Painful Memories

Key Lesson: There are as many memory-paved roads promising a new life as there are old thoughts trying once again to escape the consequences of themselves. The tragedy is that every road built by memory eventually circles back to the same familiar destination, because the traveler has never changed.

It's impossible to die to the pain of our past... as long as we remain identified with an unconscious nature that can't seem to go through a day without reliving some dark memory it then summarily resists.

Classroom Talk: 4/17/2024 - Part 1: Fear of any weakness is a part of the weakness feared. Part 2: The more we try to forget our weaknesses, the stronger they become.

Topic: How to End the Daily Painful Dramas in Your Life (Classroom Talk 5/3/23)

Topics covered: There is nothing that you can do in a dream to wake you up from the nightmare of being a human being who is spiritually asleep; Unlike all other creatures, you have been given the gift to be aware of your own consciousness, as opposed to being asleep within it and a captive of its own movements; The mind creates a dark drama and then struggles to find a way to escape from the very scene...

Classroom Talk: 5/3/2023 - There is no thought, no memory from the past that of itself can cause us pain; the only reason we suffer for their appearance is because we don't want to relive the unwanted experience they remind us of... not to mention how -- for our resistance to that same recollection -- we become its unwitting captive.

Topic: Walk Away from the Pain of Yesterday (Classroom Talk 12/7/22)

Classroom Talk: 12/7/2022 - It is impossible to teach the true nature of mindfulness, but it is possible to see the consequences of living from an unattended mind.

Topic: Transform the Pain of the Past into a Healing Power (Classroom Talk 10/26/22)

Classroom Talk: 10/26/2022 - Fear of the future is a negative memory: (it is) the ghost of some past painful experience disguised as "what may be."

Topic: Escape the Prison Called the "Pain of the Past" (Classroom Talk 8/17/22)

Classroom Talk: 8/17/2022 - Unconscious identification with any pain from the past -- especially as it involves, or otherwise lends support to some negative perception of oneself -- is a slow-acting poison that, once ingested, soon darkens the soul and leads to its destruction.