The Five Remembrances via Allen Ginsberg

We’ve been reading Fear by Thich Nhat Nanh in sangha and this week I have to present on the chapter on the Five Remembrances, which are as follows:

1) I am subject to aging; I have not gone beyond aging;
2) I am subject to illness; I have not gone beyond illness;
3) I am subject to death; I have not gone beyond death;
4) All that is dear to me, and everyone I love, are of the nature to change. I will grow different, separate from all that is dear and appealing to me.
5) I am the owner of my actions, heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have actions as my arbitrator. Whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir.

Interestingly, Wikipaedia is a pretty good source for context on the five remembrances as is this 2005 article in Yoga Journal by Frank Jude Boccio.

As I was working with the Five Remembrances, a song kept coming into my head — “Father Death Blues” by Allen Ginsberg, which I first heard live from Ginsberg himself in 1988 at a Jack Kerouac Festival in Lowell, MA. For me, Ginsberg’s catchy, dirge-like composition captures much of the essence of this practice: keep close to death in order to realize the preciousness of life.

Here is Ginsberg accompanying himself on the harmonium (and Indian instrument that’s closest to an accordion that he uses here in a drone-like fashion). I did my own (somewhat abbreviated version) with guitar below.

Father Death Blues Cover, by Rachael