I want to talk this morning about memory and forgetfulness. Memory is a very selective thing, a kind of funny event. And I found a name recently for a condition that I sometimes have. The word is called anomia. and it means to forget the name of things or people. So this happens to me sometimes. But I want to talk about the value of forgetfulness and the interplay of memory and forgetfulness. This has to do with Well, the issues of time and deep time I've been talking about.

[01:01]

How do we be present here? How do we find this presence here? And also include or realize in this presence all time. So the presence is not some narrow window exclusive of past and future. Everything in our life is here now. And yet, we remember certain things at any given time. And I think most people tend to remember generally the good things, not so much the bad things. There are some people who do get caught up in remembering terrible things, but it's, Most people don't actually remember the sensation of pain.

[02:04]

So if you're, you know, when we sometimes sit for a day or more, sometimes there's some pain in our legs or whatever, and then it goes away, and we don't remember it. What is it that we remember, and what does it mean to forget? So we all have various stories about who we are, and we remember certain stories about the world and our life and events and so forth. But a big part of Zazen practice is to go beyond these stories, beyond our sense of self, and beyond the memories, the stories that are memories. How do we find, sometimes it's referred to as big mind, today I'll call it flexible mind, that can be present in both memory and forgetfulness.

[03:20]

What I'm talking about today, and I'm going to talk about it tomorrow some more in terms of the value of mindlessness, but in terms of memory and forgetfulness, these reflections are inspired by some passages in a book that I've been meaning to read for years. Some of you may know The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan, which I finally got to read during my recent vacation. And this is some interesting passages where he talks about forgetfulness. I think it's relevant to Arzazan. So he says, forgetting is vastly underrated as a mental operation. Indeed, that it is a mental operation rather than, as I'd always assume, strictly the breakdown of one. Forgetting is one of the more important things that healthy brains do, almost as important as remembering.

[04:25]

So what is it to remember and what is it to forget in Zazen? And the context of Michael Pollan talking about this in terms of talking about the effects of psychoactive drugs. But I think there's a relevance of this to our meditation as well. This forgetting that is necessary for us to function. You couldn't have gotten here this morning, if there weren't many things that you'd forgotten, and many things that you were forgetting as you took each step or each breath on the way here. Our memory is selective.

[05:27]

We remember certain things. He quotes George Eliot, who I just recently discovered. She's a wonderful writer. who says, if we could hear the squirrel's heartbeat, the sound of the grass growing, we should die of that roar. So as we're sitting, of course, you know, many thoughts come up. Many memories or, you know, we could call them memories or we could call them thoughts in the present about, you know, Maybe it's about something that's happening in the presence. Oh, I'm cold, or I'm hot, or my knee hurts. Maybe those are memories of the presence. But then also, memories about things that happened during the week, or earlier in the day, or years ago.

[06:30]

Or memories of things that we think will happen tomorrow, or later in the day, also. awareness, this is what this is about, our awareness is selective. But I would suggest that part of what happens in Zazen and part of the value of Zazen is a radical forgetfulness. So, continuing with Michael Pollan, he says, it is only by forgetting that we ever really drop the thread of time and approach the experience of living in the present moment. so elusive in ordinary hours. The wonder of that experience, perhaps more than any other, seems to be at the very heart of the human desire to change consciousness. So he uses the word wonder there, which I want to talk about in connection with this. What is it to forget all of our stories, all of our definitions, all of our ideas about ourself and the world?

[07:35]

That's not that we should do that permanently. So there's a balance here, and I'll come back to it at the end, between the experience of presence in deep time and then how we express that in our everyday activity in the world. But there is, and I tend to talk about that, that's the realm of precepts, tend to talk about that more because it needs to be anchored. But then Zazen also allows us this space of radical forgetfulness. Colin also quotes Friedrich Nietzsche in an essay called The Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life. Nietzsche says, consider the cattle grazing as they pass you by. He was writing in the 1870s. They do not know what is meant by yesterday or today. They leap about, eat, rest, digest, leap about again, and so from morn till night and from day to day, fettered to the moment and its pleasure or displeasure, thus neither melancholy nor bored.

[08:47]

A human being may well ask an animal, why do you not speak to me of your happiness but only stand and gaze at me? The animal would like to answer and say, the reason is I always forget what I was going to say. But then he forgot this answer too and stayed silent. Cheerfulness, the good conscience, the joyful deed, confidence in the future, all of them depend on one's being just as able to forget at the right time as to remember. So I would suggest that this big mind, this flexible mind, includes memory, includes being intimate with our story about who we are, our sense of self, but also this experience of wonder, the sense of wonder that depends on a radical forgetfulness. A little bit more from this interesting text.

[09:54]

Yeah, again, this is Paul talking about what Nietzsche said. For Nietzsche, the art and power of forgetting consists in a kind of radical editing of locking out of consciousness everything that doesn't serve a present purpose. A man seized by a vehement passion or great idea will be blind and deaf to all except that passion or idea. Everything he does not perceive, however, he will perceive as he has never perceived anything before. All is so palpable, close, highly colored, resounding, as though he apprehended it with all his senses at once. So what does this have to do with our practice, with this Zazen practice we've just been doing?

[11:06]

As we sit, we kind of settle into a kind of awareness that goes beyond the stories and the memories. Of course, in the course of the period of zazen, thoughts come, memories come. We can have some story that becomes part of what's happening during our zazen, but also, and maybe it happens more during a day or more of sitting, but it can happen during any period of zazen, too. There's some space. Or we forget. We may even forget who we are. Or we're not caught by who we are or our stories about our idea of what we have to do today. But actually we can be present. And that means this kind of

[12:12]

We could say this background awareness, this sense of things, of the presence of things, of the presence of this body, this mind, all of us together in this room. Here we are. And again, Paul talks about this as a kind of sense of wonder. an interesting word, we can wonder what's going on. So there's a kind of questioning maybe underlying it. But it's also, oh, we forget who we are. We forget our stories. This is, again, Paul is talking about it in terms of certain experiences that can happen through using psychoactive substances, but this is, in some ways, the heart of our experience of oneness or wholeness in Zen practice.

[13:21]

So one great statement about this is in Hongzhi, Cultivating the Empty Field, he says, in clarity, the wonder exists with spiritual energy shining on its own. It cannot be grasped and so cannot be called being. It cannot be rubbed away, and so cannot be called non-being. Beyond the mind of deliberation and discussion, depart from the remains of the shadowy images. Emptying one's sense of self-existence is wondrous. So the basic instruction for Zazen is to put aside. worldly affairs and deliberation, that kind of consciousness. Put it aside. It doesn't mean get rid of it, of course, when we get up from our cushion. Or sometimes in the middle of our sitting, we do.

[14:24]

Well, we can't use this deliberative consciousness. So I don't know that this is exactly the consciousness of memory, but it's related to it. It's the consciousness in which we discriminate. in which we see the difference between left and right and, you know, the world of duality arises. But beyond this mind of deliberation, this great 12th century Chinese Sotomaster says, depart from the remains of the shadowy images. The remains of the shadowy images. This is our memory. We remember. And we have these shadowy images of them. So right now, remember something. It could be a person, it could be something. Anyway, that's not happening right here in front of you.

[15:29]

Maybe it is, but usually if you remember something, it's not that it's not on your cushion or chair right now, but it's also somewhere else. It's a shadowy image. So we have lots of shadowy images that appear in Zazen, and that's okay. But he says, let go of the remains of the shadowy images. Emptying one's sense of self-existence is wondrous. This wonder is embodied with a spirit that can be enacted. The moon mind with its cloudy body, cloud body. is revealed straightforwardly in every direction without resorting to signs or symbols. Radiating light everywhere, it responds appropriately to beings and enters the sense dust without confusion. This is this open, radiant wholeness that is not about memories, not about discriminating consciousness.

[16:37]

And yet it's not somewhere outside. So this is not a practice of... Zazen and Zen practice is not about getting high. It's not about reaching some exalted realm of transcendence. And yet, somewhere in our experience of Zazen is this... this wondrousness which radiates light everywhere. And yet it responds appropriately to beings and enters the sense dust without confusion. overcoming every obstruction that shines through every empty dharma. Leaving discriminating conditions, conditioning, Hongzhi says again, enter clean, clear wisdom and romp and play in samadhi. So the sense of playfulness is also part of, also related to forgetfulness. Just to be present and sit upright and face the wall, we can let go and forget. our concerns and the laundry lists and all of the problems.

[17:49]

Now, our practice is not to get rid of that. We can let go of that and just enjoy this wholeness. The other side of our practice is very much how we come back to, as he says, to the sense dust. And again, there's this foreground and background. We can talk about it either way, but how do we let go of our sense of control? Another way to talk about it. In some sense, when we remember something, we're controlling it. We have a story we're telling about something that happened. And part of, I would say, a healthy ego structure is that we have some kind of sense of ourself and we can define that in various ways and take care of all of the aspects of what we have to do during the week.

[18:53]

But this other side is about radically letting go of that. Can we forget who we are? Can we forget our stories? Not permanently, not get rid of them, but just let go of this space of control and enjoy the wonder of just being here. So, Holland says, further on about this, He talks about the sense of first sight, unencumbered by knowingness, by the already-been-there's, seen-that's of the adult mind.

[20:13]

And that word, of course, is wonder, again, this sense of wonder. And he says, the memory is the enemy of wonder, which abides nowhere else but in this present. That is why, unless you are a child, wonder depends on forgetting, on a process that is a subtraction. to let go of all of the stuff we know and be able to appreciate, oh, here, this body, this mind, on our cushion or chair this morning, facing this little portion of wall or floor, facing ourselves. So there is this aspect of zazen that allows us to experience this ultimate, this wonder.

[21:17]

And there are many, I think, spiritual traditions that are about that and that only. Zen practice is about the integration of that with how we express that in our everyday practice. So that's the realm of precepts and taking care of ourselves and the world and actually becoming intimate and studying the stuff we remember and our stories about ourselves. So that's part of the work of practice too. And I tend to talk about that side more because that's the grounding. that can allow us to not get carried away when we do have this sense of wonder. But both are important. Our practice is about this integration, this harmonizing of oneness or sameness and the differences, all of the stuff that we We do need to remember to take care of ourselves, to take care of each other, to take care of the world.

[22:30]

But it's worth also remembering to forget. To let go. To really radically enjoy this inhale and this exhale. And of course, we can't do that by trying to do it. That's more control. Oh, you want to have some sense of wonder. Okay, I'm going to try to remember how to do that. It doesn't work. But part of the... wonderfulness of Zazen is that when we come and sit in our presence, there are little spaces where we let go of the stories. And, you know, there's the other side of our practice again, which is maybe you could talk about it in terms of Dogen's Genjo Koan and looking at the Koan of our life, how do we sit with whatever sadness or confusion or grasping or aversion we're dealing with this week.

[23:38]

And we have to face that too. But again, there's this foreground and background. There's this sense of possibility of letting go, forgetting. This appreciation of wholeness, this sense of wonder. So maybe that's enough for me to say about this this morning. And so I would like to invite any of you to express some sense of wonder or to remember something that you wanted to say or ask or comment on. Thank you. Josh. Thank you for your talk. You just said that the precepts are the grounding of a flexible mind.

[24:50]

In my practice, up until I came to Chicago, I was always taught the other way around. How so? the flexible mind was the grounding of the precepts. And I just wondered if you could talk about that a little bit more. Sure, both. Depending on where we're looking at it from. But yeah, the sense of wonder, the sense of letting go, also allows us to follow them, to accord with the precepts, to question our experience of the world more fully. So they work together. That's the part of harmonizing. It's hard to say that one is before the other or more fundamental than the other, but it's an important point. There's this integration of the one side, which is the flexible mind of forgetfulness, the letting go.

[25:57]

And the flexible mind also is able to work back and forth with, okay, how do I take care of this situation now, but also, I was gonna say not forgetting, but also informed by, because it's informed by forgetfulness, informed by this taste of wholeness that we get without necessarily even thinking about it or realizing it or recognizing it. It's not that we have to have some notion or idea or definition of this wonder or forgetfulness. We might not even have thought of it at all, and that's okay. In fact, that's what it's about. It's about this sense of things that we don't need to categorize. And yet, that helps us to respond. Having that in the background helps us respond more flexibly with more patience, with more of a sense of space, with more calm to the particular difficulties.

[27:11]

So yes, thank you. Thank you. Steve. It just occurred to me as you were speaking now, related to memory and forgetfulness, there's something about where there's lightness and darkness. Yes. And so maybe the conscious memories can be light, and the act of forgetting in the darkness is light. Yes. Is there any comment you can make on that? Well, our practice and training and developing Zen mind, to call it that, flexible mind, is about the process of, there's a process of integration of these two sides. And that's an endless process. We can be endlessly more and more informed by how that is for us. So yeah, the point isn't, again, just to reach some exalted state of wonder.

[28:18]

The Sandakai says, merging with oneness is still not enlightenment. The point is then, how do we bring that into the world? But the precepts are not about just trying to fix things and be good in the world. They're informed by, as Josh was saying, this background of openness. Deborah. As you're talking about forgetfulness, I'm wondering about the interplay between forgetfulness and denial. And I think of how, as the world comes to grips with climate change and movement, Yeah, very much forgetfulness is not the same as denial, the forgetfulness I'm talking about.

[29:23]

So it's not that we should suppress the memories or deny the particulars, the causes and conditions, the conditioning and the karma of our life and our world. But in terms of how to respond to you know, really the horrors of what's going on in our world now. I mean, I don't know how else to say it. We can all do that more effectively if we have this background sense, which is not denial, but is letting go of, you know, the sense of urgency about things, maybe, or appreciating, even while we, you know, witness The great suffering and damage, you know, these huge tornadoes in the Midwest. I heard about that from a distance when I was overseas a couple of weeks ago. I guess it's Joplin, Missouri that's been wiped out.

[30:26]

Anyway, there's just more and more of these things happening all the time, and the damage to our environment and so forth. So I'm not saying we should forget that. but in the context of trying to talk about it together. So part of the main practice I see to do about that for myself is just to talk about it sometimes. And sometimes you can write to Congress people and all of that, but they're all controlled by the corporations anyway, pretty much. To remember that is part of our practice. And then to speak about it together sometimes. And to encourage each other not to forget that or deny that. and deny what's going on in the world. But again, if we are the level of precepts that's not informed by this sense of wonder, we can feel overwhelmed and hopeless and frantic, and that's not helpful.

[31:30]

So to let go of to appreciate even in the midst of life during wartime, the war against the middle class and so forth that's going on now. In the midst of that, we can come together and sit and face the wall and be upright and present and breathe and be informed by this radical, wonderful forgetfulness. That helps when we can step out, as Hongshu said, So just to repeat that line again, this may seem like an ideal vision of this, but he's speaking from his being deeply informed by this sense of wonder. This wonder is embodied with a spirit that can be enacted. Radiating light everywhere, it responds appropriately to beings and enters the sense dust.

[32:33]

the problems of the world without confusion. It shines through every empty dharma, overcoming every obstruction. So this practice of just being present with this radical forgetfulness, this radical sense of wonder, again, this goes back to Joshua's point that this does help us to respond. So thank you for your question. It's not denial. Joan. I've been more aware in the last few years of how the person I've loved is at different ages in the past. really doesn't exist anymore. One time I tried to do some writing in the first person as if I was that person, trying to write and memorize that way.

[33:44]

And then I found a journal I'd written at the time, and it's totally different voices, and I cannot recapture that voice. She does not exist. So I wonder, Very interesting. And I was mentioning, and I forget the context I was talking about, this sense of our inner child and befriending our inner child. I think it's both. The person you were when you were 30 or when you were 15 is, of course, not here. And yet, there's some relationship. So again, this has to do with coming back to memory, but with this background space of forgetfulness.

[34:49]

To recognize that we don't know. I can have some story about who I was when I was 10. And I can have certain memories that I associate with that. feel some richness to that, but that's not who I am now. I'm looking, I'm telling a story about it from where I'm at now. So yeah, that's, and yet there's some value in that as an exercise. So, you know, if you could find a journal or something you wrote when you were whatever, and then before you read it, imagine that person and then see... Anyway, I think that's an interesting exercise in memory coming from forgetfulness. Formed by it. So it's not that we should get rid of memory. It's not what I'm talking about at all. But to know that this memory is something that's just our story now and then

[35:52]

Well, you know, if you can find some artifact from some other time, even as you're reading what you wrote when you were, you know, 25 or whatever, you're still not going to feel that from who that person was. And yet it might help you, you know, inform your memory of that. So that's an interesting practice related to this. Thank you.

[36:16]

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