Practicing with The Five Remembrances during a life-threatening emergency
By David Percival on
It was our sangha’s Day of Mindfulness, and I was up early getting ready to go. It looked like a wet, cool day, but I’m going anyway, I said—except I wasn’t. Suddenly, I found myself on my bed with a cold sweat and a terrible pain in my left shoulder.
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Practicing with The Five Remembrances during a life-threatening emergency
By David Percival on
It was our sangha’s Day of Mindfulness, and I was up early getting ready to go. It looked like a wet, cool day, but I’m going anyway, I said—except I wasn’t. Suddenly, I found myself on my bed with a cold sweat and a terrible pain in my left shoulder. Unable to stand up, I slid off the bed on to the floor.
What a beautiful position to be in, I thought, and I had a quick, silent laugh. But I knew.
How could this be happening to me? I thought I was healthy. I thought, “I’m fit. I eat well. I’m supposed to be going to a Day of Mindfulness, but I’m having difficulty getting off the floor.”
What came to me as I lay there was The Five Remembrances, something I have been practicing with for a long time. Yes, it’s true:
I am of the nature to grow old. I cannot escape growing old.
Yes, I am sort of on the old side. No arguing with that. Yet I never really felt old, except then, lying on the floor.
I managed to get back up on the bed. My amazing partner had already called 911, and the ambulance arrived. After a quick evaluation, I was in the ambulance bouncing along the road, and in between bounces a technician tried to insert an IV into my arm. He didn’t succeed.
Everything happened very fast. I was taken into the emergency room where I was further evaluated by the many staff milling around (it seemed like a lot of people, but they knew what they were doing). Within minutes, I was in the Cardiac Catheter Lab, and all I remember is a lot of mumbling by the staff. The next thing I knew, I was being wheeled up to a room. I had a new stent in a clogged artery and multiple tubes and wires attached to my body.
I am of the nature to have ill health. I cannot escape having ill health.
The realization came to me that I have the ability to truly take care of myself and others and that I already have the “practice of transforming our afflictions and helping to relieve suffering in others and ourselves.” Even in this hospital room, without my usual resources, I had everything I needed to be fully present and awake and caring for myself.
Aware of my mortality, I thought of our practice of aimlessness. What is my destination? All I could do was be fully present, right there on that bed. I couldn’t go anywhere. I fully experienced nothing to do, nowhere to go. With each breath (I couldn’t take any steps), I arrived in the present moment. It was remarkably easy to be calm and relaxed, and there was no fear; thanks to our beautiful practice, I was mindful and I enjoyed some of my favorite gathas, especially:
In, out Deep, slow Calm, ease Smile, release Present moment, wonderful moment
And this was a wonderful moment. Here I was, out of danger, resting, being cared for by many skilled, loving people. I won’t talk about the food or the difficulty sleeping, but that’s minor. When I was finally allowed to get out of bed, it was a bit of a challenge with so many tubes and wires that needed to be disconnected, but I managed and was able to walk around, tubes dangling, holding the back of my gown closed so as to not shock the people outside my room. They certainly didn’t need that.
I practiced walking meditation in the cardiac wing of the hospital.
This was a time to really think about The Five Remembrances. It was wonderful to realize that we don’t have to live with fear and, as Thầy says, “the foolish things we do to try not to feel it.”1
I am of the nature to die. I cannot escape death.
It is possible to contemplate our mortality without fear. Indeed, The Five Remembrances are a formula for freedom so we can spend our time transforming our suffering and helping others do the same.
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.
This was telling me that we need to be free from attachment and clinging and there is no need to constantly accumulate more and more things. Thầy teaches, “As practitioners, we should allow ourselves to be as free as the moon. If we are attached to obtaining more and more wealth, fame, power, and sex, we lose our freedom.”2
After one night in the hospital, I was free to go home, thankful to be alive and for the care and concern of so many people. I did accumulate five new drugs that I never knew existed before. Plus, there was a new determination to eat and exercise better.
I inherit the results of my acts of body, speech, and mind. My actions are my continuation.
There is no sense in speculating on why this happened. It just did, and I look forward to the years ahead, not clinging, walking with peaceful steps, and looking at all beings with the eyes of compassion.
I’ve created a sixth remembrance:
I am of the nature to be grateful. There is no escaping my gratitude.
This whole process was one of reliance on so many other people—the people close to me, others I had not known before, and institutions built to serve all people. I bow in gratitude to everyone who helped and watched over me. I couldn’t have done this without you.
1 Thích Nhất Hạnh, Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2012), 31.
2 Ibid., 36.
