Dharma Punx event: The Five Remembrances

Mary Stancavage* (AgainstTheStream.org); Seth Auberon, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

1. I am subject to aging; aging is unavoidable.
2. I am subject to illness; illness is unavoidable.
3. I am subject to death; death is unavoidable.
4. I will grow different, separate from all that is dear and appealing to me.
5. I am the owner of my own actions (karma)...and live dependent on my actions. Whatever I do, for good or for ill, to that will I fall heir.

Bringing Home the Dharma

The Buddha offered us (humans and devas) these Five Remembrances [like the Recollections] as a way of reconnecting to our mortality, potential for enlightenment, and as an antidote to our incessant clinging.

• FREE: Five Remembrances Meditation (Yoga Journal)

However, we are unused to thinking about such things. Denial of them is much more common, particularly in American culture.

We often encounter fear when we do bring them to mind and begin to ponder them.

These won't happen to me! I'm a rebel.

So in this daylong we will spend some time together sitting with our own impermanence and begin our journey towards embracing it by contemplating these recollections and our own response to them.

There will be sitting and walking meditation, Dharma talks, and conversation. It is suitable for all levels of practitioners.

• Five Remembrances Daylong
• Saturday, August 19, 2017 10:00 am-4:30 pm
• 4300 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90029
• Info. on parking around the Melrose Center
• COST: sliding scale: $35-$75 in addition to an offering of dana to the teacher.
• Scholarships and work-study are available. No one is ever turned away for lack of fund.
• More info or to register

*Mary Stancavage has practiced meditation, yoga, and cultivated a spiritual practice for over 30 years. She began studying with Against the Stream (ATS) Founder Noah Levine in 2005, and in 2009 completed his first teacher training program. She currently serves as director of Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society. In January 2016 she became executive director of the Mind Body Awareness Project.  She has taught meditation at [drug] recovery centers in Los Angeles, has co-facilitated Year-to-Live groups since 2008, and has a weekly class at ATS. She completed the Buddhist Chaplaincy Program at the Sati Center and served as volunteer chaplain at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center. Mary sits on the board of the Buddhist Insight Network and CLUE-LA. In addition, she has a Master's degree from UCLA and has worked as an archaeologist in the Middle East.