Our senses send a steady stream of impressions to the brain every waking moment for short-term or long-term storage. Let’s look closely at this process. Impressions are encoded in the limbic system; specifically at the amygdalae. The strength of the impressions are determined by the emotional content, and by repetition of access. Impressions of emotional content or frequent access are more likely to go to long-term storage, encoded at the molecular level throughout the brain.
It is our common experience that disturbing experiences tend to dwell in our mind because of its emotional loading. Also, when learning new things we repeat them often enough to steer them to long-term memory.
Everything we think, see, say, or do leaves its imprint on our mind and body. All the random things that pop up in the mind are imprints of stored impressions. How do we bring peacefulness to all the noise? Since the state of our mind is a function of the accumulated imprints, we can begin to imprint our state with serenity of meditation. This works just like the disturbing imprints common to daily life, only the serene imprint accumulates with repetition and replaces the disturbance.
This is why meditation must be a daily practice; the imprint of stillness aggregates with every repetition. In time the joy of contentment will become stronger than other imprints, and our state lightens in the presence of the stillness.
Once we are steady in our practice, we can assure persistence in the lightness by losing interest in the disturbances. We can simply live as the peaceful presence and follow dharma in the steady state, free from disturbance.
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