The Chronicles of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Solidifying the Present Aspect of the Past

Solidifying processes can develop because we tend to develop a sense of time. The past is memories of achievement, memories of establishment, so to speak; the future is the possibility of continuing that achievement; and the present situation is taking a chance on that, solidifying the whole thing. We have developed too much reference to time as a record of successive processes, achievements, accomplishments that we have managed to collect. We have made something like a file out of it, a case history out of it. So our achievements have been recorded and recorded and recorded–constantly. In other words, the corpse of the present is being preserved as a record. And as we go along, we go on achieving, so that the whole process becomes more past oriented. We have recourse to our records as a way of proving ourselves and also as a way of digging up new information. If emergency situations come up, we could reuse our old records, we could repeat them. And that recording situation goes on all the time. It is solidifying the present aspect of the past.