The Buddhist buzzkill that could radically alter your year (and your life)

Plus: my free New Year’s Meditation Challenge starts Monday

Happy New Year, mthrfkrs!

Here’s a Buddhist suggestion for making this the best year of your life: treat it as the last year of your life.

Yeah, the Buddhists know how to party.

Contemplating your finitude may sound hopelessly morbid, but in my experience it’s massively helpful. Remembering the inevitability of death can inject urgency, vitality, and gratitude into your life. In other words, it can wake you up from the autopilot in which we so often operate.

How to actually do this, given that we’re so deeply programmed for denial?

The Buddha recommended that every morning and every evening, we bring to mind the “five daily remembrances.”

Here they are, in my own language:

1. This body is of the nature to grow old.

2. This body is of the nature to get sick.

3. This body will ultimately die.

4. I will ultimately lose everything and everyone I hold dear.

5. My only true possessions are my actions. (In other words, we all float on a self-created jet stream of our past decisions.)

I talk about the five remembrances on the podcast today with my guy Vinny Ferraro, a great dharma teacher. Click to watch or listen.

And don’t forget: I’m kicking off a free, 7-day New Year’s Meditation Challenge this Monday, January 6th. Every morning, you’ll get a guided meditation in your inbox. And then, on several evenings throughout the week, I’ll do live video check-ins (the first one for all subscribers, the second two for paid subscribers).

Below, paid subscribers get a cheatsheet of today’s podcast, which includes key takeaways, time-stamped highlights, and a full transcript. Paid subscribers can also join the chat, comment on posts, participate in monthly live AMAs, and more.

Episode cheatsheet

The big takeaway

Vinny Ferraro, a Buddhist teacher, says that contemplating our mortality can paradoxically make life more vivid, meaningful and joyful. By facing the reality of death head-on, we can break out of autopilot and live with greater intention and appreciation.

Dying to live: how thinking about death can wake you up to life