Good morning and welcome to your Sacred Sunday.
I am Kara Bradley,
Your host,
Bringing you a practice on Sundays,
A reflection,
A way to turn inward and to sit with yourself,
To get to know yourself,
To explore a topic that perhaps you may speed by during your busy work week.
So for today,
I have a topic that is,
I think,
Really,
Really important that we sit with a lot and that is the topic of impermanence.
Impermanence is a reminder that life is fleeting,
Momentary,
That we have this sliver in time and we don't want to miss it.
I learned this,
The importance of sitting with impermanence from my own meditation practice,
My meditation teacher,
Scott McBride.
And I want to share with you a practice that he often,
In words that he often uses to help me sit with the truth that everything comes and goes,
Everything is born,
Everything dies,
Everything,
Everything.
And it's hard to accept,
Especially in the speed and busyness of everyday life when we need to get stuff done.
So to begin this practice,
I want to read a quote that I found as I was searching for quotes on impermanence,
Hoping that someone had some wise words to share with me and you.
And I found this beautiful quote from Wes Moore.
He said,
Life's impermanence is what makes every single day so precious.
It's what shapes our time here.
It's what makes it so important that not a single day be wasted.
And so as we enter into this practice,
Let us come into this quiet space to allow our mind to settle,
To allow our body to rest.
So that for a moment,
Maybe just a mere moment,
We can experience ourselves in this precious life.
There's nothing you have to do special in this practice today.
Just allowing yourself the opportunity to pause,
To let go of what you think you know,
What you think you need,
And to allow yourself to be absorbed,
Absorbed completely in all that is happening or not happening.
You can allow your mind to rest on your breath.
It's a good placeholder,
A good anchor for a mind that likes to think a lot.
Just noticing the gentle rising and falling of your breath.
And in this practice,
We're simply allowing,
Allowing ourselves to be right in the essence of this moment with whatever rises,
Whatever comes your way through thought,
Sound,
Physical sensation,
Smell,
Taste,
And if your eyes open through what you see,
Allowing your sensations,
Including your thoughts,
To emerge,
To tap your consciousness,
Your awareness,
And then to dissolve,
To melt away just as gracefully as it came in.
Noticing the coming and the going.
As we sit with ourselves and just allow life to be,
As we allow life to emerge and to dissolve,
Just like that,
We remind ourselves of the impermanence of this precious experience,
This precious day that awaits us or that we experienced.
Let all sensations,
Let all thoughts be like writing on water,
Emerging and dissolving,
Coming and going.
Becoming familiar with,
Becoming familiar with what it means to live right here,
Right now,
Not in the future,
In planning or fantasy or in the past,
In remembering.
Those thoughts,
They'll come.
We can't stop them from coming,
But we can recognize that they will come and they will dissolve like writing on water.
When we allow,
When we allow things to emerge and to dissolve.
And if you feel like you've grasped onto a thought,
You've gone down a road of thinking,
You're going to open your palms in this gesture of letting go,
Letting go,
Allowing whatever comes through your mind to emerge and allowing it to dissolve.
This is how we practice impermanence.
It's how we practice remembering,
Remembering that everything will come and go.
And in that remembering,
We also allow ourselves the opportunity to be here now,
To sit in presence,
To explore what it feels like to be right here,
To remember that our lives are precious,
And to not waste a single day being stuck,
Grasping,
Pushing away,
Forcing life to be different.
So in the last few moments,
You can open your eyes if they've been closed,
Noticing what it feels like to be awake,
To be clear,
To be at ease in your body,
In your mind in this moment.
These practices we do together are reminders,
Simply reminding us of what we already know,
What we forget because we get busy.
Thank you for joining me.
Thank you for giving yourself the time to be with yourself in this very precious moment,
This moment that will come and it is now gone.
We can't bring it back.
We can simply show up fully for it,
Remembering the impermanence of our lives,
Remembering,
As Wes Moore said,
It is so important that not a single day be wasted.
Enjoy your day.
Thank you for joining me for Sacred Sunday,
Even if it isn't a Sunday,
Every day is sacred.
Please check out the show notes for links for other work and content that I'm putting out there,
And I look forward to next time.
Be well.
