Carrying the Past

Eckhart Tolle, the renowned spiritual teacher and author of The Power of Now, writes in his second best seller A New Earth about the Zen monks Tanzan and Ekido.

 As the story goes both men were walking along a path to a village. The younger monk, Ekido, was accompanying the older monk asking questions about the way of Zen.

Both came to a deep stream and found a young woman stalled and staring at the water wondering how to get across. Without a blink of the eye the old monk picked her up and with Ekido following, carried her across to the other side. He set her down and the two men walked on. 

Miles down the pathTanzan noticed his student had become unusually quiet. Tanzan inquired, “I notice, my young friend, you have not been talkative since we crossed the stream.” 

Ekido piped up, a bit agitated and perplexed, “Master, you know we monks are not supposed to touch women. But you picked up that woman and carried her across the water.” 

Tanzan was still for a moment, then replied, looking eye to eye at his young protege. “I set the good lady down miles ago. Are you still carrying her?”

As a counselor, this passage by Tolle has become a popular one for me to tell. The question: what was Ekido carrying that he couldn’t put down? 

A belief, for sure, a strong one from his schooling about the protocol for monks touching women.

Carrying the past, or not letting go of the yesterdays; perceived traumas chiseled in mind stone, sometimes bolting us out of sleep in the wee hours of the morning has a root to it.

In TS Elliot’s classic poem, Wasteland, Elliot speaks to time past, time present; an interpretation being, we carry our memories, thoughts, feelings, large and small traumas from yesterday with us. And relive them. 

The wise monk Tanzan would likely shy away from any psychological labeling about young Ekido’s puzzlement over the stream episode. But the Handbook of Neurophysiology suggests the young monk’s response represents the condition of perseveration, the condition in which one can not move on from one idea, thought or feeling. In other words we become stuck.  

Eckhart Tolle says something called “the pain body” is triggered by haunting memories, resulting in anger, sadness or grief. Actions imposed on us by others, or words said by family and friends fester for years and embolden this “pain body”

Paul Simon, the famed singer, said to an interviewer when asked about family memories, My mother told me Art Garfunkel has a better voice than me. That comment was said early on in Simon’s career. Shackled with remembrances of her assessment, he still carries it. 

Like Simon, I carry haunting words said to me by my 96 year old mother before she died. “You’ve broken my heart how you voted,” she told me, believing I’d crossed over to the dark side, me being a two-time Obama voter, but now a conservative.

After she died I found out she’d told many people about her displeasure in me. It wasn’t that my mother disagreed with my choice of a candidate which has kept my rumination going. It was the fact that she shared our discussions with other people that I deemed as a betrayal. I was always of the mindset that what is said in the family, stays in the family. Perhaps, I was naive.

At the root of my great angst then was a feeling of betrayal. In fact, as I write this I feel I am betraying my mother. 

Betrayal causes anger, shame, grief and sadness. 

What can be done with words, regrets, these deep emotions carried from time past to time present when the condition of preservation grapples?  

My next essay will explore strategies easing trauma of carrying the past.