Let's say I did something horrible 10 years ago, a year ago or yesterday, for example I ran over a child (the world is a crowded place and unfortunately mistakes happen technically).

It hunts me everyday. But the good news is the guilt has absolutely no sense (other than prevent such mistakes to happen again and be even more observant) because the fact is it was not 'me' who did it! I have nothing in common with 'Arek' from a year ago. In another words, there may be the memory but there is no 'me'.

It is not just a word trick to cheer someone up. It is a fact. There is nothing passing from moment to moment aside of the memory. We are completely new. We have the memory but it is not 'we' who are in it. It is a paradox.

It is very easy to get entangled in sorrow if one lives in thought (fragmentary perception) but the fact is there is nothing going from yesterday to today aside memory. And it doesn't have to be so. If memory does not pass, there is nothing that passes.

I suspect it is what is behind the 'repent and be forgiven' procedure in the church which is a misunderstanding and misinterpretation and mistranslation of Jesus' Metanoia.