Is much of our suffering a result of our inability to remember?

I don’t see it as forgetting but letting oneself ruminate on the past and be anxious about the future makes one incapable of being present in the present or grateful for what one has. I’m getting much better at it – although I had a lot to work through – except for at 3 a.m.!

Gosh. This is kind of tough. I have a friend who receives a lot of help from family members, yet a week later she’ll claim they never do anything for her.

On the other hand, not remembering some things, like a child hood trauma, isn’t always a bad thing. Remembering it could cause more suffering.

I think I understand what you’re saying. The metaphor that comes to my mind is dreaming: there are times when, in the middle of a some ridiculous but worrisome dream, you realize that you’re dreaming. You understand that in reality you’re lying safely in your bed, and that the circumstances in this dream that had been such a cause for concern a few moments ago are actually nothing to worry about. No matter what happens in the dream, fundamentally all is well.

But lucidity like this in a dream comes and goes, and has degrees. The dream can become lucid but then the lucidity can be lost. To use your terms, you forget that it’s a dream, and then the menaces in the dream regain their power over you.

People who want to become proficient lucid dreamers go about it by cultivating a habit of questioning appearances, what they think is going on. They clue into certain anomalies that they have learned signal a dream state. They cultivate an intention to wake up in their dreams. Where the average person might occasionally stumble into lucidity, those who go about it with intentionality find their way there more consistently.

To live lucidly requires the same kind of determination. One has to cultivate the habit of questioning appearances, and learn the signs that can signal that you’re lost in some narrative about reality. The lucidity will come and go, and vary in degree, but it can become more constant. Lucid or not, the dream goes on; but understanding its dream nature affects its power to cause suffering.

^ thanks! Yes, this is what I’m talking about.

That determination to be lucid has been my practice. But I guess I’m wondering (and probably doesn’t really matter) if the success of my lucid “dreaming” correlates with how important being lucid really is to me. If I fail at a staggering rate, yet I claim (to myself) that living lucidly is of utmost importance to me, what does that say? Can we be confused about our own values and intentions? Does behavior provide a better view into our deepest intentions?

The depth of your intention is reflected not in your results, but in your persistence.

It is forgetting that keeps us alive and not committing suicide. Life would be horrible if we remembered every pain, every insult directed to us, every word said at us in anger.

Yet one must work on remembering the blessings we have received. From an evolutionary standpoint, our neural network is designed to protect us by remembering negatives and dangers. It takes work to retire the brain for happy thoughts and happy reactions. But it can be done!

A basic misconception is the idea that happiness is the result of things/people around us being as we think they should be. Consequentially, whenever things/people don’t meet our expectations, we become unhappy.

True happiness measures our ability to accept what is.

Accepting what is is Being Here NOW.

Being Here Now negates the necessity of remembering any thing…

…except, of course, to Be Here Now.

You may be onto something. I heard somewhere that people with Alzheimer are very content. Contentment is way overrated.

Well, we tend to perceive contentment as a goal to achieve rather than a state of acceptance.

The problem with this is you embark upon a never-ending quest to experience who you already are…yet refuse to accept.

@LostInParadise My mother had Alzheimer’s and she was in a nightmare. Same with an uncle on my dad’s side. They’re not content. They’re confused and scared. They suddenly realize that they didn’t recognize their own daughter, and they break down in tears…then forget who the daughter is again. It’s horrible for them.

Thanks for the correction

@LostInParadise Agree with @Dutchess_III and also Alzheimer’s can cause radical personality changes so that many become aggressive and nasty.

And can cause them to do really socially unacceptable things in public.