Our attachment to the past shapes our present experience, often filling it with regret, guilt, or longing.
But is it merely the past itself that holds us captive, or is it our relationship to it?
Memories, after all, are not the problem; they are simply recordings of what has been. The real issue is how thought continuously revives them, distorting our perception of the present.
We compare, measure, and seek continuity with past pleasures, or we resist and struggle against painful memories. In doing so, we remain entangled in time—either recreating old patterns or trying to escape them.
Can joy and peace be cultivated as an effort to be free from the past, or do they arise naturally when we stop interfering with what is?
Observing the movement of thought without identifying with it may allow the past to loosen its grip, not through suppression or effort, but through understanding.
What happens when we stop trying to free ourselves and simply see the mind’s tendency to cling to what was?
Perhaps in that very seeing, a different quality of freedom emerges—one that is not sought, but simply is.
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