The Five Remembrances
It seems I am in the life phase where aging is an almost daily topic in conversations, in what my social media feeds produce for me, and what my own body says to me. Although we begin the aging process from the moment we are born, it seems far off until we start to reach our “use by” years. Close on the heels of aging concerns is an increased awareness of our mortality. We can be sure of these things: we will age, we will get sick and injured, and we will all die one day. These are the fundamental and ubiquitous characteristics of being alive.
This sounds so dreary. But it doesn’t need to. When looked at as simply a fact of life, we don’t have to be surprised when these things happen. We may not like it, for sure, and we will grieve our losses, but does it help in any way to rail against these basic facts of our humanity?
For the past few months, I’ve been meditating with a practice known as The Five Remembrances, and I’m finding it tremendously helpful. These five phrases are designed to help us lighten or even abandon our unhelpful attachments to these aspects of life that we cannot control - youth, health, and mortality – and to get clear on the only thing we do have control over, our actions.
The phrases are founded on the principle that all things change – whatever has the nature to arise or come into existence has the nature to change and pass away. We see this in the life of a flower; it arises from a seed, blooms, and dies. A season comes, stays awhile, then changes to the next. We, too, are born, live a while, then die. This is simply the way life is, and when we take an objective look at this, it can help us not to be so surprised or aggravated when we experience things changing. We tend to think (perhaps unconsciously) that life should only bring good things, so we get upset when something bad happens, as though it should not happen, that it is a mistake, rather than simply life being itself. This is a natural reaction because, of course, we don’t want anything bad. The Five Remembrances help to free us from some of the suffering of that reaction when we remember, “Oh, yes. This is how life is; it brings joys and sorrows.”
These are the phrases to be repeated to oneself in a daily practice:
I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.
I am of the nature to become ill and injured. There is no way to escape illness and injury.
I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.
Everyone and everything that I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.
My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.
(For those interested in the source, these phrases come from the Buddhist texts referred to as the Pali Canon, specifically from the Anguttara Nikaya sutta. There are various translations and slight variations of the words.)
For me, the most helpful words in these phrases are ‘of the nature’. It is natural for things to change, for us to get sick sometimes, to age, and to die. We cannot do it otherwise; we are not exempt. For me, acknowledging this is freeing.
I certainly don’t like being sick, but I see that it’s not a mistake when it happens; it’s natural for it to happen. I find this particularly helpful when I consider aging. There are things I don’t like about the changes aging brings, but when I remember we are not designed to stay young, I hold more grace for the aging process.
It took me some time to find comfort and freedom in these phrases. At first, I found them to be unpleasant to consider. Provocative. Challenging. Unwelcome. Maybe even irritating.
We may feel the urge to say, “Then what’s the point? Let’s give up hope and stay under the covers if we are just going to lose everything. Or live the hedonist life, live for ourselves, grasping at every pleasure while we can?”
Rather than being nihilistic, these phrases can be liberating because they underscore the gift, the sacredness of life; I get to be here, experience, appreciate, and savor life for as long as I do. It’s a way to love life deeply even while holding it all a little lightly and not getting over-attached to my things, my identities, even my places and people – all of it will change and pass away. Just like me. It’s helpful to consider that my only true belongings are my actions; the rest is ephemeral. But my volitional actions have consequences, and this encourages me to take care with them.
This isn’t easy, and the phrases are designed to be contemplated daily. There are ways to work with, to be with, what’s hard. There are inner and outer resources, people, and wisdom to support us. For me, it is helpful to consider that there is something bigger than us, bigger than our one life, bigger than our limited minds. I feel the kind of love present in the fabric of the universe and in us, which is fundamentally holding us up. The Five Remembrances help me remember that. Even in these times right now, when there is so much worry, suffering, and uncertainty. Especially now.
How do these Five Remembrances strike you: difficult, off-putting, confusing, intriguing, freeing?
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