This process of addressing the dangers of ignorance goes back to childhood when, not knowing, we might have wandered into traffic or touched a hot stove. Once learned, the memory began to implicitly act on this teaching in just about every situation. It must know for us or it's not doing its job.
Since we can't know an experience until we have it, one strategy that is often applied when we don't know, is to backtrack on the three strings of five words starting with experiencing what we had, thought, felt, said or did before things changed to see what we have always, never, should, could and can't connected to the I, you,we, they and/or this -- now and in the future. This process takes us through all this, believe it or not, so we can be safe in the knowledge and have peace (aka, win, be safe, know, be free).
An example of backtracking would be to hear some news that some one or something is different from our expectations. At that precise moment we don't know what life will be like with this change. The I recalculates memories of what it has always, never, should, could, can't, have, think, feel, say or do in the past, so that in the next moment it can "know" what it can have, think, feel, say, or do in the future with regard to what changed. (by the way, there went your present moment.)
If we don't see this coming, we are tricked into thinking events (people and things) make us act and react the way we do when it is actually of our own doing (well, it's actually the automatic doing of the implicit memory (the I) which is only a symbol of what we know but which we often mistakenly identify as self).
When we are lucid to this process and consciously choose to do Nothing (don't listen to or create a story) we can know Nothing - the unconditional potential that precedes and supplies the limits of our determination.
This concept of skipping over the story is known in many scientific and spiritual traditions. It is like leaping into a wormhole in the space-time continuum through to the other side without having to endure all the drama. The most ancient Hindu vedas call it Turiya, the fourth or transcendental state.
When something comes up to which the mind would like to add some story, practice doing nothing, let the space of not knowing grow, and get comfortable in it. When we know Nothing by transcending the limits of the stories or mitote of the implicit memory, there is nothing we can't do!
Be lucid!
Photo: "Stories" by Lev Nicolayevich Tolstoy courtesy of cod_gabriel at flickr.com via creative commons license
