{"id":63137,"date":"2025-12-29T06:10:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T12:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=63137"},"modified":"2025-12-29T06:10:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T12:10:52","slug":"a-bonus-post-from-rabbi-rami-shapiro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=63137","title":{"rendered":"A Bonus Post from Rabbi Rami Shapiro"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m going to replace my New Year\u2019s resolutions with the Five Remembrances from the\u00a0Upajjhatthana Sutta<\/em>\u00a0(\u201cSubjects for Contemplation\u201d).<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Upajjhatthana Sutta<\/em>\u00a0is also known as the\u00a0Abhi\u1e47hapaccavekkhitabba\u1e6dh\u0101nasutta<\/em>. I mention this only in case you need to impress people at a New Year\u2019s Eve party. Delivered orally some 2500 years ago and written down in Pali around 29 BCE, the\u00a0Upajjhatthana Sutta<\/em>\u00a0is famous for its teaching of the Five Remembrances:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. It is my nature to grow old. There\u2019s no escaping growing old.<\/li>\n
  2. It is my nature to fall ill. There\u2019s no escaping illness.<\/li>\n
  3. It is my nature to die. There\u2019s no escaping death.<\/li>\n
  4. Everything and everyone I cherish shares this same impermanence. There\u2019s no escaping my being separated from them.<\/li>\n
  5. Thoughts and feelings are beyond my willful control. My actions alone belong to me. There\u2019s no escaping the consequences of my actions.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    These Five Remembrances aren\u2019t resolutions; they are facts. You don\u2019t have to accept them any more than you have to accept gravity. They are simply what is so.<\/p>\n

    Memorizing and reflecting on the Five Remembrances is said to deepen your appreciation of life and your compassion for the living. In my experience, it also eliminates the haunting question \u201cWhy Me?\u201d When I remember that everyone suffers, there is no need to ask why I\u2019m suffering. Not distracting myself with the story \u201cWhy Me?\u201d allows me to address the problem at hand more creatively.<\/p>\n

    If the Buddha were a Jew, I imagine he would have ended each of the Five Remembrances with the Hebrew word\u00a0titmoded<\/em>: deal with it. There\u2019s no escaping growing old\u2014deal with it. There\u2019s no avoiding illness\u2014deal with it. There\u2019s no escaping death\u2014deal with it. There\u2019s no escaping impermanence\u2014deal with it. There\u2019s no escaping the consequences of my actions\u2014deal with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I\u2019m going to replace my New Year\u2019s resolutions with the Five Remembrances from the\u00a0Upajjhatthana Sutta\u00a0(\u201cSubjects for Contemplation\u201d). The\u00a0Upajjhatthana Sutta\u00a0is also known as the\u00a0Abhi\u1e47hapaccavekkhitabba\u1e6dh\u0101nasutta. I mention this only in case you need to impress people at a New Year\u2019s Eve party. Delivered orally some 2500 years ago and written down in Pali around 29 BCE, the\u00a0Upajjhatthana … Continue reading A Bonus Post from Rabbi Rami Shapiro<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1450,4381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary-on-religion","category-judaism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63138,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63137\/revisions\/63138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}