The mind tends to treat memories as past destinations. If you go from home to work, the past would be considered home.
We take memory seriously because we think the accumulation of our past is who we are.
The truth is, there is no back then. It’s just the mind pretending to be a time traveler.
The past is a nonexistent destination because you can’t point to it. You can’t give anyone the coordinates to your past.
The truth is, the past is like a plastic bottle recycled into a bag. The past no longer exists because it’s been recycled into the present.
This makes the past not a previous destination, but a ghost.
To further prove this point, we must define memory. It’s a broadcast that gives us images in the present moment. Neural firing associated with a memory occurs when you have the memory.
The image of your 10-year-old self is a present image. The hurt you felt in high school is still present. The career journey from the past 25 years is a thought you are having right now.
You aren’t looking back at life. The past is merely a label that the mind attaches to certain thoughts to give them authority over the present.
The Past Creates the Person
If the past isn’t real, that which makes up the person isn’t real either.
If you haven’t noticed, the ego is a collection of negativity. It curates all the conflict, trauma, and achievement while dismissing the millions of mundane moments in between. It then strings these fragments together to create the illusion of a linear life.
We’ve yet to realize that this record of the past is inconsistent. Every time a memory is recalled, it’s remixed by the mind of today.
If the you of yesterday is based on a memory that has changed today, which one is the real you? The answer is neither, but we try to find stability in a record that’s being edited in real-time.
The mind fears that without a narrative architecture, life would collapse into chaos. The mind fails to see that other aspects of life work perfectly fine without a narrative. The lungs breathe without a breather, the hand pulls back from a fire without having to remember past hurt, and the musician plays notes without having to retrieve every hour of practice.
The issue is that the mind wants to claim credit for a life that is already unfolding.
To change this perspective, one must treat a thought like a rock on the side of the road. It’s merely an object.
We easily identify with thoughts, but when we see a rock, we don’t say I am the rock. However, when we see a memory of failure, it’s very easy to say I am a failure.
Does Time Heal All Wounds?
The idea around suffering is time-based. Depression comes from attachment to the past, where anxiety is attachment to the future.
However, if you remove the concept of time, there is no past. If there’s no past, there’s no suffering. If there’s no future, there’s no anxiety.
To see through suffering is to realize that suffering is merely a story told about sensations in the present.
The cliche that always comes with history is that if we don’t know our history, we are bound to repeat it. If we drop our history, we can’t learn from past mistakes.
Sure, that might be good practice for the mind, but it does us no good when we identify with the history. You are not what happened to you in the past because the past isn’t happening right now.
Questions and Responses
The body and mind function through biological intelligence and habit, which do not require a “person” to oversee them. Just as the lungs breathe without a “breather” directing each inhale, the brain retrieves data to navigate the world. The error is not in the data retrieval; the error is in the “I” claiming the data as its personal history. Data is a tool; a “history” is a shackle.
Learning is a present-moment refinement of action. If you touch a stove and get burned, the body learns the heat; it does not need a “sufferer” to carry the story of the burn for twenty years to avoid the flame. Identification with the “mistake” creates a “sinner” or a “failure.” Dropping the history allows for action to occur clearly, unburdened by the weight of a guilty narrator.
Yes. That is the point. The “sense of self” is a collection of curated tensions and recycled thoughts. What you lose is a burden; what remains is the Unconditioned. You do not cease to exist; you cease to be a “character” limited by a timeline. The void of memory is not the end of being; it is the beginning of Presence.
The ego would rather be a “victim” than be nothing. A painful story provides a solid, heavy sense of “me.” Without the story, the ego dissolves into the spaciousness of awareness. The mind calls this “emptiness” and fears it, but this emptiness is actually the only true freedom.
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