Stillness · “Stillness Reveals”
The Four Reminders
To settle and re-prioritize the mind before any deeper practice by deliberately contemplating four sobering truths — the preciousness of this life, the certainty of death, the workings of cause and effect, and the futility of self-cherishing — so that practice is approached with urgency and the right motivation.
The Four Reminders in 5 lines: Settle.
(1) This human life is precious and rare — don’t waste it.
(2) Death is certain and its hour unknown — practice now.
(3) Your actions have consequences — how you live and think matters.
(4) Self-cherishing only brings suffering — loosen the grip on “me.” Then let it settle into calm resolve and begin your main practice.
What it is
Before any of the heart-opening lojong practices (tonglen, the slogan disciplines), Atisha’s mind-training tradition begins with Slogan 1: “First, train in the preliminaries.” The preliminaries are a set of four short, pointed contemplations — the Four Reminders (also called the “four thoughts that turn the mind”) — that you bring deliberately to mind to wake yourself up and set your motivation straight.
Unlike open meditation, this is directed, analytical contemplation: you take each reminder in turn and genuinely think it through until it lands as felt truth, not just an idea. The four are:
(1) this human life is precious and rare, (2) death is certain and its hour unknown, (3) actions have consequences (karma / cause and effect), and (4) self-cherishing and worldly preoccupation only bring suffering.
The function is to clear away distraction and complacency so that whatever practice follows is done with urgency and the right intention.
The Method
Following the standard lojong presentation of the preliminaries (Trungpa; Pema Chödrön):
- Settle briefly. Sit, take a few breaths, and let the body and mind arrive. This is contemplation, not blank meditation — you will be actively thinking, but from a settled base.
- Reminder One — the preciousness of this life. Reflect: this human existence, with the freedom and capacity to wake up and to love, is extraordinarily rare and easily wasted. Maintain an awareness of the preciousness of life. Let the sense of “I will not always have this opportunity” become real, not abstract.
- Reminder Two — impermanence and death. Reflect: life ends; death comes to everyone, and the time is unknown — it could be far off or sudden. Don’t dramatize it; simply let the certainty register. This is the reminder that creates urgency and dissolves “I’ll get to it later.”
- Reminder Three — cause and effect (karma). Reflect: whatever you do — helpful or harmful — has a result. Your actions, words, and even habitual thoughts shape what comes. This reminder makes the practice matter: how you live and how you train your mind is not neutral.
- Reminder Four — the futility of self-cherishing. Reflect: as long as you are absorbed in self-importance — in being right, being praised, defending “me” — you suffer. The endless project of protecting and promoting the self does not deliver lasting peace; it is the very thing the path works to loosen.
- Let it settle into motivation. Don’t leave it as gloom. The four together are meant to produce a clear, calm resolve: Given that this life is precious and brief, that my actions matter, and that self-absorption only hurts — let me practice now, sincerely, for the benefit of others. Then begin your main practice (e.g. tonglen, sitting meditation, the slogan disciplines). (Sourcing note: the four reminders and their wording — preciousness, death/impermanence, cause-and-effect, the suffering of self-importance — are the standard lojong preliminaries of Slogan 1 as taught by Trungpa and Pema Chödrön in the Atisha lineage. Faithfully paraphrased, not reproduced.)
Source & Lineage
Atisha Dīpaṃkara Śrījñāna (982–1054), the Bengali master who revitalized Buddhism in Tibet and founded the Kadampa lineage, transmitted the lojong mind-training instructions he received from teachers such as Dharmarakṣita and Serlingpa.
The instructions were compiled by Geshe Chekawa Yeshe Dorje (1101–1175) into the Seven Points of Mind Training, whose very first slogan is “First, train in the preliminaries.” The four reminders are the heart of those preliminaries, shared across all Tibetan schools (where they also open the ngöndro foundational practices).
The lojong reached the West especially through Chögyam Trungpa (Training the Mind, 1993) and Pema Chödrön (Start Where You Are, 1994). → (Atisha; Tibetan lojong teachers).
The Traditions' versions
Tonglen & the slogan disciplines — what the reminders prepare you for; same lineage.
- Ngöndro (all Tibetan schools) — the four reminders open the foundational preliminary practices everywhere in Tibetan Buddhism.
- Maraṇasati (Theravāda) — mindfulness of death; Reminder Two is its near-twin.
- Memento mori (Stoic / Christian) — Marcus Aurelius’ and the desert fathers’ deliberate recollection of mortality to clarify how to live. → Stoic practices.
- Values clarification (ACT) — modern therapy’s “if your time were short, what would matter?” exercises mirror Reminders One and Four.
Common refinements
Reciting instead of contemplating. Skimming the four as a checklist does nothing. The point is to think each one through until it actually lands.
- Tipping into morbidity. Reminder Two should produce urgency and gratitude, not dread or rumination. If it darkens into anxiety, shorten it and lean on Reminder One (preciousness).
- Skipping the resolve. Ending in gloom misses the purpose. The four are meant to culminate in calm motivation to practice and to live well.
- Treating it as the main event. These are preliminaries — keep them brief (5–15 min) and let them launch you into the actual practice.
- Refinement: working with one reminder per day over four days lets each sink in deeply, then return to running all four as a quick opener.