Mornings start with precepts (mine are a little less traditional) and evenings end with recollections or chanting if I can stay up late enough. Naturally, not every day– I won’t front– but most of the time. Way back when I first encountered the 5 recollections (or remembrances) years ago I made a note in my phone so I could have them at hand at any time.
Upajjhatthana Sutta
Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s translation of the Upajjhatthana Sutta starts, “There are these five facts that one should reflect on often, whether one is a woman or a man, lay or ordained. Which five?” Here are the five I have in my phone, 5 Remembrances:
1: I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.
2: I am of the nature to have ill-health. There is no way to escape ill-health.
3. I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.
4: 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.
5: My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground on which I stand.
IRL
During sangha last night these remembrances were brought up and they really hit me in a different way. Although I’ve been practicing with them for years, but somehow the languaging I heard last night shifted my experience of them. Noting the difference between “there is no way to escape” old age/illness/death and “I have not gone beyond” old age/illness/death. Subtle, but profound. “I have not gone beyond” really zaps exceptionalism right out of the picture. Me up here secretly thinking sickness, old age, and death just happen to other people…
#4 I used to bludgeon myself with. Truly. Like brutalizing myself with imaginings of loss and separation in an attempt to steel myself against future pain. Last night was the first time I felt into the fact that it’s not just everyone outside of me, everyone and everything I love having the nature to change, I’m included in that too. Aspects of myself that were dear to me, things I thought were essential, that I identified with have changed: beliefs, habits, attitudes. I’m not the person I was. And that’s not all loss, it could be growth or just change. Transformation to make it sound more dramatic.
Further, the sutta goes into greater depth, (‘I will grow different, separate from all that is dear and appealing to me’) exploring what it all might mean, how it shows up in life once we start reflecting on these remembrances regularly.
#5 has always been my favorite. I am the owner of my actions and the heir to my actions. “I am not the only one who is owner of my actions, heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator…whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir.” LOVE it.
belonging
It’s got me looking at belonging differently. Belonging’s a whole thing for me, a very hot topic that I can go off on at great length. I really like conceiving of it in this way. My actions are my only true belongings. My only companions.
Eventhough I find that I don’t experience belonging in the ways I usually hear it talked about. I don’t much belong to my identities, for instance, or any particular lineage or location because they’re always changing, always shifting. If anything I belong in motion, being motion. I belong in love, being love. Centrally, for me, mornings start with precepts and they also start with locating myself. Finding the directions, I reach out to ancestors and future generations. Locating myself in space time, in dimensional space, in history. I find center, find ground and move from there. In fact, I have to do this every day because it’s always changing. We are of the nature to change.
tl;dr
So I made some little videos for the 5 remembrances because that’s how I do. Don’t get mad. Video 1 is for recollections 1-3, video 2 is for recollections 4 and 5. (Although playback’s a little clunky on phones, it seems to flow pretty well on computers.)
1: I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.
2: I am of the nature to have ill-health. There is no way to escape ill-health.
3. I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.
4: 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.
5: My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground on which I stand.
Also I always loved #5 because it reminds me of The Smiths’ “How Soon Is Now.” Judge me. Idc. I am the owner of my karma, heir to my karma, my actions are the ground on which I stand.