Samsara: Visions of The Past and Future

Zen teaches that the past, present and future are all fictions created by the human mind. On one level this is transparently obvious. However, we find it amazingly easy to forget this fact when it comes down to thinking about the world on any level or scale.

In his classic book "What is History", Edward Carr argues that what we think of as history is actually a story woven around "facts" cherry picked to make the "past" seem relevant to the present.  As the "present" changes, the "past" magically evolves to fit into the story we weave around our present issues and challenges.

When I first read this book, I was surprised to see that Carr seemed to give religion a pass. Religion is a creature of culture and perhaps the most active force in culture seeking to re-write the past to suit the needs of the present. Ironically, the "source" materials of religion, for example, the Bible, also contain a strong thread of historical interpretation, so the Bible winds up being layer up on layer of re-reading and re-thinking past events - real and imagined. Such events include:

• The expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden
• The Exodus of Jews from Egypt
• The execution of Jesus
• The resurrection of Jesus

In the Bible, we see the same treatment is given of (what was then) the present. For example, much of what we hear of the teachings of Jesus is a reaction to the then-present occupation of Palestine by the Romans. What was (then) seen as the "future" included (of course) the destruction of the Roman Empire as outlined in the Book of Revelations. Some ignorant souls, including one who was recently President of the United States saw Revelations as referring to our future.

Religions of the book (Islam, Christianity, Judaism) all regard God as acting in history. To these religions, history is important. This contrasts with (for example) Hinduism, which regards history as irrelevant and an illusion. In fact, this distinction -- the idea that history actually *means* something -- is perhaps a more important distinction between the "Book" religions and the others than the belief in God.

It's wise to remember the simplest and most sweeping fact about all this: it's all stories we are telling each other and ourselves.  With minds that work the way they do, it is impossible for us to imagine that the past and future were not as fully real as the present seems to be. In fact, the project of prying apart "reality" from the world of myth is ongoing. We accept that the Gods of Olympus were mythical but find it hard to imagine how the ancient Greeks took them seriously. It's uncomfortable for us to realize that the border between reality and myth was once so fuzzy and that perhaps it still is.

Do you see the catastrophe of global warming as a fact of terrible current significance? Do you see evolution and the Big Bang as objectively real phenomena? How much of what you regard as objective past and future comes from stories you have been told? How much "cherry picking" has gone on to make those stories simple and dramatic? How different do you suppose the stories your children and grand-children will be? Will they use the same "facts"? Will they use "facts" that you have ignored or perhaps facts you have no way of knowing? Will they be as pessimistic about the future as we are? How will they weave us and our civilization into their stories?

Just in passing, I note that strange preoccupation some of us have with making sure that we personally somehow show up in the history told by our descendants.  This usually goes with the flip-side, a conviction that our lives draw meaning through our influence on the future.  Anyone with a passing familiarity with (more or less) accurate history will see how ridiculous both of these ideas are. Even the most famous characters in history (for example Winston Churchill) are buried deep in piles of interpretation and myth. We don't really remember them, we just use them as characters in our myths of the past. The same goes for their visions of the future. How much blood was spilt over the visions of Kings and Popes that their version of the future would prevail? And how many of these visions came true?

The Hindus have a word for this: Samsara.