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Memory

This quote came in today's Daily Dharma, via email from the Buddhist magazine Tricycle:

Each of us has a switching mechanism in our mind that allows us to move from one state of mind to another in an instant. . . . In fact, the surprising thing is not that we have the ability to switch our mind state, but that we have the ability to maintain a mind state, to continue a thought for more than an instant. Thoughts are constantly falling away, yet somehow we are able to maintain coherent ideas. Moreover we have the facility to remember, which is a miraculous phenomenon if each and every moment the world is completely new. What is it that is remembering and what is there to remember? The image that the Buddhists use to work with this paradox is the idea of a flame being passed from candle to candle. We cannot say the flame is the same from one candle to the next, yet each is dependent upon the one just before it. Not only does this account for the potential transmission of thought but also for memory, because each flame has a quality of the original flame as far back as one wishes to travel.
— David A. Cooper, Silence, Simplicity and Solitude

I've been thinking a lot about thinking, memory, and coherence. Consciousness is a fascinating trick, and I'm learning to question the faith we place in our thoughts and memories. We're constantly making assertions based on memories that are shadows of events and thoughts in our lives, and those shadows can be flimsy. I have a good memory, which for someone who writes constantly is verifiable by notes and writings, but over time, like everyone, I do not only forget things, but I also suspect that I transform some of the details of things remembered. Lacking any record of things done and said, how can I know whether memories remain accurate as time passes? I think my memories are actually pretty accurate, based on what I can compare via writings and recorded images, but I find that my memories of shared events will often differ from others', and I don't know how to be completely sure who is correct, unless I have a written record somewhere. In a disagreement with someone, I'm finding it's helpful to review emails that I sent where I captured detail about what was happening along the way. Her memories don't match what I've written. She says she never got the emails though she was copied. Assuming that my memories are correct, and hers are distorted, is it that the origina of her memory was a misperception that persisted? Or did she change the narrative as, in Cooper's words, the flame was passed from candle to candle?

I have memories of my childhood that I think are pretty accurate, but I've often thought how they are indirect - i.e. some are memories that persist because I keep remembering them, so they may be less memories of events than memories of memories - that flame passing from candle to candle.

When we're children our memories are formed without perspective or wisdom; how reliable are they? To what extent is our life shaped and colored by immature, incorrect interpretations?

When I sit on a zafu and detach from the stream of thoughts and memories, I realize that however accurate, however real, they're just delusions. It's not just a question whether the thing happened - the bigger question is who was there when it happened? If "self" is a convenient fiction, if "I" don't exist, then who has the memory? Who climbed out of the crib, was stung by wasps, feared his mother and brother, watched a dog die, sat on a hill?

I don't know.

jon posted this at 7:56 AM
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