Walkabout – Recalling a Memory

The question was posed in our recent conference call: What might be the benefit of using “Recalling a Memory” as a Walkabout exercise?

The ‘Walkabout’ concept of inquiry are easy questions that can be explored at any time throughout ordinary daily activities. They can be based on the TSK books, essays, or a personal wish to explore. One simple example was given on page xv of the Preface of ‘Inside Knowledge’: (As well as numerous others further on in the book)

“As you go about your activities, how much awareness do you give to the space behind you?” What happens if you try expanding that awareness?”

I proposed another one I found particularly fruitful, which I’ve named “Recalling a Memory”:

Pick a vivid memory, paying close attention to the factors at work in this remembrance. Try returning to that same memory frequently throughout the day. What do you notice about ‘re-calling‘? Keep an open mind about what is involved. In this way, you may discover new factors while re-evaluating the old ones.

I found this Walkabout became ‘haunting’, I kept returning to it at different times during the day like visiting a familiar place – familiar though different. The Walkabout seemed to act like a variant of TSK Exercise 28 – A Cycle of Seeing, in which 10 ‘things’ are recalled repeatedly throughout the day, cycled over and over. Through focus and concentration it was possible to not only observe the repetitive nature of cycling, but to also notice the structuring involved in creating the constellation of the presupposed. It was also possible to see into the evaluations and priorities of the self. You may experience directly the knowing process.

And so it was with the ‘Recalling a Memory’ Walkabout, it can be an insight into the structuring process of knowing. You could use the ‘first example’ of a Walkabout above as a metaphor of expanding awareness of the space behind you, as you ‘recall a memory’, they pair well together. Because as you expand awareness in the present by merging with an expansive awareness of the memory of the past, there may be a dawning of knowingness. As Rinpoche says:

“Any presentation of time can be opened, using higher knowledge, to any other presentation because time is like a bridge: it preserves the connection among all of its apparent points. Each point contains all points.”
‘Inside Knowledge’, Essay by Tarthang Tulku, ‘Oceans of Knowledge’, p. 63