81 Days with the Tao: Verse 5

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“Hold on to the center.”

This is the last line in a rather short Verse 5. It follows a series of descriptions of what the Tao is like. It’s like someone who doesn’t take sides; it’s like something that gives birth to both good and evil; it’s like a bellows but very useful. It’s like something you can use but never use up. It’s like something you understand less the more you talk about it.

And then, after this recitation about what the Tao is like, the last line stands alone, apart from the rest of the verse, seemingly unconnected.

“Hold on to the center.”

On a whim, I open another translation of the Tao Te Ching to read this verse—a beautifully illustrated one by Gia-Fu Fen and Jane English. Their verse five bears almost no resemblance to Stephen Mitchell’s. It talks about the ruthlessness of the wise, and of people as dummies. It calls the Tao the “space between heaven and earth,” but it bears some similarity to Mitchell’s translation with its sparse second-to-last line: “More words count less.”

However, the last line is virtually the same: “Hold fast to the center.”

I pull out a third and last translation by Witter Bynner. He uses the word Universe instead of Tao, says men come to their wits’ end arguing about it, but finally counsels entering the “marrow” of things; the essential part, the core—the center!

I’ve decided that comparative study of Tao Te Ching texts is not my cup of tea, and I’m not going to get caught up in it going forward, but I’m captivated by the sameness of the message in the last line across such diverse translations.

What is the center? Why am I admonished to hold on to it?

Is the center physical? Do I feel that my center is in my solar plexus—in the center of my torso, just above my belly button? Or is it in my heart, in the center of my chest? Or my abdomen? Is my mind the center—my consciousness or awareness?

Or is the center I am told to clasp something external to me? Some universal center, the center of life? Is it the Tao, the Way, the Source, God? Are my center and the universal center the same thing? Am I within it, and is it within me?

Did Lao Tzu have something particular in mind as the “center” when he admonished us to hold on to it? Or was he seeking to conjure in us a feeling of centeredness, focus, or mindfulness? Is the center he writes about common or intensely personal and individual? And why does the center matter? It seems to be crucial, especially in times of uncertainty, fear, change, or transformation. What purpose does it serve?

When I close my eyes and ask myself, “What is my center?” I find a place of warm darkness in the middle of my chest, a still place at the core of my being that grounds and steadies me. I call it my awareness. You may call it something different and find it elsewhere. 

So, close your eyes now. “Where is your center?

Whatever you find there, may you hold onto it, and may it calm and anchor you.

81 Days with the Tao: Verse 4

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“The Tao is like a well;

used but never used up.

It is like the eternal void;

filled with infinite possibilities.”

In these days of drought and climate change, wells can run dry, so the metaphor doesn’t work as well as it once did. But the meaning remains: The Tao is inexhaustible.

But the void? Completely empty space. Nothingness. That’s another thing altogether. This metaphor perfectly captures the Tao’s limitlessness.

I imagine a night sky, black, empty, without stars. I imagine universes being born from this emptiness, this nothingness—innumerable planets, with incalculable possibilities for life. I imagine our planet, bringing forth all its diversity from the largest mountains to the tiniest grains of sand, from viruses and bacteria to dinosaurs and elephants. Everything is born from the void. Over eons, I, too, have come from the void; so have you.

I think about the proposition that emptiness is the source of all possibility. Makes sense to me. When nothing exists, everything is possible. When nothing is occupying a space, whether that space is physical, mental, or emotional, there is the potential for anything to be born into it. If the cosmos arises from emptiness, perhaps the small empty spaces I open in my life will provide room for creative possibilities.

Lately I’ve been emptying my space, the space of my days, the space of my mind and heart. I’m even trying to empty some space in my home. I’ve been doing so with the long view of my ultimate death. I’ve been letting go of activities, commitments, and objects, trying to create space for possibilities in my life. I’ve been trying to make fewer plans and avoid new projects and obligations. Instead of striving toward a goal, I’m opening time to do nothing: unprogrammed time, a void, if you will.

I’m wondering what might be born into this freed-up space. Never mind infinite possibilities; at my age, as a woman, in this time and place, I’m dreaming about even finite possibilities. What might be born in my new spaciousness? Authenticity, love, humility, insight? Such appealing possibilities! Might there also be pain, loneliness, boredom, and meaninglessness?

That’s the thing about the void. Anything can rush in to fill it. I’m not going to try to soften this reality for myself or for you. Do we want to open to whatever possibilities manifest—welcoming, accepting, learning, and adapting to them?

Unlike many people I know, I’m rather partial to the popular phrase, “It is what it is.”

Here’s the Taoist parable behind that modern-day adage, which I believe captures the spirit of the lines from Verse 4 at the top of this post.  

A farmer’s horse runs away. His neighbors come to sympathize, saying, “Too bad, you lost your horse.” He replies, “We’ll see,” or “It is what it is.” The next day, his horse returns, bringing with it three wild stallions. His neighbors stop by to say, “What good luck!” He responds, “We’ll see,” or “It is what it is.” A few days later, when his son tries to tame one of the stallions, he falls off and breaks his leg. The neighbors come again and express their sympathy: “What will you do without your son to help you on the farm?” The farmer replies, “We’ll see,” or “It is what it is.” A little while later, the army press gang shows up to conscript his son, but since he is injured, they leave him alone and move on. And so on and so forth.

The farmer’s openness to whatever arises mirrors the Tao’s quality of entertaining infinite possibilities without judging any as good or bad.

It’s the nature of possibility that you can’t know exactly what it will mean or how it will turn out. As Alan Watts, an expert on Taoism, sums up: “The whole process of nature is an integrated process of immense complexity, and it’s really impossible to tell whether anything that happens in it is good or bad — because you never know what will be the consequence of the misfortune; or, you never know what will be the consequences of good fortune.”

The Tao is like the eternal void: filled with infinite possibilities. So I’ll keep making room, perhaps not for infinite possibilities, but for the few that matter most to me at this stage in my life—and hope to greet whatever arises with a calm “It is what it is,” or “We’ll see.”

81 Days with the Tao: Verse 3

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“Practice non-doing,

and everything will fall into place.”

The closing sentence of verse three. It seems unrelated to the lines that come before it. Those lines are an utter puzzle to me, so I focus on the familiar: a restatement of Wu Wei. There’s much more for me to consider on this topic. I sense an invitation to go deeper, to grapple further.

Practice non-doing, non-intervening, non-controlling, non-forcing. How many ways can I think of to say it?

Is it alright not to intervene when a person, a group, or a situation is crying out for justice? Is it alright not to do something to try to save a life? Everything will fall into place? Often what falls into place seems cruel, unjust, or evil. Is it alright not to resist cruelty, injustice, and evil? Or is there some elusive balance to be found, some middle ground between getting involved whole hog, and non-doing? 

I know there are arguments on both sides: violent intervention (as in World War II) or non-violent protest, as in Martin Luther King’s marches. But to do nothing? Not to fight if your country is invaded! Not to peacefully protest the seizure of power and violation of human and civil rights by a corrupt dictator! Not to speak out against racism, sexism, ageism! Not to jump into a river to save a drowning child!

Still, I have done all these things: resisted, spoken out, protested, jumped in—though not into a river— to what avail? Was doing them important even though they brought no change?

Suddenly a way out of this quandary occurs to me. Could the translation of this principle from the original Chinese be the problem here? Not knowing a single word of Chinese, I choose to believe that Lao Tzu was talking about non-forcing, not non-doing. If non-doing can’t be reconciled with justice, perhaps non-forcing offers a different path forward. So, practice non-forcing by following the natural way of things as they fall into place. Much better! But how do we know what the natural way of things is? We are so far from it now.

My attempts to understand this Taoist koan are wearing down my intellectual powers and my wordsmithing skills. I pray for relief, and the phrase “open yourself to the Tao” pops into my mind. Now, I feel my heart unclench, and my body relax. A cool breeze seems to blow through my mind. I let go of the need to know, for sure. I bow to the questions, the dilemmas, knowing we will spar again in the darkness of some future early morning.

81 Days with the Tao: Verse 2

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Some lines in the Tao Te Ching bring me up short, not because they’re cryptic, but because they’re shockingly simple:

“Things arise, and she lets them come;

things disappear and she lets them go.”

My immediate gut reaction is, “What a passive attitude towards life and the world!”

It seems to recommend no resistance to what is, at a time when what is feels oppressive and unjust. It suggests letting go of what no longer is, never truly was, or what you wish would be. Let things come and when they disappear, let them go. Is this political and emotional quietism?

I know from reading the rest of the Tao Te Ching that this attitude is a central tenet of Taoism—Wu Wei, non-forcing, effortless action. It’s interesting that it appears so early, in verse two, counseling us from the start to align effortlessly with the ebb and flow of the natural world rather than swimming against the current.

The emphasis, however, is on effortlessness, not actionlessness. Later in the manuscript, I know there will be words about right action arising harmoniously, naturally and effortlessly, eschewing force.

These words encourage me to watch, wait, carefully observe, to understand the way of things, the natural flow. They ask me to cultivate patience and responsiveness rather than reactivity. They say, don’t jump to conclusions, give it time, don’t rush to intervene. But oh, habits of a lifetime are hard to change!

Later in Verse 2:

“When her work is done, she forgets it.

That is why it lasts forever.”

Has all my work, all my striving, come to anything? At death, I’ll have to let it go. Will anyone remember it? Should I forget it too, as this verse counsels? What does it mean that work done and forgotten lasts forever? Does it endure in some hidden, mysterious way? I wrote a blog post a while ago on the Butterfly Effect—the way the tiniest flap of a butterfly’s wings can change things on the other side of the world. Is that what lasting forever means?

I know the message of these lines will return later in the text, counseling me to do whatever I discern as my authentic work in any situation and then let go of the outcome.

I also know that Taoist teachings, like Zen koans, employ paradox—action through non-action, strength through softness, lasting impact through forgetting. And so I stop trying to figure out what the text means and let the words fall like gentle rain on the thirsty ground of my heart.

Let it come, let it go. Let it ebb, let it flow.

81 Days with the Tao: Verse 1

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“Darkness within darkness,

the gateway to all understanding.”

The Source, the Tao, is darkness—the birthplace of everything. We come from it, and we return to it. It is the non-being from which our being arises. Close your eyes. Go inside your own dark center and draw near to the center of all.

“Free from desire, you realize the mystery.

Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations

arise from the same source.” 

Desire is the human condition. So, I, always desiring, am caught among the manifestations, while longing for the mystery. The ultimate desire is to be free from desire itself. How impossible that seems, but only then can I comprehend the mystery. Only then can I realize it; only then is it realized in me. Pass through the gateway; enter the darkness. Perhaps understanding waits there.

I wake up in the darkness. It’s two in the morning. Are you awake too?

It’s dark inside and around me. The sheets are cool, like darkness itself. I lie there, listening. The house is still. Yet I’ve been struggling in my dreams to persuade, convince, free myself from something, or resolve something, and it feels impossible. There is no way out. I am trapped. I know the only answer is to surrender, but I don’t know how. I’m on the verge of passing through the gateway into complete darkness. If I take that step, will I realize the mystery?

“Yet,” that freeing word! “Yet,” that promise of release and deliverance! Ah, “Mystery and manifestations arise from the same source.”  And that source is darkness; blessed, holy, enfolding—the gateway to all understanding. Abide in the darkness, realize the mystery.

81 Days with the Tao: Reflections on the Tao Te Ching

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Introduction:

The Tao Te Ching, the classical Chinese foundational text of religious and philosophical Taoism (pronounced Daoism), is believed to have originated around 300 BCE and is traditionally attributed to the sage Lao Tzu. Its title translates as “The Book of the Way and its Virtue.” Taoism centers on living in harmony with the Tao — the natural, spontaneous, underlying way of the universe.

The Tao Te Ching has eighty-one chapters, or verses, most of them shorter than half a page, making them excellent texts for reflection or meditation. I think of the verses, or lines within them, as koans, paradoxical sayings that encapsulate a truth which cannot be grasped through logical reasoning.

I’ve been reading the Tao Te Ching daily for several years—one verse each day, sometimes the same verse for several days in a row. After reading, I close the book (the Stephen Mitchell translation) and reflect on what the words mean in my present situation. Often, a line or two will stand out, and I focus my reflection on those. Sometimes the verse as a whole speaks to me. When I finish reading verse eighty-one, I begin again.

I don’t fully understand the sayings in the Tao Te Ching and the wisdom behind them, but I catch glimpses of reality and hints of the truth. I try to apply the wisdom I glean to whatever is happening in my life at that moment, so each time I read them, they mean something slightly different. I seek to understand and apply them through meditation and writing.

So, here, for the next eighty-one days, are my brief reflections on the Book of the Way and Its Virtue. I share them in the hope they may resonate with your personal experience and encourage you to seek The Way yourself. If your reflections lead you to other or contradictory insights, please share them with me and my readers by making a comment.

Because I don’t quote the entire verse in my blog post, I encourage you to get a copy of Stephen Mitchell’s book and follow along.

Please join me on this eighty-one-day journey.

“You’re going to die. Why not die well?”

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One instance of serendipity in exploring “death” as my One Word for 2026 is my retirement community’s simultaneous decision to host a 13-session, yearlong program on death and dying for our residents. The timing was ideal for me. The program provides the practical and social perspective for my emotional and spiritual probing.

I’ve been so impressed by the presenter’s sensitive and comprehensive treatment of end-of-life matters and planning that I asked if she would be willing to talk with me in depth about how she got into this line of work and what it means to her. She obliged, and after a lively hour together, I ended up with a ten-page interview transcript, which I have distilled into this blog post.

~~~~~~~

“You’re going to die. Why not die well?”  asks the headline on the home page of Leona Oceania’s website, Die Well Death Education.

Leona Oceania

Good question. If we must die, who doesn’t want to die well? And what might dying well look like? 

If anyone can make learning about death, dying, and our options for a good death downright compelling, it’s Leona. Previous attempts to discuss human mortality in my community had been poorly attended, and the conversation shy and stilted. However, this time, from the start, Leona packed the room.

Her appeal, at least for me, and I suspect for others, is threefold: she knows her stuff and is an eloquent communicator; she’s passionate about her mission to educate; and she sets a frank and open tone that emboldens her audience to ask questions they have not previously dared ask and discuss topics they have formerly avoided.

Like many others zealous about their vocations, Leona was awakened and inspired at a young age by a deeply personal experience that set her on the path to the work she loves. Though she had always been fascinated by death and puzzled by others’ unwillingness to talk about it, her biological father’s death from lung cancer in 2003 was her wake-up call. In her words:

              “He was getting all the treatments, and it was not benefiting him in any way. I knew a little about hospice, and that it was a beneficial thing, so I suggested it and got a very negative reaction initially from the rest of the family. Ultimately, though, he did end up at home in hospice, and it was an amazing experience for everybody, though it was sad and overwhelming. He was young, only 54 when he died.

“I remember the critical moments that really set me on this path. He had a hospital bed in his living room, and his five brothers and sisters, my half-sister and I, were there. It was just the family in and out, but people were staying there and being with him. Eventually, he was unresponsive for about two or three days and was obviously getting closer to the end. It was January, and it just kind of organically happened that one of my uncles built a fire in the fireplace, which was right at the foot of his hospital bed. We all came into the room, mostly because the fire had been made, and we were sitting around. Wayne, my biological father, hadn’t been conscious for days. Suddenly he opened his eyes and looked directly at every single one of us. And then he closed his eyes, and he died. Wow. It was just amazing. It was sad, overwhelming, but also incredibly beautiful. I had never experienced that before, and it set me on the path to learning more about death. It was a pivotal experience. Once I started sharing about it and asking questions, I learned that others had similar experiences.”

Shortly after this occurrence, her grandfather, who knew of her interest in death, alerted her to the death café movement, and she began attending one in Portland, Maine. Her enthusiasm and desire to learn caught the attention of the Portland café’s founder, who, when she was moving in 2019, asked Leona to step in as facilitator. Seven years later, the café is still going strong, and Leona is still facilitating it and others in Maine. From the cafés, she learned about the End-of-Life Doula movement and signed up for online training. Things came together at the beginning of COVID in 2020 when she was laid off from her regular job and had extra time to devote to doula, home funeral guide, and life legacy training, all online. She had become a hospice volunteer just before the pandemic began, so she stayed in touch with her client through letters during the lockdown.

Once COVID lifted, she decided to dip her toe in the water to see whether a community-based death education program might be of interest. Through a colleague on the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Maine board, she contacted Portland’s West End Neighborhood Association and offered a program. It went well, so she offered another at her local library in Cape Elizabeth, then at the Scarborough Public Library, and she was on her way. After that, instead of convincing groups to host her, organizations recruited her. The Die Well Death Education brand was launched, and her programs are well received and well attended, with highly engaged participants.

Last year she presented one hundred programs, and this year she already has about 100 lined up. I asked Leona if this has become a full-time job, from which she earns a living. Her answer was halting: “Am I doing this full time? Yes, but I am still doing my regular job as well…Has this been, how do you say, lucrative? No.”

You see, Leona strongly believes the program must remain free for attendees.

“There are a couple of reasons for that. A, it’s hard enough to get people to talk about death without charging them money for it. And B, once you charge money, it seems to change the whole dynamic into something I don’t really want it to be. And then it also immediately excludes a whole bunch of people that need the information just as much as anybody else. So that’s not a very good business model. Most of the venues I present at are libraries or places already operating on a limited budget. So, even what I ask for as a fee is a stretch for them, but what I get for a fee doesn’t even scratch the surface of materials.”

Leona provides a purple folder of materials for each participant filled with information essential to preparing an end-of-life plan: advance directive, declaration of final disposition, information on wills, contact lists, financial information access, password access, death certificate, medical aid in dying (MAID), legacy work, obituaries, hospice, end-of-life doula offerings, living wakes, funerals, body disposition, and death cafés.

Some have suggested that she do away with the printed materials and direct attendees to online resources, but in her experience it’s important for folks to have the information readily at hand.

“…We live in such a death-phobic society, and nobody talks about this stuff. I come along and throw all this information at people. It’s overwhelming to begin with, but it’s also easy to be engaged with the topic and have good intentions to move forward with your end-of-life plan while you’re sitting in the room…but as soon as you go home, you lose the impetus… If you must go online and print all the documents, it’s easy to procrastinate. Whereas if you go home with the purple packet and it’s lying on your counter or someplace, and you see it, it’s easier to say to yourself, ‘I really should do that.’ So that’s the primary reason why I provide the printed material. That’s another non-negotiable for me: I think people need to walk away with information in their hands to motivate them to do the work.”

She also provides multiple flavors of delicious cake in the form of skulls, just one way she lightens the mood during the presentations.

A couple of people financially support Leona’s death education work, and she’s recently begun the application process for non-profit status. That will enable her to form an advisory board, apply for grants, seek tax-deductible donations, and perhaps eventually become a paid employee. But it’s a long road ahead and still very much a labor of love. She says, “I feel one thousand percent that this is what I am supposed to be doing.” She doesn’t know anyone else, especially in Maine, who is doing this work the way she is. Others give sporadic presentations on special topics, but she knows of no other comprehensive program. She’s always learning. When participants ask questions, she researches the answers and incorporates them into her program, which is, consequently, always evolving.

Leona has been extremely gratified by the response to her death education offerings.

“I have been so pleased with how much positive feedback I’ve gotten. I think people are really grateful and energized to learn they have more options than they thought. People get really engaged… It’s just been so positive, rewarding, and motivating. One woman—I love this story—raised her hand and said, ‘Why don’t we know this stuff?’”

I asked Leona if she thought some of her success could be chalked up to American society becoming more open and receptive to talking about death.

“That could be possible,” she opined. “I think COVID changed a lot of things for people. But I tend to think my approach also leads to success because I don’t tiptoe around it. I don’t use soft words; I just talk about it, and I’m upfront, and I try to bring levity to it.”

I also asked what age groups make up her audience. She says attendees tend to be on the older side, but she’s also had people in their twenties and even some teenagers.

“…when I do these programs, it’s an offering to everyone. It kind of drives me a little crazy when people want to bring me in only for an elder series. I’m fine with that, but in my head, this is for everybody. I think that the sooner you know this information, engage with your mortality, think about it, and prepare for it, the sooner you can put it aside and live your life in a freer, more meaningful way.”

Leona tries to avoid offering her personal views on death and mortality during her presentations. She sees herself as an information provider and a conversation facilitator. But there is one almost universal experience that she sometimes speaks about:

“I’ve seen it, and I’ve heard about it, consistently, the fact that people who are actively dying very often talk to or about people that have died before… And that’s consistent across cultures, religions, countries, and social groups. I’ve seen it over and over. There’s something to that, but I don’t know what it is. I’m not a religious person…I just feel that we’re made of energy, and that energy goes somewhere when we die. It brings me a lot of comfort, but I don’t know exactly what it means. So, long story short, I do not bring my own stuff to the conversation… I’m always intrigued to hear about what other people feel or think.”

What is most rewarding about this work? Leona says it’s twofold: one, getting the information into people’s hands, planting the seeds, letting them know about their options, and two, giving them tools for dealing with death at the bedside. She says,

“…if someone is bedside in a dying experience, they may remember things they can do to help the person that’s dying or themselves, to neutralize the fear of what’s happening…If you don’t know what to expect, it can look kind of scary, and it can seem like a terrible thing when it’s not.”

Of course, the overwhelmingly positive response to her program is also rewarding. “It’s all come together in a way that I never imagined. I’m doing the thing I really wanted to do.”

“What advice do you have for others interested in pursuing a career in death education?” I asked.

“There should be more of what I am doing. You can’t do it all by yourself. I don’t want a monopoly on it. I think the way I am doing it is kind of unique. Maine Death with Dignity does community presentations on medical aid in dying. There are obituary-writing workshops and legacy workshops, but I’m doing it all in one…People are so hungry for this information when it’s presented in a digestible way. I would love to see more of what I am doing.”

Talking with Leona, who is extremely well-informed about everything related to death and hungry to learn even more, was an exceedingly upbeat way to end my reflections on the Five Remembrances (see previous posts in this series). You could say she is passionate about death—well, really, about dying well and helping others make the decisions and take the actions that make that possible.

Why, Why Now, How, and So What?

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I’ve come to the end of my short essays on the Five Remembrances, though I have certainly not completed my contemplation of aging, ill health, death, impermanence, and karma.

Several of my readers have expressed concern that such an intense focus on these subjects might be mentally and emotionally unhealthy. For some, reading these reflections has been a downer; for others, it has provided an opportunity to face fears and cultural taboos and to explore new emotional territory. Some are curious about why I undertook this focus and what effect it has had on my life over the last six months. So, here are some answers.

Why do this? Why now? How?

It has been my lifelong inclination to face difficult truths about myself and the world around me, rather than avoiding or deflecting them. My fascination with death stems from a natural curiosity about a mystery that no one seems to have solved. It feels rebellious and even somewhat subversive to look directly at something that most people would rather look away from. Those who know me well are not surprised when I raise uncomfortable truths.

Several factors contributed to the decision to focus my attention on death in 2026. I have previously mentioned that for the last couple of years I have participated with several other women in an online discussion group focused on aging. This group provided an outlet and support for facing common problems as we age. However, we seemed to shy away from discussion of our mortality.

Then, last fall, my church sponsored a series of discussions about death, focusing on advance directives, end-of-life planning discussions with family, funeral arrangements, and dealing with grief. It was a good introduction but seemed to me and a few others to dance around the subject of our mortality. A smaller facilitated discussion hosted by the church this spring came closest to exploring feelings about our own deaths and our experiences with the deaths of those closest to us.

Meanwhile, my retirement community is currently hosting a program on death led by Leona Oceania, founder of Die Well Death Education, comprised of thirteen two-hour sessions conducted over thirteen months. The room is packed for every session!

This trifecta of opportunities intersected with my personal realization that my time is short. I’m 74; both parents died of pancreatic cancer at 84 and 90, so my life expectancy is about 12-15 years. That’s a relatively short time in my lifespan. It is possible, even likely, that I may experience serious pain and discomfort leading up to death. Suddenly, the questions of how I want to spend my remaining healthy years, and how I might deal with illness when it arrives, became urgent.

I asked myself how I would approach the exploration of these questions, and my Buddhist practice provided a ready suggestion. My reading had made me aware of the Five Remembrances and the practice of Maranasati, which I introduced in the first article in this series. The Remembrances would provide the structure and arc for my reflections.  

So what? What difference has it made?

Looking back on the last six months of meditating on and writing about the Remembrances, I ask myself whether this practice has affected how I live daily life. Are there practical and transformative impacts to pondering aging, ill-health, death, impermanence and karma?

For me, there have been several.

During this period, I’ve often found myself stopping in the middle of a walk with my dog or on my way to an early-morning workout, looking around me with fresh eyes, listening intently to the silence of falling snow, the sound of birds, or the rain. In those moments, I felt deeply aware of the world’s beauty and the intense joy of being alive. I recognized and experienced my place in nature. The ability to stop, tune in to the reality of the moment, and feel grateful to be alive has grown over the months.

While accepting the inevitable—whether it be wrinkles, sickness, death, change, loss, or consequences—takes a certain degree of daring, determination, and discipline, the most compelling motivation for coming to terms with all of these is this: the sages of all ages and religions have promised that doing so wakes you up to the essence of life. I still have much to see, do, and understand. I want to heighten my awareness to have the best possible chance of experiencing everything. So, it is now common for me to silently say to myself several times throughout the day, “Moriah, you are going to die? This may be the last time you see, hear, taste, smell, or feel this. Pay attention, appreciate it fully.” And, I do.

Contemplation of death has revealed what I truly fear: pain, disfigurement, suffocation, cold, hunger, sleeplessness, and shame. Recognizing and naming those fears is the first step in relaxing their grip. It has been revelatory that death is not one of them.

Rather than fearing death, I’ve come to realize that contemplating it brings a deep feeling of sadness and loss—sadness at the loss of my most precious possession, my consciousness, my awareness. I wonder if mourning this loss now is a facet of my personal death work.

Contemplating impermanence has made me more conscious of the things I cling to. So, I have become more aware of the ordinary things I am challenged to let go of—my desire to see a situation resolved, my need for my contribution to be recognized, my wish to remain in a friend’s good graces, my plan for the day. The frequency with which I am required to let go convinces me of how much I am holding onto. Though intellectually, I recognize that control is an illusion, practically, I’m still operating in control mode. I have more work to do.

A powerful “letting go” metaphor emerged recently in a vivid dream. I stood beside a sheer cliff with the ocean at its base. I was aware of an intense desire to reach a destination beyond the cliff, one that felt like home. The only way to get there was to climb along the almost smooth rock, clinging to the few tiny hand and foot holds carved into it. Crossing without falling seemed impossible. But I had no other choice, so I began the climb, gripping each crevice with all my strength and concentration. About halfway across, I looked ahead and saw that there were no more cracks to cling to; the surface was completely smooth. I could not proceed. I knew I had two choices: to go back or to let go. I let go. And then I woke up.

Life in a retirement community surrounds me with the realities of aging and death daily. It’s impossible to avoid them. Death comes often to my friends and neighbors, and because it is such a frequent occurrence, it is always top of mind. This, for me, is a plus, enabling me to learn from my peers how to age and die gracefully and peacefully, and how to cope with separation from those we love. Observation is an excellent teacher.

Also, I have recently wrapped up a five-year stint as a hospice volunteer and had the privilege of accompanying many clients on their end-of-life journeys. Being near folks who are dying, especially sitting at their bedsides for long hours in the middle of the night, has familiarized me with the signs and stages of dying. It has formed my understanding of the work of dying, the solitariness of the process, and the range of death experiences. All of this has encouraged me to consider my own last wishes and prepare the appropriate associated documents.

The last of the Five Remembrances has prompted me to ponder the importance of the energy I emit into the world, the footprint I make and will leave behind, the things I can and cannot change, and the healing power of forgiveness.

So, I’ve begun to consider the next decade as my end-of-life journey, and 2026 as the first steps on that path.

A spiritual companion suggested the image of a threshold to mark the transition into this journey. I used it in meditation, imagining myself approaching, contemplating, leaving behind the old, stepping through, and hovering just inside the threshold of this new season of life. I created a slideshow of photographs I’ve taken over the years that suggest the crossing of thresholds—movement through an opening, leading towards something new—set it to music and meditated on the photos as they cycled through their sequence. This became a ritual marking the transition to a new reality, one where I embrace death as the culmination rather than the end of life.

I will wrap up with a koan from the Tao Te Ching, Chapter 33, Stephen Mitchell’s translation.

“If you stay in the center and embrace death with your whole heart, you will endure forever.”

A koan is a paradoxical anecdote or riddle without a solution, used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and provoke enlightenment. Koans are meant to be repeated, pondered, forgotten, remembered, abandoned, despaired of, and rediscovered until their meaning is written in the heart, not the head.

As I step into this new season of life, I find myself opening to the koan’s invitation: to stay in the center, to meet death wholeheartedly as a profound teacher. The Remembrances have challenged me to stay at the center of awareness, tenderness, and the intent to live fully in the time that remains. If accepting impermanence softens our grip on what cannot be held, it may also enhance our appreciation for what is passing through right now. So, I offer these reflections not as conclusions but as invitations to step across the threshold into the next season of your life, and ultimately, into forever.

Questions for Reflection:

  • How does acknowledging my mortality change the way I move through an ordinary day?
  • What fears arise when I imagine the end of my life, and what happens when I name them honestly?
  • In what moments do I feel most vividly alive, and how might awareness of impermanence sharpen those moments?
  • How do I want to show up in the final season of my life, and what small practices today might prepare me for that?
  • Where do I sense a threshold in my own life, and what might it mean to step through it with intention?

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I mentioned that I have been taking a death education course from Die Well Death Education. A few weeks ago, I interviewed the founder of this organization, Leona Oceania, intending to introduce her and her work as the final article in this series on death and the other Remembrances. She is a kindred spirit in her fascination with and respect for death, and I hope that her story will add some perspective to my own. Look for that in my next blog post. Then I will move on to other topics, though I can’t promise I will not return to death before 2026 is over.

The Butterfly Effect

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The Fifth Remembrance: “I inherit the results of my actions of body, speech, and mind. My actions are my continuation.”

How do I inherit the results of my actions, and how do those results become my continuation after I die? My reflections on the Fifth Remembrance led me to explore two concepts: karma and continuation.

The notion of karma found in religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, and certain schools of Taoism expresses the rather ominous idea that our intentions, words, and actions have consequences. Once they are thought, spoken, or performed, their consequences can’t be reversed.   Eastern religions are not the only ones to stress the effects of what we think, say, and do. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam also emphasize that God rewards good deeds and that they lead to a pleasant afterlife, and bad ones earn a negative payback.

However, as the Fifth Remembrance solemnly reminds us that we will reap what we sow, it also introduces the more affirmative notion of our legacy, or, as the last brief sentence says, our continuation after death.

First, consequences. What we think, say, and do creates lasting consequences. It’s easiest to see them in speech and physical actions, but our thoughts are the source of our words and actions. So, even our secret, unexpressed thoughts, the ones we keep to ourselves or share with only our closest confidants, create karma or outcomes. The thoughts we entertain or ruminate on eventually shape our character, and our character determines our choices. So, our thinking is important even if it doesn’t directly result in specific actions.

I like to think of thoughts as generating invisible energy. Every tiny bit of energy we emit subtly changes the world. The effects of our ideas, speech, and actions influence other beings and, in turn, give rise to further actions and effects. Like molecules, these collide and bounce in unintended and unpredictable directions. On and on it goes.

Second, continuation. If the first four remembrances are about change, impermanence, and therefore the need to let go of whatever we cling to, the fifth is about what lasts, what continues. Therefore, it points to our responsibility for the world in which we live. If you will, it reminds us of our interbeing with everything.

I have been captivated by the story of the Butterfly Effect, a metaphor of a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil and setting off a tornado in Texas. The metaphor originated with Edward Lorenz, a meteorologist and mathematician, in the 1960s and describes how subtle changes in conditions in one area of the world might affect weather patterns in distant regions. It has become a central idea in chaos theory and is now applied widely beyond meteorology. It reminds us that in complex, interconnected systems, such as our families, workplaces, towns, cities, and countries, small actions can have large, unintended, and unforeseeable consequences.

For instance, a stranger honks at me in traffic. “What an idiot,” I think. “Obviously, I can’t move.” I stew over his disrespect all the way to the grocery store, and become impatient and out of sorts, so when the cashier is slow to scan my items, I snap at her. She remains silent but rolls her eyes at the bagger. He’s a teenager on his first summer job and thinks what a rude old woman I am. He worries about the next senior-citizen customer’s possible negative attitude as he continues to ruminate on my discourtesy, so when she checks out, he throws her purchases into her bags without paying attention. When she gets home, the peaches are bruised, and the tomato he threw on the bottom is squashed. She remembers that a high school kid packed her purchases and vows the next time she shops there she’ll avoid baggers under twenty-five. She files a complaint with the store, and the manager calls all the teenage employees into his office, accusing them of poor job performance. On and on it goes.

The Fifth Remembrance asks us to live as if every moment and how we use it matters. It advises self-awareness and other-awareness. Each of us has a unique effect on the world, a unique contribution to make. As your mind hums with thoughts, your tongue flaps with words, and your hands busily build and tear down, what energy is being transmitted to the next person, the next town, state, country, planet, and universe?

Think about it. When you are dead, and your body has disintegrated, what energy will you leave behind? The Fifth Remembrance reminds us that we continue to impact our complex interconnected world even after death. Small actions ripple outward even beyond our lifetime. My metaphorical wings may create a tornado or a cooling summer breeze, war or peace, hatred or love.

Questions for reflection: What energy am I putting out into the world? How do I want to continue after I die?

Change and Loss

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“All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape separation from them.”

The Fourth Remembrance would appear, at first glance, to contradict a core Buddhist principle, the concept of interbeing: the interconnectedness and interdependence of all things. The notion that we inter-are with everything seems difficult to reconcile with this remembrance’s stark prediction that we will inevitably be separated from the things and people we hold dear. 

While the Fourth Remembrance purports to be about the core Buddhist principle of impermanence, or constant change, it speaks to me of the fundamental paradox at the heart of the human experience—love and loss. We remain essentially unbreakably interconnected and interdependent despite change and separation.

The paradox becomes more accessible when viewed through the lens of letting go. The first four remembrances are all about letting go. The first three, letting go of youth, health, and life itself. The fourth, letting go of everything we hold dear and often cling to: people, relationships, situations, possessions, habits, and ideas.

So, why must we let go? Why must we suffer separation? Because everything changes, including me. For instance, relationships change. The person I met and fell in love with last year is different this year, and I don’t love him as much or at all. Or I’m different, and he doesn’t love me.

Possessions deteriorate. The house I bought six months ago has been invaded by carpenter ants and is disintegrating, the lawn has weeds now, and the basement is damp when it rains. Time to consider selling?

Circumstances evolve or devolve. The job I thought was a perfect fit for my talents has turned into a nightmare since the new supervisor arrived.

Habits intensify and may become unhealthy. The glass of wine each evening to relax has become two, then three, then four, and it is no longer helping me to relax; now I can’t sleep.

Beliefs and ideas harden and narrow our perspective. My creative idea for solving a problem in my community has become an obsession, and I can’t see the situation from any other perspective. My mind is closed. I’ve become part of the problem instead of the solution.

Letting go is difficult, often painful. Feelings of sadness and loss linger, sometimes forever. Letting go can cause or contribute to a wound that may stubbornly resist healing. Holding on, though, can also cause suffering. The choice can seem like a no-win proposition. We can feel trapped between the pain of holding on and the sadness of letting go.

If, indeed, loss is unavoidable, how do we live with that reality? Are we meant to love at all? If so, how do we love when everything we love is constantly changing? By accepting that loss is inherent in love?

The  Tao Te Ching offers some profound but practical advice.

If you open yourself to loss,

you are at one with loss,

and you can accept it completely.

(Verse 23, Stephen Mitchell translation)

To open to loss, one must open to risk—the risk of loving, valuing, or holding dear. One must be open to caring, vulnerability, and desire. These emotions are big risks. They carry the potential for getting hurt. You cannot let go of something you are not holding on to. You cannot lose something you have not gained, or at the very least desired. Holding something dear—even lightly or slightly—must inevitably lead to letting go. If it doesn’t, it will lead to suffering. The Fourth Remembrance does not recommend loving less; rather, it recommends accepting change and loss. The Tao speaks of loss as something worth opening to, worth accepting, becoming one with.

Why might that be so? Like the other remembrances, the Fourth is not a belief, but an observable or experienced truth. Change, and therefore separation or loss, happens to everyone. We know this from personal experience. Accepting it unites us with reality and with all other sentient beings. Therefore, loss is one way our interbeing, our connection to others, is revealed.

Losing or letting go also creates an opening for something new. As terrifying as this opening may appear, as sad as it may feel, it is the way forward, the only way. While letting go might provide an opportunity for something better, more importantly, it allows us to remain responsive to reality. The Fourth Remembrance does not ask us to stop loving, but to love without expecting permanence, to let what we hold dear rest in open hands, to receive what comes, accept the loss of what goes, and be fully present to what is here now.

Questions for reflection: Is the price of love loss? Can we love deeply without clinging? Does knowing something is temporary make it more or less precious? Am I being asked to let go of something or someone?