Garbage Collector

 

These images are taken from Yoshihito Koizumi

There is a computer language called Java. It has a garbage collector built in. The garbage collector is a form of automatic memory management. It attempts to reclaim the memory used by objects that will never be accessed again by the application. There are sometimes when we are like a garbage collector. We collect all sort of garbage such as other people’s garbage, our own garbage and don’t know how to dispose them. When we see something we don’t like to see, we keep it in our garbage collection; when we hear something we don’t want to hear, we keep it in our garbage collection. Metaphorically speaking, the garbage we collect is essentially what we don’t like or what we like. Its gets to a stage where we can no longer handle this garbage as it is full. Our emotions are dislocated. We feel misery; we feel as though life has deceived us; thus become unhappy because we cannot accept. Simple, the more garbage we collect, the more unhappy we will be. Our unhappiness is caused by how heavy our baggage has become, effecting our ‘happy’ life negatively. One must learn to let go. 

Through others’ speech and actions, we can learn what we should do and what we shouldn’t do. For example, when we see a beautiful sunset, we see it as a beautiful sunset. We shouldn’t expect tomorrow’s sunset to be the same. When we see something we don’t like to see, we can learn from the thing that we don’t like to see. We accept and move on. We should see thing as it is, not as what we want it to be. It’s the same thing as how our thought rises in our mind. If it’s a good memory, we acknowledge it; if it’s a bad memory arises in our mind, we should acknowledge it and should no longer need to follow these thoughts. The past has already passed. The future is yet to come and we must live in the present moment. Let each moment come and pass naturally, likewise as the sun rises and sets. The more we follow our thought the more trouble your mind will get.

If we want to be a happy person, we need to learn how to dispose our garbage. Letting go is the way to dispose our garbage. Why do we need to meditate? It’s to observe what sort of garbage we have inside our mind and learn how to let go.

31/12/2011 Rajgir