Impermanence

The Five Remembrances (Plum Village Version, Thich Nhat Hanh)

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.

For the past five or six years, every January, I have chosen—or been chosen by—a single word as a linchpin for the year ahead. It’s called the One-Word practice. The chosen word becomes the subject of intense reflection, aspiration, and intention. My One-Words have included: slowly, rest, flow, love, write, and Wu Wei (non-forcing).

My word for 2026 is Death.

“Why do you want to focus so intensely on death?” a friend asked. I responded that in Buddhist practice, meditation on death is recommended to foster the fullest possible experience of life. Maranasati, or “mindfulness of death,” reminds us that life is transient and precious and we must live with intention and purpose.

My time is limited, I explained, and I want to live as fully and consciously as possible. My friend and I both admire Mary Oliver, and, particularly, her poem “When Death Comes.”

When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Like Mary Oliver, I don’t want to just pass through life as a visitor. I want to embrace and inhabit it with amazement.

One way I am practicing mindfulness of death this year is by meditating daily on The Five Remembrances, Buddhist contemplations that acknowledge the inevitability of aging, illness, and death, the reality of impermanence, and the consequences of every action (karma).

I’ve been doing so since the beginning of January: reciting the words of each remembrance, looking deeply into their meaning, reflecting on my experience of each, and writing those reflections in my journal. The following series of brief articles is based on those journal entries. These posts are not a scholarly exploration of Buddhist philosophy. They are personal and experiential. I offer them in the hope that they will resonate with others—especially those who are no longer young and are approaching “The Big Let Go,” Death.

In the last post, I wrote about practicing for the ultimate let go at death by letting go regularly in daily life. The notion is that we get better at letting go the more we do it. Before further exploring the wisdom of letting go, I want to explore a phenomenon that often accompanies it—the experience of shutting or closing down.

Letting go implies some degree of attachment or clinging. Releasing our hold on something is frequently a viscerally painful experience. Relinquishing our illusion of control can seem almost impossible. We think we’ve done it, but our controlling behavior insidiously creeps back in. Letting go of cherished hopes and expectations brings feelings of loss, disappointment, and grief. Setting free those we love can feel like ripping our hearts out. Letting go can provoke anxiety and fear—a sense of lostness, vulnerability, and meaninglessness. All of these feelings, I suspect, are also common as we approach death. The supreme challenge in letting go is to stay open, receptive, and hopeful instead of closing or shutting down and donning the protective armor of fantasy, cynicism, or denial.

Let’s bring it closer to home with an example. You offer an idea to a group of your peers. It’s an idea born of years of experience and hours of careful thought about the problem you’re all trying to solve. Your group has struggled with this problem for a long time and made no progress. Your idea seems bold and a little far-fetched, perhaps intuitive rather than logical, but you can think of no other way. Not only does the group reject your suggestion without seriously considering it, but they ridicule you for offering such a risky proposal. They are sure you’re mistaken.

Okay, you think, just let it go. This suggestion is the best I have to offer; now, I must let go and let whatever happens happen. You relinquish control and wait, but not with a feeling of open anticipation and hopefulness. Instead, you shut down, you can’t stay open to the ideas of others, and you can’t entertain any new ones of your own. You may feel rejected and withdraw physically or emotionally. You close down—put on a defensive armor that blocks your participation in life’s miraculous, ever-changing flow.

Authentically staying open after genuinely letting go is one of the most elusive of human responses. Three orientations may promote this precious openness. They were suggested to me by the poet and philosopher David Whyte, the Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön, and the Christian saint Julian of Norwich. I can’t decide if these attitudes have a hierarchy of value, so I will offer them alphabetically by first name.

David Whyte. Recently, a friend told me about his book Consolations, first published in 2015 but which I had not encountered before a couple of weeks ago. It is a series of reflections on the meaning of various words. Oddly enough, his reflection on silence is the one that gives me a clue about how to stay open after letting go.

“Reality met on its own terms demands absolute presence, and absolute giving away…a rested giving in and giving up; another identity braver, more generous and more here than the one looking hungrily for the easy, unearned answer.” [Page 116]

“…braver, more generous, and more here.” The ability to remain bravely and generously present in the reality of each moment brings about the stance of openness. It is much easier, perhaps only ever possible, to welcome what is happening here and now.

Julian of Norwich. An anchoress in the Middle Ages, Julian famously wrote in her Revelations of Divine Love, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” The phrase expresses a generalized hope that everything will ultimately turn out not only okay but well and beautifully. Specific hope for a particular outcome may be doomed to disappointment, but general hope in the goodness of life and death enables one to stay open after letting go.

Pema Chödrön. One of Chödrön’s prevailing themes across all her writing is learning to be comfortable with the natural human condition of groundlessness—accepting and familiarizing oneself with uncertainty and feeling safe amid constant change. Buddhists call it impermanence, one of the Three Universal Truths of Buddhist philosophy—safety without control.

So, as I write and we think together about letting go without shutting down or closing up, can we draw on the wisdom of these three guides and remain open in the here and now, with a sense of cosmic hope and ultimate safety? Let our imagination peel back the layers of our chests and gently open our hearts to the miraculous mystery that letting go will reveal.

There is no escape

Open or Shut