Memory

Mingun Sayadaw
U Vicittasarabhivamsa (GBNF)

He was listed in the “Guinness Book of World Records” for his phenomenal memory. When Burma hosted the Sixth Buddhist Council in 1954 – 56 to commemorated the 2500th year of the “Sasana Calendar”, Sayadaw acted as the “Reciter” of the Tipitaka (Triple Basket : Vinaya (Monastic rules of conduct), Sutta (Discourses), and Abhidhamma (Ultimate Reality)) and selected Commentaries. According to the Kaba Aye Edition, the Tipitaka covers 8000+ pages.

To prepare for the Buddhist Council, Sir U Thwin requested Mingun Sayadaw to take the Tipitaka examination. Sayadaw passed the Oral and Written tests for the Three Baskets with Distinction. He was the first Sayadaw to be conferred “Bearer of the Tipitaka & Treasurer of the Dhamma”. The Oral tests will fail a candidate if he needs five (or six) prompts. Sayadaw did not need a single prompt. The Written tests cover in-depth topics. During the recitation, Sayadaw amazed the examiners by pointing out the variations of the text and highlighted the preferred version.

Sayadaw received requisites. He distributed them to the monks (in the town where he received them). To help ease the monks trying to pass one or more Baskets in the [later] Tipitaka examinations, Sayadaw set up a monastery in Mingun and accepted monks who had finished their Dhammacariya.

Memory Types

We have a short term memory and a long term memory.

When people age, most retain their long term memory, but they often experience decline of their short term memory.

My young cousin approached us and then uttered, “I forgot what I was about to say”.

My high school classmate would abruptly stop in the middle of our walk and pondered, “Did I lock the door?”

Ko Tun Aung’s uncle (GBNF) could recall his primary classmates but could not recognize his beloved grand kid.

There are books and courses about memory.

According to some authors, we could use “chunking”, “association”, “reinforced (non-blind) repetition”, … to move important and worthwhile items in the short term memory into long term memory.

Memory is not static. It is elastic. There is restructuring (reorganizing, indexing, …) every time we use it.

There are techniques (mnemonics, visualization, …) to train and improve our memory.

Thanks to the sayas and colleagues who complimented for having a good memory. I was a mini-dictionary, a micro-encyclopedia, and a reliable proof-reader & spelling checker. May be it was partly because I was born before the pervasive use of Internet and on-line tools, and there was not too much diversion.

There are a few who want to down play the importance of memory by saying, “I can Google …”