taming a wave upon the sands
There is a barrage of advice by gurus of all genre to live in the
moment. But you often wonder if it is possible to erase the past. Some kind of
magic pill to have “ selective amnesia”
where you remember what you want and what you; and like the good old school blackboard erase the
unnecessary to begin on a blank surface.
The samurai warriors were
trained by their Zen masters in the infinitesimal awareness of the present moment. If we
develop this razor sharp awareness of the mind and all it pranks; then we can
separate the useful from the not-so-useful and the good from the bad.
This brings us to a four square quadrant.
The first quadrant would
be useless and bad like memories of a
boss in your previous job or a malicious put-down by a toxic character your
will never meet again. The obvious answer would be to banish these and relegate
them to the garbage bin… easier said then done. These are the “spam demons”
which intrude in you mind and haunt you for years. Often their recall is
triggered by innocuous happening or even prompt words which evoke the horror
memories. We find ourselves in pensive moments opening this “albums” of old
memories and even relishing in chewing
the cud. Your main thrust to peace of
mind is putting thes on a tight leash
The second quadrant would be the good memories which are useless e.g.
people discussing with passion a football match the watched a month ago;
memories of a vacation which you have at a Shangri-la-like resort and you would
want to have again or a bachelors binge drinking party which you really should
not repeat unless you want to be chained to an addiction.
The third quadrant would be the useful and the bad memories – e.g. recollections of the past which may spoil your mood but are
important lessons to keep if you do not wish to repeat the mistakes a second
time.
And finally, the golden zone the areas of good and profitable
memories of the past which would be praise you received from a boss which is
morale booster; lessons to repeat and reinforce you success streak; or the
memory of a past project you completed and now can boost you confidence.
Freedom from the past is a myth. You can only manage your mind . Its
like taming a wave upon the sands of time. The mind is like the river of time –
as events unfold the mind has it own flow. Accept past memories as the river of
consciousness. But don’t forget the present it is very soon going to be the
past.
