Most of the time, I think I am doing the second one. There are certainly things from the past that deserve answers. If something remains unresolved and the truth can still be discovered—as with MH370—then searching the past is not attachment to it. It is necessary action in the present. But in my own life, I can see how easily “I am trying to understand what happened” becomes an excuse to keep revisiting something. I replay conversations. I think of what I should have said. I wonder why somebody behaved the way they did. Sometimes I even arrive at a new explanation, feel satisfied for a while, and then return to the same incident again. 😄 At that point, I am not really searching for an answer. I am feeding the same old centre. So perhaps the test is quite simple: Is looking at the past changing what I see and do today? If I made a mistake, can I see what in me produced it? If somebody hurt me, can I understand why that incident still has such power over me? If a pattern keeps repeating, can I see the part of myself that keeps recreating it? Otherwise even “learning from the past” can become another nice phrase for remaining occupied with it. MH370 also makes the distinction very stark. The families need facts because there is a real unanswered question. But even there, the only place from which anything can now be done is the present. Maybe that is the right relationship with the past too: Go back when there is something worth seeing. But whatever you discover there must change the person standing here today.
