The Five Remembrances

This is a soothing guided meditation covering the Five Remembrances. A great daily practice for those who seeking understanding and motivation in the dharma.

Transcript

Hello and welcome.

My name is Silas Day and today we are going to be doing a guided meditation on something that I think motivates us to practice.

This is a guided meditation on the five remembrances.

These remembrances are chanted daily all around the world by people in Asia,

Africa,

Europe,

And the Americas who practice Buddhism as a way to have a daily reminder about why they are doing their practice.

These remembrances are not things that should make you fall into nihilism and apathy,

But should help generate motivation for you to cultivate a deep-seated sense of compassion,

Understanding,

And a connection to the nature of impermanence.

What I am going to do is read one of the five remembrances,

Let it sit for a moment,

Let you mull over it,

And then lead you in a short visualization with that specific remembrance.

To begin,

Let's get into a meditation position,

Either in a chair,

Lying down,

Or in the cross-legged position on a cushion or on the floor,

Whatever is most comfortable for you.

Let's come into the body,

Find our balance,

And turn the awareness towards the breath,

But turn the focus and the mind towards the contemplation on the words that I am going to be saying.

The first remembrance is,

I am subject to aging.

Aging is unavoidable.

I am subject to aging.

Aging is unavoidable.

Try and imagine all of the elderly people that you know and that you see during the day.

Imagine yourself growing old.

Imagine your skin sagging,

Liver spots,

Baldness,

Bones aching,

Loss of energy,

Slowness,

Frailty,

And fragility of body,

Loss of memory.

Imagine yourself at the peak of bodily decay just before death.

See yourself there,

But remember and repeat to yourself,

I am of this nature.

I cannot escape it.

I am subject to aging.

Aging is unavoidable.

The second of the five remembrances is,

I am subject to illness.

Illness is unavoidable.

I am subject to illness.

Illness is unavoidable.

Imagine yourself truly diseased,

Unable to hear,

Unable to see,

No control over what's leaving your body,

Vomiting,

Pain from within and without.

Recall all the times you have been sick in the past and remember the experiences you went through.

Imagine that as you get older,

It will only get worse.

But remember and repeat to yourself,

I am of this nature.

I cannot escape this.

The third of the five remembrances is,

I am subject to death.

Death is unavoidable.

I am subject to death.

Death is unavoidable.

Imagine your death,

The heat leaving the body,

The air leaving the body,

All the fluids in you drying up,

The physical elements breaking down and dissipating.

Observe the transitory nature of your body,

The inherent emptiness that it is composed of.

See it as a linear process,

What your body will look like after an hour,

What your body will look like after a day,

What it will look like after three days,

A week,

A month,

A year.

Sometimes it is wise to imagine oneself being eaten by coyotes or vultures turning into the soil all while repeating,

I am of this nature.

I will die and I cannot escape this.

The fourth of the five remembrances is,

I will grow different and separate from all that is dear and appealing to me.

I will grow different and separate to all that is appealing to me.

See your likes or dislikes.

See them as unstable and unreliable.

The things you like are subject to change just like everything else.

One day you will enjoy a piece of music,

The next day it is too harsh.

One day your clothes are soft and the next day they are coarse.

One moment your love is sweet and nice,

The next they are angry.

Know that all of your likes and dislikes you will ultimately have to put down at death.

You cannot take anything with you besides your own actions.

The final of the five remembrances are,

I am the owner of my actions,

Heir to my actions.

I am the result of my actions and my life is the result of my actions.

My actions are all I will take with me when I die.

Recall your actions,

Everything you have done in life,

The good actions,

The bad ones.

Have you been skillful in your actions?

Have you been gentle with people,

Patient,

Calm,

Understanding and compassionate?

Or have you been not so much those things?

After the breakup of your body,

Will the reverberations of your actions be good or bad?

These are the five remembrances.

But they are not without their opposite,

When they are worked with,

When true compassion and gentleness and merit are cultivated,

And when we touch into the very heart of the Dharma and feel it through our essence and in our actions,

We may know their opposites.

It is our nature to be reborn,

Renew,

Recreate and be forever changing.

It is our nature to thrive and be healthy beyond illness and injury.

Death is an illusion.

We are eternal.

All that is dear and delightful is our eternal nature and it will never vanish.

But we are sovereign and free.

These are the five remembrances,

A contemplation on them and their opposites.

If you wish,

Remember them daily.

It helps to spur one to generate loving,

Understanding,

Compassion and a practice of meditation,

However you meditate.

Reviews

I am starting to learn the 5 remembrances. I liked the narrator - he speaks with compassion and calmness. This will be a regular meditation for me going forward.

The contemplations for each remembrance were useful. Sound quality very low, but still, this is a practice to return to. Thank you.

This meditation is wonderful. I have come back over and over again. Thank you 🙏🏽

Thank you for sharing 🙏🏽

soothing voice, beautiful thoughts

I like the soothing voice, the call out that this is for compassion to self & others, not nihilism, & the visualizations. Thank you, I will return to this.

Thank you. Your visualizations help keep the meaning fresh. Be well.

Thank you Silas for awaking me to honestly look at my actions.

Thank you so much Silas, for this meditation on the five remembrances. I found it calming and grounding, I will listen often..

I found myself struggling with the remembrances but realized how the me that was aware of my thoughts knew how these thoughts and feelings where from a place of fear. As I surrendered to my Wholeness the remembrances changed. Thank you for your loving work. 💞❤💫

Thanks for doing. IMHO: helpful contribution, worthy focus, artful presentation.

Thank you for sharing this beautiful teaching 🙏🏼

The point is to improve focus on the now. I have been meditating on aging and death regularly since reading the Dalai Lama suggested it. It really is a strong motivation to live in today. Thank you