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Memory and Awareness
tmottes
Veteran
I was wondering what you think the connection is between memory and the act of being aware, if any. I find that I don't really remember a lot of details about past events. Is this because I have been too focused on how it applied to my life at the time, rather that simply being aware? Or is it just a physical limitation of my body. What do you think? Do you remember what it was like to have the perspective of 10, 20, 30 years ago? Not only remembering events or certain memories, but what it was like to have a particular outlook on life.
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when you are "being" you are centered in awareness. you just watch things come up and down.
i used to be focused a lot on the past and thinking about all that stuff. then i realized, it really doesn't help to bring all that up into the present. i mean unless i can use it to my benefit, but thats a rarity. what is in front of you is in front of you for a purpose and we must honor what is in front of us.
when we are just being, there is no future or past or present. just this.
nostalgia is a very interesting idea.
lol
I guess memory is really contained in the conditioning that is left in its wake.
to it, then we can move forward.
and what occurs in the future, will happen.
just embrace the ride man.
Memory and perception(sanya) are clinging aggregates. No matter how important we may think they are, whether in the past, present, or future, their nature is empty and is subject to impermanence, suffering, and non-self.
Awareness:
§ "Right awareness has to be paired with the breath."
§ "To be aware means to be aware as soon as defilement arises, to see defilement and not act under its power."
§ "There's no past here, and no future, only the present. No man, no woman, no sign of any kind at all. There's nothing, not even self. What self there is, is only in a conventional sense."
§ "Once awareness is solid, you have to get above and beyond it."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/fuang/itself.html
A student writes:
"I wanted to ask you about memory. I have been working on Shravaka practice as taught by Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche and I keep coming across a stumbling block to do with memory, in as much as memory is more like a rock in a flow of thought and awareness.
This is where my identity and ego are stored, this is where items from my awareness through to childhood are kept. Although memory fades it fades extremely slowly when compared to thoughts and perceptions.
I suppose that I am having conceptual difficulty with this in terms of practise and I would be grateful for your feedback and advice."
Lama Shenpen:
Memory is indeed a fascinating topic. It is not dealt with at all in the Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness because that book is about how to discover and rest in Emptiness.
It doesn't try to deal with what reality is in itself. In the Shentong view, the last view, there is talk of the clear light nature of mind or Buddha Nature, but it doesn't say anything about what that is really.
So we are left with nothing about memory at all and yet our whole world is constructed on the basis of memory!
It is a very profound topic. From the common sense point of view memory is a completely impossible phenomenon. The past is gone and the future hasn't come (by definition).
What we have is the present moment which is one moment (if we said it was more than one it wouldn't make sense - we would be talking about a series of moments some of which would be past or future at any one time).
So where could memory be?
We have to conclude that the common sense model just is not how reality is. We do not 'know' by means of an awareness that occupies the present moment.
When we look at our experience as if it were a moment of awareness, we can never quite know it. It always seems as if we are looking at the moment that has just gone.
But if it had just gone - how would we know it? And if the past really were gone - how would we know anything at all? The whole of reality would have to be in the instant (which anyway is impossible to find) because otherwise it would have gone or not come yet.
This doesn't seem to make sense - but we are onto something. The whole of reality is not in time or in space. Time and space are concepts our thinking mind imposes on reality.
So what we call memory is actually our actual access to reality which our thinking mind then calls memory as if it were a reflection of a reality that had gone.
Actually it hasn't gone anywhere - we are accessing reality itself, but because we don't understand reality we conceptualise the experience as 'my having a memory' - but there is nothing like that happening.
It is more that our awareness is finding a gateway into a corner of reality that we are calling 'past' but which is actually a corner of reality with particular associations and a flavour of its own that intuitively fits our sense of past.
It is intuitive in the sense that we cannot prove that when we sense that something is a memory that it is not just an idea. We can cross check to find evidence of the idea corresponding to the past as remembered or recorded by others - but maybe we are simply checking an idea - even though we think of it as checking our memory. Memory is not regarded as just an idea is it? It is supposed to correspond to reality. Maybe it is reality - and we form an idea about it that we call memory.
And that is how we experience our whole world and our whole life. The question is what is the reality outside of time that we access and think we are remembering?
What a teaser. Well gradually as we follow the path what this really is reveals itself and it is really quite wonderful.
I don't know if this answer helps at all - but I enjoyed thinking about it!
In a series of landmark experiments in the 1920s, brain scientist Karl Lashley found that no matter what portion of a rat's brain he removed he was unable to eradicate its memory of how to perform complex tasks it had learned prior to surgery. The only problem was that no one was able to come up with a mechanism that might explain this curious "whole in every part" nature of memory storage.
Then in the 1960s Pribram encountered the concept of holography and realized he had found the explanation brain scientists had been looking for. Pribram believes memories are encoded not in neurons, or small groupings of neurons, but in patterns of nerve impulses that crisscross the entire brain in the same way that patterns of laser light interference crisscross the entire area of a piece of film containing a holographic image. In other words, Pribram believes the brain is itself a hologram.
Pribram's theory also explains how the human brain can store so many memories in so little space. It has been estimated that the human brain has the capacity to memorize something on the order of 10 billion bits of information during the average human lifetime (or roughly the same amount of information contained in five sets of the Encyclopaedia Britannica).
Similarly, it has been discovered that in addition to their other capabilities, holograms possess an astounding capacity for information storage--simply by changing the angle at which the two lasers strike a piece of photographic film, it is possible to record many different images on the same surface. It has been demonstrated that one cubic centimeter of film can hold as many as 10 billion bits of information.
Our uncanny ability to quickly retrieve whatever information we need from the enormous store of our memories becomes more understandable if the brain functions according to holographic principles. If a friend asks you to tell him what comes to mind when he says the word "zebra", you do not have to clumsily sort back through some gigantic and cerebral alphabetic file to arrive at an answer. Instead, associations like "striped", "horselike", and "animal native to Africa" all pop into your head instantly.
Indeed, one of the most amazing things about the human thinking process is that every piece of information seems instantly cross- correlated with every other piece of information--another feature intrinsic to the hologram. Because every portion of a hologram is infinitely interconnected with ever other portion, it is perhaps nature's supreme example of a cross-correlated system.
The storage of memory is not the only neurophysiological puzzle that becomes more tractable in light of Pribram's holographic model of the brain. Another is how the brain is able to translate the avalanche of frequencies it receives via the senses (light frequencies, sound frequencies, and so on) into the concrete world of our perceptions. Encoding and decoding frequencies is precisely what a hologram does best. Just as a hologram functions as a sort of lens, a translating device able to convert an apparently meaningless blur of frequencies into a coherent image, Pribram believes the brain also comprises a lens and uses holographic principles to mathematically convert the frequencies it receives through the senses into the inner world of our perceptions.
An impressive body of evidence suggests that the brain uses holographic principles to perform its operations. Pribram's theory, in fact, has gained increasing support among neurophysiologists.
Argentinian-Italian researcher Hugo Zucarelli recently extended the holographic model into the world of acoustic phenomena. Puzzled by the fact that humans can locate the source of sounds without moving their heads, even if they only possess hearing in one ear, Zucarelli discovered that holographic principles can explain this ability.
Zucarelli has also developed the technology of holophonic sound, a recording technique able to reproduce acoustic situations with an almost uncanny realism.
Pribram's belief that our brains mathematically construct "hard" reality by relying on input from a frequency domain has also received a good deal of experimental support.
It has been found that each of our senses is sensitive to a much broader range of frequencies than was previously suspected.
Researchers have discovered, for instance, that our visual systems are sensitive to sound frequencies, that our sense of smell is in part dependent on what are now called "cosmic frequencies", and that even the cells in our bodies are sensitive to a broad range of frequencies. Such findings suggest that it is only in the holographic domain of consciousness that such frequencies are sorted out and divided up into conventional perceptions.
But the most mind-boggling aspect of Pribram's holographic model of the brain is what happens when it is put together with Bohm's theory. For if the concreteness of the world is but a secondary reality and what is "there" is actually a holographic blur of frequencies, and if the brain is also a hologram and only selects some of the frequencies out of this blur and mathematically transforms them into sensory perceptions, what becomes of objective reality?
http://www.rense.com/general69/holoff.htm
I wonder how Buddhism reconciles with Bohm's holographic universe theory...
In a series of landmark experiments in the 1920s, brain scientist Karl Lashley found that no matter what portion of a rat's brain he removed he was unable to eradicate its memory of how to perform complex tasks it had learned prior to surgery. The only problem was that no one was able to come up with a mechanism that might explain this curious "whole in every part" nature of memory storage.
Then in the 1960s Pribram encountered the concept of holography and realized he had found the explanation brain scientists had been looking for. Pribram believes memories are encoded not in neurons, or small groupings of neurons, but in patterns of nerve impulses that crisscross the entire brain in the same way that patterns of laser light interference crisscross the entire area of a piece of film containing a holographic image. In other words, Pribram believes the brain is itself a hologram.
Pribram's theory also explains how the human brain can store so many memories in so little space. It has been estimated that the human brain has the capacity to memorize something on the order of 10 billion bits of information during the average human lifetime (or roughly the same amount of information contained in five sets of the Encyclopaedia Britannica).
Similarly, it has been discovered that in addition to their other capabilities, holograms possess an astounding capacity for information storage--simply by changing the angle at which the two lasers strike a piece of photographic film, it is possible to record many different images on the same surface. It has been demonstrated that one cubic centimeter of film can hold as many as 10 billion bits of information.
Our uncanny ability to quickly retrieve whatever information we need from the enormous store of our memories becomes more understandable if the brain functions according to holographic principles. If a friend asks you to tell him what comes to mind when he says the word "zebra", you do not have to clumsily sort back through some gigantic and cerebral alphabetic file to arrive at an answer. Instead, associations like "striped", "horselike", and "animal native to Africa" all pop into your head instantly.
Indeed, one of the most amazing things about the human thinking process is that every piece of information seems instantly cross- correlated with every other piece of information--another feature intrinsic to the hologram. Because every portion of a hologram is infinitely interconnected with ever other portion, it is perhaps nature's supreme example of a cross-correlated system.
The storage of memory is not the only neurophysiological puzzle that becomes more tractable in light of Pribram's holographic model of the brain. Another is how the brain is able to translate the avalanche of frequencies it receives via the senses (light frequencies, sound frequencies, and so on) into the concrete world of our perceptions. Encoding and decoding frequencies is precisely what a hologram does best. Just as a hologram functions as a sort of lens, a translating device able to convert an apparently meaningless blur of frequencies into a coherent image, Pribram believes the brain also comprises a lens and uses holographic principles to mathematically convert the frequencies it receives through the senses into the inner world of our perceptions.
An impressive body of evidence suggests that the brain uses holographic principles to perform its operations. Pribram's theory, in fact, has gained increasing support among neurophysiologists.
Argentinian-Italian researcher Hugo Zucarelli recently extended the holographic model into the world of acoustic phenomena. Puzzled by the fact that humans can locate the source of sounds without moving their heads, even if they only possess hearing in one ear, Zucarelli discovered that holographic principles can explain this ability.
Zucarelli has also developed the technology of holophonic sound, a recording technique able to reproduce acoustic situations with an almost uncanny realism.
Pribram's belief that our brains mathematically construct "hard" reality by relying on input from a frequency domain has also received a good deal of experimental support.
It has been found that each of our senses is sensitive to a much broader range of frequencies than was previously suspected.
Researchers have discovered, for instance, that our visual systems are sensitive to sound frequencies, that our sense of smell is in part dependent on what are now called "cosmic frequencies", and that even the cells in our bodies are sensitive to a broad range of frequencies. Such findings suggest that it is only in the holographic domain of consciousness that such frequencies are sorted out and divided up into conventional perceptions.
But the most mind-boggling aspect of Pribram's holographic model of the brain is what happens when it is put together with Bohm's theory. For if the concreteness of the world is but a secondary reality and what is "there" is actually a holographic blur of frequencies, and if the brain is also a hologram and only selects some of the frequencies out of this blur and mathematically transforms them into sensory perceptions, what becomes of objective reality?
http://www.rense.com/general69/holoff.htm
I wonder how Buddhism reconciles with Bohm's holographic universe theory...
This was not very kind to the rat. They should have left the rat alone and examined their minds without carving into brains.
This I found on wikipedia, and is the closest I can get to for how I personally view nostalgia. The important bit is that last sentence, 'it does not necessarily include a longing or yearning to return to the past, but instead simply an appreciation for it',
Throughout life I've have always shifted the blame on everybody else but me. Hence I've never even know how deep the 5 poisons have been rooted in me and don't know how to elimenate them.
Even when I met my teacher, I cannot really apply the teachings properly until I awakened to these faults and not just explaining them off intellectually or using escapism with enteratinment or meditation.