Discovering the Reality of the Five Remembrances

In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Sensei Dainin shares deeply personal stories of accompanying her father and Roshi Joan through life-threatening medical crises, revealing how the Buddhist Five Remembrances transformed from abstract teachings into intimate companions during times of acute uncertainty. Drawing from her unique perspective as both emergency physician and Zen practitioner, Dainin explores the difference between destructive pessimism and wise acceptance of impermanence. Recounting her father’s fulminant liver failure, Dainin honestly examines how her medical training led her to assume the worst, clinging to stories of doom while missing the possibilities (good and bad) that comes with uncertainty. Through her sister’s confrontation — “What are you doing? We are all here trying to help dad get through this and you are telling us that this is not gonna work” — she discovers how pessimism can become a form of attachment that causes more suffering. Quoting Rebecca Solnit’s insight that pessimism is “like a sinking ship” where we dismiss hope as naive and cannot see “lifeboats that are bobbing all around us,” Dainin illustrates how we often prefer the tempered certainty of negative outcomes over facing the vulnerability of genuine not-knowing. In a moment of clarity and poise, Dainin shares her response to her father’s fear and uncertainty in an elevator ride to another surgery when she leaned in close to say “Dad, you know, we love you, right?”— embodying Roshi Joan’s repeated reminder that “all that matters is love.” Through observing Roshi’s recent journey through open heart surgery, Dainin investigates her comment that “resistance obliterates dignity” and witnesses how true dignity means being present without shame or resistance to whatever the moment brings. Dainin challenges us to see the Five Remembrances not as pessimistic ruminations but as pathways through all Four Noble Truths, guiding us toward acceptance, love, and genuine presence with life’s deepest uncertainties.