Me-Mine Maker
Memory’s Devious Trick
There is no stronger more devious me-mine maker than memory
The Buddhist doctrine of annatā holds that there is no self. Memory begs to differ. Here’s the problem: You recognize the memories. You were there. You did this thing. You kissed that girl. You thought this thing. That face is your mother’s face, you should know, she was yours for a long time.
Given the overwhelming evidence, yes, of course you exist.
And yet, and yet, the Buddha categorically states that there is no “you” or “yours” (no “I”, “me”, or “mine”) flying squarely in the face of the evidence.
Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, the revered Thai Buddhist monk, naturally sides with Gotama Buddha. Buddhadasa’s take, and his most heartfelt message and teaching: “Nothing whatsoever should be clung to as “I” or “mine.” And then he proceeds to, in (verging on exhausting) detail, delineate what is included under “nothing whatsoever.” Well, just that, everything from the tiniest spec of dust to place-time-and-formless Nirvana; none of that should be clung to, at all.
Including, of course, memories.
But how do you uncling to memories that are so obviously yours?
Before I even try to answer that, let’s ask another question: What is memory? Who records it? Where is it stored? How come a certain smell in the present instantly conjures up the restaurant where you last (or at some time in the past) encountered that precise odor? Who or what makes the connection?
Irreducible Mind
Irreducible Mind, a massively impressive book written by (or, more accurately, compiled by — there are several contributors) Edward F. Kelley and Emely Williams Kelley, addresses the question and at some length argues against the prevailing assumption that the physical brain does it all.
Matter, physical stuff, they point out cannot perceive, record, nor later recollect anything. It’s just matter, just like a rock or a toothpick. Life, somehow, in some capacity must be involved they argue.
To highlight the prevailing view, they quote Antonio Damasio (1999) who in a speech encapsulates it as follows: “In an effort that continues to gain momentum, virtually all the functions studied in traditional psychology — perception, learning and memory, language, emotion, decision-making, creativity — are being understood in terms of their brain underpinnings. The mysteries behind many of these functions are being solved, one by one, and it is now apparent that even consciousness, the towering problem in the field, is likely to be elucidated before too long.”
On the subject of “memory storage,” the Kellys point out that the metaphors of a memory “store” and of memory “storage” have a long history and there has been a good deal of hovering between literal and metaphorical interpretations of these terms.
Taken literally, they say, a memory “store” would be something like a cupboard or a filing cabinet in the mind or brain that might contain equivalents of notes, file cards, or photographs, perhaps labeled and arranged systematically. But to retrieve, look at, and recognize these items would require a person or second memory system (or “homunculus”) already possessing the relevant skills and memories to do so.
The materials stored would have only the status of memory aids and for the analogy to shed significant light on the nature of memory, a further and fuller and non-regressive account of this second, retrieving, system, as well as of the storage system, would be needed.
The Kellys go on to point out that such accounts are neither available nor readily discoverable. Of late, various semi-distinct memory “stores” have been proposed by cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists — for example, a short-term store or stores, a long-term store or stores, a stored lexicon possibly subdivided into various types of categorial stores, and so forth. However, without the backing of an adequate and non-regressive explanation of how these stores could possibly perform the functions assigned to them, these proposals amount largely to recommending ways of speaking that highlight relationships between damage to certain brain systems and various kinds of memory malfunctions, or between performance of certain memory tasks and corresponding metabolic or electrical activity in certain brain regions. These relationships themselves are for the most part far from clear, consistent, and compelling, and their proper interpretation remains uncertain.
The bottom line, and which I believe they argue convincingly, the brain, as a physical entity, is clearly incapable of recording, storing, or retrieving memory.
So what then? I ask. Who or what is doing it?
Consciousness
Consciousness, they reply. Consciousness, that bane of neurological research, is involved. It has to be involved. Consciousness in the guise of spiritual awareness.
However, retorts current scientific opinion, there is no such thing. There are no things that go bump in the night. It’s all physical, it’s all the brain. Biology and chemistry. Atoms and blood and oxygen.
But wait a minute, how can something physical be conscious, aware? one wonders.
To which science replies: We don’t quite know this yet, but rest assured that we will find out, eventually.
I come down on the site of the Kelleys. Consciousness, Life, is involved. Life does the perceiving, recording, storing, and subsequent retrieval of such perception as memory.
But here is where non-self doctrine rears its ugly (or not so ugly) head. If there is no self, how are perceptions recorded, stored, retrieved, and viewed from the obviously very much “self” viewpoint?
Meditation
Sometimes during meditation, attention sweetly but firmly anchored on the breath, an involuntary — and I stress that as far as I can tell, this is not “my” doing — an image of, say, my sister, aged three, in the summer field outside our northern Swedish cottage, floats up and parades for a moment or two before it exits left — trailing sweet grassy air.
Other images, some more vivid than others, some more frequently than others, appear and invite my joining them in the fun — should I accept I’ll be off on a short or long tangent, should I decline it’ll exit left (or right) as well, a little morose perhaps at being rejected.
What I have noticed, however, is that virtually all, if not actually all such images — that my brain seems to generate — are from this life, retrieved and displaying scenes from somewhere (and somewhen) during the seventy-odd years that I’ve been around as the Swedish Ulf.
Cells
And here’s what I’m beginning to suspect: Cells are alive, right? Life is present in all cells, brain cells included (if not especially).
Perhaps, individually, they are not the most conscious or aware of all life, but — and this gives me chills — but perhaps they are conscious enough, aware enough, to individually perceive, record, store, and then offer up as requested, images of recent (or not so recent) perception.
Perhaps it’s not “part of me” who perceives and records, but these little cellular darlings that constitute the brain. Not the physical aspect of the cells (as current science maintains) but the spiritual aspect of these cells.
And, apparently, these cells can float images up into the poor meditator’s awareness as they see fit.
I am not saying that I know this to be the case, but I’m saying that this would corroborate the scientific observation that certain kinds of thoughts (say of smells) will “light up” certain parts of the brain — i.e., that part which houses the company of living cells assigned the task to perceive, record, recall, and offer up perceptions of smell.
That would also explain why all of these memories that arise in the stillness of meditation are from this life: they are stored in the live memories of this-life cells.
How about the “self” then, who perceives the image and says, yes, that’s mine, I was there, I’d swear on a Bible.
But, says I, who really owns this memory, this perception and image? No, not the consciousness currently masquerading as “self” and who’s looking, but the little cell guys who actually hold on to it. As it rises to be viewed, it really isn’t “yours” or “mine”; rather, it belongs to what Buddhadasa Bhikkhu would simply call “nature”, i.e., the brain cells (not the brain, but the living cells whose job and duty it apparently is to keep accurate records).
A true non-self awareness seeing one of this-life images arise would, if wholly in the present, see an image arise and then depart and think no more of it. Images rise, images part, it’s nature.
I truly believe that the life that resides at the heart of a cell is every bit as capable as the life that resides at the heart of a human, or at the heart of an angel. It is the same life. And, the same way that another person can keep his or her thoughts from me, so cells seem quite able to do the same, though with more difficulty since, as consciousness, you are immersed among them, and, to be honest, they seem to enjoy surprising you.
Just a thought.
© Wolfstuff
