bad memories are about things that happened to me, but from about 1978 forward, the bad memories are about stupid or bad things I did to myself or others. And there are plenty of them to remember. Not Charles Manson or John Gotti stuff, but a long string of foolish acts and statements.
Part of the reason I stay holed up in this house is to stay away from anything that will spark a bad memory, and to avoid creating new ones.
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One day floating down the river in Eastern Oklahoma, I saw an old man sitting on the bank, his head drooping to one side, who looked as if he had died. I suddenly realized that his last perception in this lifetime would be no fuller than any of his other perceptions. The accumulated perceptions of a lifetime did not go into the last perception to make it scintillating and rich and profound, but rather he merely would have looked to the side, much as anyone, and then died. Experiences (memories) are not like baggage; you do not fill up a suitcase with experiences (memories) and have them with you in a palpable form. I began to recognize the ultimate futility of external activities, and to turn my attention inward.
--Modified from an article by Jeffrey Hopkins
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