Dear PG and Dave K.

I think memorizing texts is very good training for the mind. Until the
canonical texts were first written down in their entirety in the first
century B.C.E. in Sri Lanka, they had to be memorized and transmitted
orally.

Regarding mnemonics, instead of the first letter of each word, I would
suggest counting the number of sentences in a paragraph and remembering the
first word or phrase of each sentence. You could also include the last word
or phrase if that is more helpful. As an example, let's take the first
paragraph of the Brahmajaalasutta:

1. Eva.m me suta.m - eka.m samaya.m bhagavaa antaraa ca raajagaha.m antaraa
ca naa.landa.m addhaanamaggappa.tipanno hoti mahataa bhikkhusa"nghena
saddhi.m pa~ncamattehi bhikkhusatehi. Suppiyopi kho paribbaajako antaraa ca
raajagaha.m antaraa ca naa.landa.m addhaanamaggappa.tipanno hoti saddhi.m
antevaasinaa brahmadattena maa.navena. Tatra suda.m suppiyo paribbaajako
anekapariyaayena buddhassa ava.n.na.m bhaasati, dhammassa ava.n.na.m
bhaasati, sa"nghassa ava.n.na.m bhaasati; suppiyassa pana paribbaajakassa
antevaasii brahmadatto maa.navo anekapariyaayena buddhassa va.n.na.m
bhaasati, dhammassa va.n.na.m bhaasati, sa"nghassa va.n.na.m bhaasati. Itiha
te ubho aacariyantevaasii a~n~nama~n~nassa ujuvipaccaniikavaadaa
bhagavanta.m pi.t.thito pi.t.thito anubandhaa [anubaddhaa (ka. sii. pii.)]
honti bhikkhusa"ngha~nca.

This could be reduced to:
1) Eva.m me suta.m --
2) eka.m samaya.m ... bhikkhusatehi.
3) Suppiyopi kho ... maa.navena.
4) Tatra suda.m ... bhaasati.
5) Itiha te ubho ... bhikkhusa"ngha~nca.

But you still have to do the work of memorizing the entire paragraph taking
up one sentence at a time. If you can repeat a sentence three times in
succession from memory without having to look at the text, then move on to
the next sentence and do the same, then repeat the first and second sentence
together three times, then move on to the third and so on until you can
repeat the whole paragraph three times in succession from memory, then at
least once daily until you're confident you have it well-memorized. Memory
fades, so you will have to refresh it periodically.

Best wishes,
Jim

> Hi DaveK,
>
> I tried the tool on that page. works well as long as that string of 1st
> letters is in front of you. After using the string to recall the original
> passage successfully 3-4 times, I tried remembering the passage without
> the
> string in front of me. my performance dropped to a poor 20% or so. so, the
> real problem and challange is to memorise the abstract and meaningless
> string that acts as a peg / trigger to the memory. How wud u do that...and
> preferably...is there a way to recall independent of the string once it's
> been used 2-3 times bcos that shud be the ultimate aim anyway?
>
> with metta
> PG