A Meditator's Guide to Memory
+ an invitation to remember and reflect
As we arrive at the end of the year, it’s natural and healthy to spend some time in reflection. Of course a year is an arbitrary marker of time, and you can, and hopefully do, engage in reflection on an ongoing basis and at other times. But having a clear symbol of endings and beginnings can remind us to make time for introspection.
Why remember?
Recollecting and reviewing the past serves an important role in our ability to plan, imagine, learn and recalibrate. Let’s start off with some definitions:
remember · from re- "again" + memorari "be mindful of". To again be mindful of. Note that memor has origins in the Indo-European root (s)mer "to remember", which also shows in the Sanskrit word for memory...
smara स्मर · root smr स्मृ ·
to remember, think of, recollect; to call to mind, to bear in mind, to be mindful of; to declare or recite; to teach or hand down by memory
this word is related to smriti स्मृति, which is the original word usually translated as mindfulness:
smriti स्मृति · thinking of or upon; wish or desire; awareness, calling to mind, mindfulness; reminiscence, remembering, remembrance; tradition, the whole body of sacred tradition or what is remembered by human teachers
recollect · "to collect again," from re- "again" + colligere "gather". Cycling back to English, this word has the connotation of bringing together. Sometimes remember (re-member) is also used in this way, with members being the parts of your inner self that are coming together.
When we spend time engaging in remembrance, we are gathering the different pieces of ourselves together. In modern terms we call this integration, a vital process that moves us towards wholeness. It helps us consolidate and make sense of our life experience so that we feel capable and empowered to face the future.
There is also a strong link in the Sanskrit words above to tradition and history, feeling connected to the past, to ancestral teachings or that which was handed down through generations. When life happens at (breakneck) speed, and we are unable to absorb or reminscence, we start to feel unsettled, like there’s nothing stable to hold on to. This is why remembering is an important aspect of many festivities, rituals and traditions; to give us space to reflect and frame our lives.
Note that in the Sanskrit there is also an undercurrent of wishing and desiring—suggesting that the quality of our attention as we remember can be appreciative, rapt, enchanted. There is a delightful feeling associated with reminiscence and reverie, a kind of cozy wonder, like you’re daydreaming. Recalling what inspired and fulfilled us, what gave us strength and hope, what we enjoyed etc. not only gives us solace and contentment in the present. It also directs our focus towards creating and perceiving more of that goodness in the future. As Mary Oliver says in Upstream,
Attention is the beginning of devotion.
Whatever we attend to shapes our awareness and our life—so why not take time out to attend to the beautiful? (NB. To experience this in a guided practice, check out my Natural Doorways meditation.)
When the unforgettable calls you— The memory of something noble, Generous, inspiring, Accept the gift. Savour every detail. The beauty we admire Is a visitation from another moment, Infusing body and heart. Memory transports us beyond time and space, Into the living presence of wonder. —Radiance Sutras 96
What about the bad stuff?
Naturally it’s a different case with difficult and troubling memories; that’s where we need to use the good to give us the strength to face the bad. This is what happens in meditation and other introspective practices or moments, if we let it. The process is something like the following:
We free ourselves to feel the whole spectrum of our experience, past and present.
Where there is wounding or pain, we attend, and something in us rises to meet that hurt with softness, care, and healing.
Then we cycle back and forth between the pain and the soft, caring attention, until we find resolution (and this can take anywhere from moments to decades or lifetimes). The hardest part is tolerating the agony, and the alternation of pain and relief as healing happens.
Rinse and repeat, for as long as we’re alive.
Actually there are two hardest parts. One is as I said above, and the other is actually giving yourself the time and space to recall the difficult experiences in the first place. Many of us are great at practising avoidance and denial, because we’re afraid to let ourselves feel. We just don’t want to go there. Instead we will do anything and everything from folding the laundry, to scrolling social media, to watching one show after another, to obsessively socializing, to planning our next holiday while we’re still on the current one—all to not have any time whatsoever for introspection and being.
In a way it’s a form of procrastination, only it’s not related to work or assignments or deadlines. We’re procrastinating to avoid being in our own company. If you’re in this mode, there’s two things I can say: (1) there’s only so long you can keep this up before something bursts; and (2) it’s the first few moments of being with yourself that are the hardest of all. That initial sense of frantic urgency, of no I can’t do this—that’s the hump to get over, with firm but gentle determination.
Just stay with it for a few minutes, because once you do, you’ll discover you’ve got the momentum and usually a deep desire to keep going. Why? Because suddenly the part of yourself that craves peace, quiet, me-time—that part wakes up and joins the party. It’s been squashed underneath all the activity for so long you’ve forgotten it’s there. But it will come roaring to life the moment you let it, and you’ll be able to ride the current of that longing into introspection.
Abandon all these attitudes Of wanting to prolong pleasure And avoid suffering. Let the heart be itself and feel Whatever is there. Freed from clinging and avoiding, The heart regains its poise And revels in creation. Plunging deep into its center, Discover that the heart is moved By a pulse that is everywhere. —Radiance Sutras 103
Rhythms of memory in daily life
Memories tend to arise spontaneously and instinctively whenever we give ourselves time and space—for example during meditation, before drifting off to sleep, on train journeys, and so on. Nowadays we tend to not have as much time to cruise in this way, as devices and demands are ever present and seem to fill every available space with stimulation. One of my mini-practices is to allow myself to be in those little pockets and windows of ‘empty’ time and space without doing anything, and especially without reaching for a device. Think about times when:
you’re waiting for something or someone
you’re in between one activity and another, or in other words, you’ve just finished one thing and not yet started another
you’re on the way somewhere
These are moments when you when you can naturally drift and meander a little, because you are not placing any demands on your nervous system to accomplish anything. And your nervous system actually needs these little breaks and pauses to reset, recalibrate and be ready for your next task. If you can process life and refresh yourself in real-time, it takes some of the load off your downtime and your sleep. It also means you can maintain focus, energy and presence more consistently throughout the day rather than having big surges and drops.
I confess I used to think of these moments as dead time and space, but the truth is they are actually so subtly and wonderfully alive. That little daydream or reverie that you enter into, that moment of insight or realization about the conversation you had, that feeling that your meal has properly settled into your body, the sense that you have the luxury not to rush around and to actually notice your environment…it’s wonderful. There is something easy about it too, once you overcome the habit to reach for the next thing right away. It’s like a whole-being exhale.
Anyway, aside from micro-moments of ongoing reflection, we also need longer spans of time to review. Some people like to journal or keep a diary, others do this in meditation and introspection, or while taking a walk or listening to music…there are many ways, you just need to find your own.
These are some images of the things that help me get into an introspective, reflective mood. Scroll slowly and see how you feel.
A little objection
There is a notion in meditation circles that it’s more important to live in the present than to review the past. Some meditation instruction (mindfulness for example) actively discourages drifting into memories as a form of ‘mind wandering’. This is quite ironic because the word for mindfulness actually comes from the word for memory (see above). The confusion probably arises because the word mindfulness on its own doesn’t specify what to be mindful of. Traditionally, the four foundations of mindfulness are mindfulness of the body (including breath and felt body sensations), feelings, mind and dharma, but there are other models too, and anyway, I’m digressing.
Back to the point: I think this is another case of the two paths, detachment and intimacy. If you’re living as a renunciate (sanyasi), your job is to dissolve ego, in which case memories don’t serve you at all. In fact they only strengthen your bonds of identity, not to mention they’re a distraction from all the things you’re meant to be focusing on instead—so a definite no-no. On the other hand, if you’re living in the world as a householder (grhasta), you need your ego to be healthy and functional. This in turn means you need to process and review your memories in order to have an identity that’s both stable and flexible.
Most meditation instruction comes from the traditions and teachings of renunciates and is intended for their lifestyle. Ordinary people like you and me require different instruction because our needs and circumstances are different. While the teachings of renunciates can and have been adapted to better suit the lives of everyday individuals, it’s not always clear which bits to keep and which bits to leave out, or how far to go with any given idea. The teachings of the path of intimacy—tantra and others—are less well-known but are actually meant for those of us living in the world.
Another way you can think of it is: in traditional mindfulness practice, the present moment (in the form of breath, sensations etc.) is the ‘object’ or doorway into meditative experience. But you can also use memories as meditative doorways, as I explained above. Then meditation becomes a place to savour the best of your past, to let your own life experiences nourish and teach you, to linger with whatever you cherish.
More profoundly, there is also a self-dissolving element to the flow of memory. When we are immersed in memory, where are we? We have left this present body, and are floating freely through time and space, the realm of the universal cosmic body, of consciousness itself. It’s a time-travelling adventure spiced with glimpses of total liberation.
Traps and Spirals
On the flip side, there is another issue which dovetails here: that of excessive rumination and getting trapped or caught up in the past. This has happened to all of us, and I’m betting we all know people who are in that situation now—unable to let go of what happened and thereby unable to live their present life either. To be clear, I am not advocating for this kind of reminiscing. The whole point of allowing the free flow of memory is in fact to feel its imprint, let it move through you, absorb what you need to from it and then move on. Getting stuck in spirals of either positive or negative rumination is not healthy.
My theory is that we get stuck when we can’t or won’t process the bodily felt energy (psycho-physical or emotional) of any given memory. Instead it lingers and festers inside us like a wound, a blockage or an area of condensed power. This gives rise to ever-increasing spiralling thoughts that circle around that area but never go anywhere. I’ve had this happen with both positive and negative experiences; the only way out for me was to go underneath the thoughts, experience the emotions and the sensations and free them to move through and out of me. It’s almost harder with positive memories and experiences because they’re so deliciously tempting to hold on to.
Ultimately it’s up to each of us to draw the line between what’s excessive and natural. Certainly it’s not natural to never let yourself engage in remembering at all! We are seeking the middle way; tuning our attention with the perfect amount of tension so it’s ‘not too loose, not too tight’, as the Buddha said.
Final thoughts
This was initially meant to be a standard ‘year in review’-style post. Along the way it turned into something else. But I still want to share some of the highlights (and lowlights) of my year with you, so I will send another post later this month—after I’ve done some reflection of my own. Feel free to respond with your highlights, and your lowlights if you would like to.
Also soon to come is a guided meditation on Remembrance to support you as you wind down the year and give you a way to introspect. Please subscribe to receive those directly in your inbox.
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