The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully

by Frank Ostaseski

The purpose of every life is to grow in wisdom and learn to love better.

Our normal sense of self, our usual way of experiencing life, is learned. The conditioning that occurs as we grow and develop can obscure our innate goodness.

“The problem with the word patience,” said Zen master Suzuki Roshi, “is that it implies we are waiting for something to get better, we are waiting for something good that will come. A more accurate word for this quality is constancy, a capacity to be with what is true moment after moment.”

To identify is an inner action, a process we do to ourselves. We can identify with almost anything—a job, a nationality, a sexual preference, a relationship, our spiritual progress, or a passing thought. Just as importantly, we can begin to let go of our identities by getting curious. Right now, we can notice the attitudes and reactions, the preferences that lead to us becoming attached to what we are identified with. Once recognized, we can allow the identification to be without pushing it away. No need to fight it. Gradually, it will dissolve because it, too, is impermanent.

Mature hope requires both a clear intention and a simultaneous letting go. This hope is not dependent upon outcome. In fact, hope is tied to uncertainty because we never know what is going to happen next. The hope is in the potential for our awakened response, not in things turning out a particular way. It is an orientation of the heart, grounded in value and trust in our basic human goodness, not in what we might achieve. That fundamental trust guides our actions and allows us to cooperate with others and to persevere, without attachment to a specific result. In illness, mature hope helps us come to a place of wholeness, even if a cure is unavailable.

In death and in life, should we “hope for the best” or “expect the worst”? What if instead, we cultivated a non-judgmental attention and commitment to being with the truth of whatever is present? Suppose rather than choosing sides, we developed the mental clarity, emotional stability, and embodied presence to not be swept away by the cycle of ups and downs, of hopes and fears? Balanced equanimity gives rise to a resilience that is fluid and not fixed, trusting, adaptable, and responsive. Perhaps we might accept our past, ourselves, others, and the continually changing conditions of our lives “as is”—neither good nor bad, but workable.

The present moment includes all time; it is the all-inclusive now. The present moment could best be described as the flow of life. We are continually being shaped by it, and we are shaping it through the way we meet and respond to it.