The Express Train of Memory

While reading Osho, a thought came to me.

Almost everything we perceive is covered with layers of memory. We rarely see anything for the first time. We see it through countless impressions that have accumulated over the years.

Look at a simple glass sculpture sitting on a mantel.

It isn’t just a piece of glass.

Instantly the mind remembers where it came from, who gave it to us. And next the trophy beside it, the sculpture next to that, the mantel itself, the room, the house, our history, our likes and dislikes. Every object pulls on dozens of associations, and each association awakens dozens more.

The mind becomes an express train.

The thoughts move so quickly that they blur together. We don’t notice individual impressions. We only experience the rushing movement of the whole train.

Somewhere beneath that blur is something much quieter.

Call it awareness. Call it peace. Call it love. Call it God. Call it our true nature. Every one of those words also carries its own layers of memory, so even the labels can hide what they point toward.

Meditation slows the train.

As the body relaxes, thoughts, emotions, sensations, and mental formations begin to spread apart. Tiny spaces appear between them. Those spaces are not empty in a negative sense. They are filled with silence, calm, and presence.

Sketching offers another doorway.

Instead of trying to stop the train, sketching quietly captures a single frame as it passes. One impression is lifted from the rushing stream and placed onto paper.

Now there is only one layer to observe instead of hundreds.

That single layer can be explored without the pressure of everything else racing behind it. As the sketch develops, its outlines become slightly translucent. The walls between experience and awareness grow thinner.

What begins to emerge is not simply the drawing.

It is the space surrounding the drawing.

The silence between the lines.

The gaps between the layers.

Perhaps that is one of sketching’s deepest gifts. It doesn’t merely record what the mind contains. It gently reduces the speed of experience until the quiet that has always been present becomes visible.

Sometimes the most important thing we discover is not another thought.

It is the echo of the spaces between thoughts.