Without concepts, no memory

August 29, 2024

Thaye Dorje, His Holiness the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa, shares the following teaching on memory:

There is no memory without concepts. And since we humans are the masters of concepts, we are generally quite fond of our memories.

And it’s true that taking a trip down memory lane can be a wonderful thing, but nevertheless, there are some questions we might want to ask ourselves:

Do we want to remember everything?
Do we need to remember everything?
How much do we want to remember?
Is it possible that an excess of memory could become a burden?
So therefore, can we forget?
Can we let go of memory if we want to?

I feel that due to having accumulated too many memories, due to having had too much experience, there comes a point when we become tired of it, a time when it has become too much for us to carry.

And so therefore, I suppose, at some point there is a wish to let go of these memories.

Consciously, unconsciously, or subconsciously, such a wish will be there, and then it will just happen, either through the so-called physical death, or before that, through memory loss or dementia.

In a way, it’s like gravity: if there is too much water collected in one place, one way or another the earth will give way. It will either create a channel for the water to flow, or the water will flood, or evaporate through heat caused by friction – whichever way, something happens.

And I believe that a similar thing happens in our brain, our body, our mind. Due to our education, we are so used to thinking, so used to labelling everything: now we’re feeling this, now we’re feeling that, now we are experiencing this, now we are encountering that, and so after some time we have too much memory, and we don’t want to remember anything… This creates friction, a kind of mental heat, which will eventually evaporate our memory.

So, in short: memory is very interesting, it can be fun, but it cannot last, it cannot stay with us forever: at some point it just goes, upward, downward, sideways, either via memory loss, dementia or physical death – one way or another we give up, or we are parted from memory.

When we say that without concepts there is no memory, what it means is that memory is just another technology, it’s just a part of our condition – beyond that, it has nothing to do with anything.

The only question is, “Do you want memory?” If the answer is yes, if you like memory, then go and be a human being – but then accept that at some point you’ll have an overload of memory and will want to give up that memory again. There is no further reasoning required, such as, “Is memory good, is it healthy, will it help us improve?” Nothing like that – memory is just what it is, nothing more and nothing less.

It is said that through the practice of samadhi you can remember a hundred thousand lives, then multiply that by another hundred thousand times, and so on. That kind of description might give you a sense that you did exist before. But I feel that the reality of it – what it’s really trying to say – is that you realise more and more how much you have been all others, how the others have othered you and how you have you’d them.

So basically, you realise that you have already arrived where you have been wanting to go, so therefore there is not much point in trying to go anywhere now.

And so, once you arrive there, then one popular way of saying it is that everything is alright, and that there is no need to change anything whatsoever.

Another way of putting it is that you are free, you can just be yourself by then, and so whether you want to make memories or you don’t want make memories is completely up to you.

It’s your privilege.

But at that point it could be wonderful to add memory, because you can make believe anything.