Meditation Point #103
A Zen Thing . QuotesThe past is not dead. In fact, it’s not even past.
– William Faulkner
Many people say there is no past or future only the present. I have said this myself. In some respects this is partially true, we only have the now in which to live. Then what can Faulkner possibly mean? There is no past in the sense that we can change things we have done or witnessed. We can effect the past no more then we can control the future. For us there is no past, but that does not mean it is dead. Hardly, in fact Faulkner says it best for it isn’t even the past, because you are the collection of your past ‘present’ moments. You are the collective of your time here on Earth which means that the past is always present in us, effecting our behavior and decisions in the present and path into the future. Thus without introspection and discipline we are doomed to repeat our mistakes and failures as we are largely creatures of habit, good or bad.
Only through introspection can we see the patterns of our past and with discipline change our path into the future. In many ways George Costanza on the television show Seinfeld was a genius when realizing that all of his past decisions were wrong made a conscious effort to “do the opposite”. In his genius he found that this approach did indeed work and in the genius of the show we saw the difficulty in maintaining this new approach to life. George lacked the discipline and in the lacking gave up to his nature the fruits of his introspection.
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