Look, sirs, you see a lovely sunset, a beautiful tree in a field, and when you first look at it, you enjoy it completely, wholly; but you go back to it with the desire to enjoy it again. What happens when you go back with the desire to enjoy it? There is no enjoyment, because it is the memory of yesterday’s sunset that is now making you return, that is pushing, urging you to enjoy. Yesterday there was no memory, only a spontaneous appreciation, a direct response; but today you are desirous of recapturing the experience of yesterday. That is, memory is intervening between you and the sunset; therefore, there is no enjoyment, no richness, fullness of beauty. Again, you have a friend who said something to you yesterday, an insult or a compliment, and you retain that memory; and with that memory you meet your friend today. You do not really meet your friend—you carry with you the memory of yesterday, which intervenes; and so we go on, surrounding ourselves and our actions with memory, and therefore there is no newnesss, no freshness. That is why memory makes life weary, dull, and empty.
J. Krishnamurti/The Collected Works vol V, p 119
