can these thoughts help everyday people in overcoming suffering? Let's discuss a bit…
Are the Buddhist Five Remembrances just for Buddhists?
One of the things I love about Buddhism is its practical wisdom for living life. You do not have to be a “Buddhist”, or even practice “Buddhism” per se, to benefit from Buddhist wisdom (well, I guess you do have to practice the ideas, but not as a formal religion as some think of Buddhism).
Do not get hung up on Buddhism as a religion or a philosophy not accessible to all people, or conflicting with your current religion, but let’s explore the practical life lessons we all can personally use.
To set the stage remember the Buddha said… “I Teach Only Suffering and the End of Suffering”.
As an everyday person, who wouldn’t like to better understand why we suffer and how to deal with the suffering we will encounter in our lives? This is what we are going to cover today – suffering and ideas to overcome suffering.
"I Teach Only Suffering and the End of Suffering."
Another lesson I truly love about Buddhism is the fact that it starts out with the premise of practice and proof rather than any form of blind faith. So for example there are several quotes where Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) said…
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense."
So like Buddha, I say DO NOT believe anything I say, write, or teach, but rather, try the idea or concept and make up your own mind if it is true and if the practice works for you or not. This brings us to today’s lesson…
The Five Remembrances
I’ll start with Thich Nhat Hanh‘s translation of the Five Remembrances and then dig in on a more westernized translation. I’ll add some of my own thoughts on each of the Five Remembrances as well.
Thich Nhat Hanh’s is a famous Zen Buddhist monk that I follow, study, and practice his works and he’s also the leader in the featured photo above.
Here is Thich Nhat Hanh’s version of the Five Remembrances…
- I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.
- I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.
- I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.
- All that is dear to me and everyone 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.
It is recommended to repeat these words daily or on a regular basis as a reminder to live the ideas or as a way to reflect and seek deeper understanding of life. Here is a video I found discussing The Five Remembrances. Enjoy!
And here is another version with my random thoughts related to each one reviewing my thoughts on how these five remembrances help us in overcoming suffering.
•
I am subject to aging.
There is no way to avoid aging.
In modern culture, or maybe in all cultures, we often love growing up and getting older as a kid and then once we become an adult we sometimes avoid accepting our aging. I’d assume this is out of fear of death.
If you take a moment right now to sit and reflect you will probably be able to admit that we are aging right now as we read this article and everyday we get another day older. If we embrace this concept, that we will continue to age, we can let go of fears of aging.
We can try to be more aware of the present moment to enjoy what we DO have – this moment RIGHT HERE. Also, think about aging as we do about a fine wine – it only gets better with age. So too are you and I. We WILL age and so let’s embrace this truth.
•
I am subject to ill health.
There is no way to avoid illness.
Sometimes it seems silly to think about what seems like such basic ideas, but we neglect these things until we are in the thick of an illness and then get down on ourselves. What if we not only realized that we WILL get sick at some point in our lives but also accept that this is just a part of life and embrace illness when it does hit us.
I guess the point is by letting go of the stress associated with illness or previously mentioned aging we both age less and may be sick less as stress is one of the reasons we age and get sick. This is why self care is so important.
The Buddha says we get sick from our senses and consuming without mindfulness. This is not just the common consumption of food as we typically think of consumption, but it is much more than that. Thich Nhat Hanh states there are Four Kinds of Nutriments – things like – edible foods, sense impressions (sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, and mind), volition (our will), and consciousness (state of being).
This is why they recommend mindful consumption and why monks avoid things like gambling, using alcohol, drugs, or any other products which contain toxins, such as certain websites, electronic games, TV programs, films, magazines, books, and conversations.
So explore what we surround ourselves with and what we ingest as these things could be leading to our illnesses. An example is how processed foods or smoking can lead to cancer with longterm use, but also include the violence we consume from movies or video games.
We ALL will get sick, but are there ways to understand sickness, avoid the causes of deeper harm, and build a healthy way to deal with any illness we encounter?
Supportive communities and belonging, as an example, can help. As someone who’s had depression, I can tell you changing my consumption was helpful for easing my mental suffering several years ago.
If we think of the monastics, they consume vegetarian diets, they meditate regularly, they exercise, they practice relaxation, there are solid friendships built through community, and they use many other elements of healing through lifestyle. Is there anything we can learn from them?
I feel I actually applied several of these ideas related to consumption and practices and it greatly helped my break free of depression. I deal with the illnesses I do get much better and I think this is the point – minimizing the harm it does to us and others. This is not easy, but it is a good path to walk (at least in my eyes a better one for me).
•
I am of the nature to die.
There is no way to escape death.
As I mentioned earlier, we are often very fearful of death. Maybe it is because we have control issues and have no real idea what happens to us once we die. Or maybe it is because we love ourselves and our identity and our bodies and we are very attached to them and the idea of “self”.
Or maybe we just fear change. If we look at a butterfly though, changing from a caterpillar to a butterfly is not death, but a new stage of life. What if our death brings us to the next stage of our purpose of being?
In Christianity this could mean going to heaven. In Buddhism it could be reencarnation or what I feel Thich Nhat Hanh teaches – reconnecting to the energy of the universe.
No matter what our belief system, we are getting closer to death every day. That is scary if we embrace our current life situation as the only situation we will have and we cling to it.
However if we believe death is not an end to life but our continuation in whatever the next form or situation is, I think we live a fuller life and we actually become what we are meant to be.
Thinking of others and not just about our own death, we often suffer when we lose our parents or family or friends because they are not around as we previously knew them or experienced life together with them.
The thing is… these folks continue on with us.
As tough as it is, I know I have family and friends that have passed on, that I continue on my journey with. No I cannot give them a hug or have a typical physical relationship with them, but they are still with me on my journey.
I know some friends and family will carry on with me at their side and I’ll be joining them on their journey. Letting go of the stress related to death liberates us in this life, but this comes from accepting death is in our future and dealing with it in our lifetime. Live every day as if it was your last and appreciate the day fully.
This is serious work and it is so tough at least in Western cultures. It is an ongoing process for me to learn to accept and find ways to continue my love for this person, without them. It is sad and hard but through time and reflecting on the ideas time and time again, it does get easier.
•
All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change.
There is no way to escape being separated from them.
If we look at how attached we are to our connections and our stuff you can see how much stress this induces in our lives.
In my neighborhood there is, what seems to me, a lot of petty crime related to youth rummaging around in cars or stealing packages left on our doorsteps. Of course this is awful if we are attached to that stuff.
I have been guilty of being attached to my own stuff so I get it, but if we think about people who live in areas where tornados, hurricanes, or earthquakes are common we may notice people have a mildly different tolerance for destruction or loss.
Yes, of course they never want to lose things, but when destruction hits, they rebuild and move on. In the actual state of total destruction what do they think about most? Family and connections more than their stuff. We often DO live in a state of fear of loss due to our attachment to our stuff. This can cause a great deal of suffering.
So the understanding here is recognizing that change is inevitable. In Buddhism this is the idea of IMPERMANENCE meaning nothing is permanent and everything is constantly changing. This concept is very powerful because we WILL lose everything and everyone we hold dear to us.
Changing our thoughts on our attachment or our thoughts on the permanence of our stuff and our relationships can greatly help us overcome our fears and our suffering related to change or loss.
I am not going to lie though and see losing a friend or loved one is ever easy. I had a dear friend move a while back and it was really hard. Nothing changed beyond not being local to each other, but I struggled hard. It was a dear friend and they just moved.
Death of course is even harder and takes more work and time for healing. There is not much we can do but just BE, just continue to love them, move on, and carry them with us in everything we do.
•
My actions are my only true belongings.
I cannot escape the consequences of my actions.
My actions are the ground on which I stand.
This is where a Hellagood Life comes in. What if living a life with the focus on benefiting others was your only “true belonging”?
Think about folks on their death beds. They never say… I wish I worked more, right? It is said they often wish they spent more time with family and friends. Honestly, this could be my curse if I do not change.
For me, when I think about how helping others makes me feel, it totally makes me feel good and brings joy to my heart. When I think about how I got revenge or intentionally harmed others I feel bad and sad.
Basically our actions in life are what build the foundations of our lives. Granted we all make mistakes and do stupid things but the question is… did we try to correct our mistakes or minimize the harm we did? If not are we building on shaky ground?
When we work on doing no harm, we may realize the more solid foundation we are building for our lives. At least I did. Once we start down the path of mindfulness we often find that the more we feel these healthy practices in our life, the more we want more of them and actually practice them more often.
We find out this is something we’ve been longing for in our lives and just had no idea this was something that was missing in our lives (in my case anyhow). It brings joy and a lasting or sustainable happiness that our previous life didn’t provide (or only temporarily provided).
So why do I share this Buddhist wisdom with you?
Hopefuly to help you and anyone who reads this… explore ways to Overcoming Suffering in their life.
Well, in all honesty my own experiences exploring some of these ideas and practicing different forms of mindfulness has minimized my own suffering in life. Actually it exposed me to ways I didn’t even realize I was suffering.
These are just the a few of the seeds to end suffering starting with understanding what causes our suffering. In an earlier article I covered the Five Mindfulness Trainings and how using some of these ideas we can add nutriments to the soil where these seeds are planted.
Much of the courses and content I’ve been creating for Hellagood Life are to bring sunshine and water to these seeds as an aligned effort to build a thriving garden of goodness. I hope you’ll keep exploring these ideas with me and enjoy the journey we are on together.
So basically to minimize the harm in the world I am sharing these ideas with as many people as possible including you. I hope in reviewing the Five Remembrances you found ideas you hadn’t thought about much before and maybe even found some new things to apply in your life. I hope that on deeper reflection, you find less suffering in your own future and spread the word to help others do the same. That is what this site is all about.
Peace, Love, and Respect to you, my friends!
Want to try adding mindfulness and meditation to your self-care routine? Click below to get details about the Introduction to Mindfulness & Meditation mini-course.