BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 81

[Gero]

Question: In your life, can you see how moments of the past are totally gone, yet fully present right now too?

Isn't this what memories are?
When we recall a moment of the past, we imagine that we relive that moment ...when in reality we are just spending the current moment with something our mind has constructed.

Sure, in most cases the relation between the actual instance of the past and the memory we recall of it are much closer related than "yesterday's festivities" and the lifting of Shoto's robe. But that memories and the past are not identical seem common sense ... at least to me when my wife explains to me that we had already decided on one thing and my mind has totally dropped that agreement from memory.


Gero (sat today)

[Michael Joseph]

Thank you, Jundo.

I have been reflecting on this Koan and the many perspective offered on this thread. They have all given me moments to consider as I have gone about my day these past two weeks. I thank you. In response, I'd like to offer something, not as a contradiction, but as an addition. This is my first time writing about a koan, so I'm looking forward to stepping in (it).

Using the koan as an opportunity to watch how the past emerges in my own mind, the story has become a warning to me. I've looked under my own robe, I what I've found is a set of recurring memories that generally feed emotions such as shame, regret, grief, denigration, and (of course) arrogance. There are, of course, others, but I've realized that the entire past does not, and cannot, emerge. From even a single remembered event, I maintain only a very narrow space: some key words or phrases, some actions, some images. These highly limited representations of the past can be beneficial, even those produce poison, but they don't carry the weight that I assign to them. I suppose I've chosen to keep these events close to me because I can "hang myself on them." Thus, it's good to have Gensha remind me--regarding the past as it was and the past that I protect with my robe--that "There's no relation between them at all."

Gassho,

Hobun/Michael

ST/LAH