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Good Morning ‘Things are never really past’ is a German saying. I heard it quoted in a news broadcast this week, in the context of Ukraine and Russia’s desire to keep it within its sphere of influence. Hearing it reminded me of the way in which Britain’s former imperial power and its victory in World War II hovered in the background of the Brexit debate. The past interweaves with the present, in global conflicts and at a personal level. Just as countries and communities can cling to things that are past, the way I see the world is formed by the hurts I’ve experienced, the friends I’ve lost to illness and the relationships that have collapsed. Even a moment of humiliation in childhood can last a lifetime. Mindfulness is often offered as an antidote to the negative ways the past enters our present. It’s popularly described as being in the present without judging oneself, aware of what is happening in one’s mind and emotions now. The term comes from Buddhism but being in the present is just one of its meanings. In the early texts, it also meant recollecting, remembering – with discrimination. Mindfulness in Buddhism is not forgetting the past but remembering it, facing it, in a way that leads to beneficial change. Remembering the compassion of the Buddha or Jesus’s empowerment of those rejected by society is mindfulness. Recollecting past mistakes and forgiving oneself for them is mindfulness. Examining the causes of our suffering and pain is mindfulness. Last Saturday saw the death in his 96th year of Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk. He spent much of his life in Europe encouraging mindfulness as a way to peace – not just individual peace but peace within societies. He also stressed interbeing, a word he coined to explain our deep interconnectedness with every other living being. So conflict in one part of the world can be caused by policies in another part or past imperialisms. And if we had been born in another time or place, subject to other influences or abuses, we could be guilty of what we now condemn. I, for instance, in other circumstances, according to Nhat Hanh, could have become a thief or a murderer. Christians might say – there, but for the grace of God, could I have been. So mindfulness is not only about the present but about the past and how it influences the present. And breakthrough comes when we realise that we need not be imprisoned by our pasts.