Transmissions from the Northern Outpost

Category: Motivation Monday

  • The Five Remembrances

    Last week I planned on listening to a podcast episode each day Monday to Friday to help set me up for the new year. I got to two of them, the first of which I commented on last Monday here on the blog. The second one was from Dan Harris in conversation with meditation teacher Vinny Ferraro on the 10% Happier podcast: A Radical Buddhist Approach to Making This The Best Year of Our Life (warning for explicit language as Vinny isn’t your typical meditation teacher).

    The focus of the episode was on The Five Remembrances that the Buddha related in his discourse called Upajjhatthana Sutta or Subjects of Contemplation. They are, as translated by the late Thich Nhat Hanh:

    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 having 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.

    Admittedly, these seem to be a downer to start the year on: you are going to grow old, be sick, and die. You are going to be separated from those you know and love and oh, you are responsible for what you do in this life. Have a happy new year now!

    But on the flip side, they really can be “vitalizing and enlivening,” as Harris mentioned in the conversation.

    It pulls you out of the dream. It pulls you out of The Matrix. It pulls you out of the autopilot.

    Vinny later adds:

    We have to get uncomfortable with uncertainty, because this whole life is uncertain. None of it is guaranteed…

    …if we’re alive long enough and looking around, wow, there’s a lot to let in, then the fact that there’s no one that is not in this situation. If that’s not a cause for compassion, that it’s not about us…you are of the same nature as I am… It’s never not true. There’s something about it that seems equalizing. There is an incomprehensible preciousness when you see this playing out in people’s lives.

    And also when you see it playing out in your own life and especially of those you know and love, it makes you/me appreciate, and be grateful for, every moment. To remember to be here now.

    From the cover of Be Here Now by Ram Dass, which also in on a sweatshirt I have been trying to remember to wear every day when I go out the door.

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  • Setting myself up for 2025 this week

    This week (Monday to Friday), starting today, I am listening to a podcast episode each day to help set me up for the new year. Here is the list:

    • From Niall Breslin on the Where is My Mind? podcast (warning: explicit language, he is a former footballer and rugby player in Ireland): Find What You Really Need

    In today’s listen, Niall talked about three things that worked for him in 2024 and what he’d like to continue in 2025. He also invited listeners to think of three things that worked for them last year they’d like to continue this coming year. For him, the three things are: discipline, community, and digital detoxing.

    Mine are similar: discipline in my life from home to work, community from family to friends and my hometown, and digital detoxing, especially in the evenings. To start this year, Niall has been putting his phone away at 7 p.m. each night and not picking it up until 7 the next morning for 7 days. It is something that I would like to do too.

    The key quote for me from the episode was this:

    I don’t think you can find space by creating more chaos or more commitments or more to-dos. I think you get space by seeking out the things that nourish you.

    Those things that help me to cultivate my garden.

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