What if remembering that you will grow older, experience illness and eventually die can actually help you enjoy life more?
It sounds like an unlikely route to happiness because most of us would rather focus on what we hope will happen than acknowledge what we cannot avoid. We make plans, care for our health, and love our families, often behaving as if we have a semblance of control, or that there will always be more time.
Buddhism’s Five Remembrances invite us to face life’s inevitable and uncomfortable realities. Through this practice, we explore a different relationship with uncertainty, one that leads to cultivating more gratitude, acceptance and more conscious choices.
You may think that as an anxious Buddhist, this daily practice might cause me more stress. But meditating on our powerlessness, impermanence, and things that will make me sad in the future, actually brings me a sense of peace. In fact it helps me feel more in control and prepared for these inevitabilities, because I’m learning to face and accept them. It won’t exempt me from feeling sad, but hopefully my relationship with the sadness will be a healthier more peaceful one.
What are Buddhism’s Five Remembrances?
The Five Remembrances come from one of the Buddha’s teachings recorded in the Upajjhatthana Sutta, where he recommends frequent reflection on five subjects. A version of them that resonates with me is:
- We will all grow old. I cannot change or control this.
- We will all get ill. I cannot change or control this.
- We are all going to die. To appreciate being alive means accepting we will all die, and I cannot change or control this.
- Eventually I will be separated from everyone and everything that I love. I cannot keep everything and everyone I love beside me forever.
- My actions are the only permanent, they have effects on myself and others that can live on forever.
These are paraphrases rather than a formal translation. The original teaching invites both monastic and lay practitioners to reflect on these realities daily.
The fifth remembrance is especially important. Alongside recognising what lies beyond our control, it asks us to take responsibility for how we act, the Buddhist law of Karma. Our time is limited, but we should still offer kindness, make thoughtful decisions, and care for one another. Whether you believe that these actions will influence your reincarnation or not, your actions can still have ripple effects on others, that can continue to affect everyone that they meet, and so forth.
How accepting impermanence can change our outlook
We already know that life changes. Yet there is a difference between knowing something intellectually and allowing it to influence our emotions and daily priorities.
We may know that our parents are ageing while repeatedly postponing a visit. We may value our health while taking little time to care for ourselves. We may love someone deeply while assuming they already know, so there is no urgency to say it.
Reflecting on impermanence, the changing nature of life, can interrupt those assumptions, and acceptance can coexist with action. We can acknowledge illness while seeking treatment, recognise ageing while maintaining strength, and accept uncertainty while making sensible plans.
Preparing ourselves in this sense, means accepting reality. However it doesn’t require mentally rehearsing every possible tragedy, which can lead to anxiety.
Buddhist non-attachment: feeling sadness without losing ourselves in it
Buddhist practitioners still experience grief, fear, anger and sadness. Reflecting on loss cannot make anyone fully prepared for the death of someone they love.
The Buddhist practice of non-attachment offers a way to explore how we relate to what changes. One practical way to understand it is learning to love deeply while loosening the idea and desire that people, relationships or circumstances will remain as they are.
We can gradually cultivate sources of steadiness, such as compassion, awareness and ethical action, so that our peace and sense of who we are depends less on people, and things, and on keeping everything unchanged.
This also applies to emotions. Rather than treating sadness as our whole identity or a permanent future, we can recognise it as an experience that deserves care and will inevitably change over time. We can endure suffering while remembering that peace and joy remain capacities we can also experience.
The Buddhist practice of non-attachment leaves room for intimacy, support and profound love. It is an ongoing practice, never a test of whether someone is grieving their youth, health, objects, or a death “correctly.”
How the Five Remembrances can help us live more fully
The value of reflection becomes clearer when we bring it into ordinary moments. Besides repeating the five remembrances daily, here are three more ways to put these teachings into practice.
Be more present with the people you love
Remembering that time together is finite can change the quality of our attention. Perhaps you put down your phone during dinner, listen more patiently to a familiar story, or linger over a goodbye. You cannot guarantee how long a relationship will last, but you can offer more of your attention while it is here. Being present doesn’t require making every encounter special. Sometimes it simply means noticing the person beside you, or applying a little more time or energy than usual.
Practise gratitude for everyday life
Much of what we might desperately miss one day can feel unremarkable today: walking comfortably, hearing a familiar voice, sharing breakfast or coming home to companionship.
Try asking: “What is here today that I would miss if it changed?”
Let the answer draw your attention to something worth appreciating. It can be as simple as your morning coffee, the pillow you sleep on, your ability to balance on one leg, that fact that you have access to hot water or can see some greenery outside your window. Sometimes considering how much worse others have it than you can also help cultivate a deep sense of appreciation. Gratitude can sit alongside frustration or sadness, because you do not have to deny difficulties to recognise what still nourishes you.
The following articles expand on the notion, and practice of gratitude:
7 Positive & Inspirational Instagram Accounts for Better Mental Health (2026)
5 Mindful Ways to Recover From the Post-Holiday Blues
Make choices that avoid regrets
The fifth remembrance brings reflection back to action. Is there an apology you keep postponing? Affection you rarely express? Something meaningful you are waiting for the perfect moment to begin, or a new habit you’ve wanted to take up?
Living with fewer regrets doesn’t require constant adventure or dramatic decisions. It may mean making that call, setting a necessary boundary, taking a first step, or choosing patience during an ordinary disagreement. We cannot prevent every regret, but we can choose what we do with them, and give our values more influence over today’s choices.
How to practise the Five Remembrances daily
You do not need to be Buddhist to explore this reflection. Set aside a quiet minute, perhaps before your morning meditation or at the end of the day. Read the five remembrances slowly. Notice what arises without forcing yourself to feel peaceful or grateful. Then perhaps ask yourself:
“Given these realities, what deserves my care and attention today?”
Choose one small action: contact someone, rest your body, express appreciation, or address something you have been avoiding. Keep the practice simple and practical. If it becomes overwhelming or turns into repetitive worrying, pause and reconnect with your surroundings. You can approach these subjects gradually.
Remembering life’s limits can help us value it
In reality no contemplation can guarantee that we will cope calmly when life becomes painful. We are human after all, and no matter how much we reflect or feel prepared, some changes and losses affect us profoundly.
However, acknowledging the realities of life and impermanence, can remind us to pay attention while we have the opportunity. To be more present, grateful, and accepting, There is love to express and care to offer, to ourselves and others, and ordinary life to appreciate and feel grateful for today.
If you stopped assuming there would always be more time, what would you do differently right now?
