Hello,
Thanks for joining me.
Today I want to examine the concept of impermanence.
So you may or may not be aware that everything in life comes and goes.
The saying,
This too shall pass,
Can give us comfort in times of stress,
And overwhelm,
And sadness,
And grief.
But even the good times will pass.
And if we examine it further,
We can see that all happiness,
The existence of happiness,
Lies in our ability to accept impermanence.
The basis of Buddha's teachings tell us that all suffering comes from attachment or grasping.
The problem is that we attach to things like health,
Wealth,
Family,
Love,
Children.
The problem arises that these things change.
Inevitably,
Our health deteriorates.
Health comes and goes.
People change.
Children grow up,
They evolve.
So the things that we attach ourselves to,
They're constantly changing.
As are we.
Our concept of self is also impermanent.
We change and evolve.
Buddha's teachings preach the concept of anatta.
An means not,
And atta means selfless thing.
Our concept of self,
We tend to identify it as a thing,
A thing that exists.
When rather,
It's a flow,
A wave of feelings,
Emotions,
Thoughts,
And identities that can increase and decrease with time and energy.
Ourself is a process,
Not a particle.
It's a verb,
Not a noun.
And when we can remind ourselves that everything in existence is impermanent,
We can find solitude and everything will pass.
Everything will change and we can find safety in that knowing instead of fear of uncertainty and doubt.
So go ahead and get yourself in a comfortable seated position.
Focus on being comfortable yet alert.
Just close your eyes slowly.
Let's take a few deep breaths just to ground ourselves and settle in.
Breathe in.
Feeling upright and breathe out.
Melting down.
Breathe in.
Feeling the alert,
Powerful.
Breathe out.
Let everything settle.
One more,
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Now,
Take a few moments to just focus on the breath.
Let's take a few deep breaths.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
And by this point,
You may have already been reminded of impermanence.
Maybe you were trying to focus on your breath and that was not permanent.
You eventually drifted off into dawn.
Eventually,
You catch yourself,
Guide yourself back to the breath and remind yourself again the ever changing nature of life.
A good example is if you feel sensation in the body,
Even itch.
Eventually,
If you focus on the breath,
Don't scratch the itch.
You'll get lost in thought.
As you get lost in thought,
You'll notice the itch has disappeared.
You're not sure when it disappeared,
But it's gone.
This too is the nature of life.
You're changing.
You're changing.
You're changing.
You're changing.
You're changing.
You're changing.
In life,
We will undoubtedly face time's hardship.
In those moments,
In those waves,
We can often feel like they will last forever,
Like there's no way out.
We have this feeling of being stuck with no solution.
But if we can remind ourselves in these times,
When we do go through these hardships,
That as is the existence of nature itself,
This will pass.
It must.
Life is in a constant race for homeostasis.
So with every bad,
There must be a good.
And with every good,
There must be a bad.
Find solace and safety in this no one.
The great meditation teacher,
Shinzen Young,
Poses an interesting,
Thought-provoking question.
The question is,
Do the mountains dance?
Now,
At first glance,
You may think that's crazy.
Of course,
The mountains don't dance.
Mountains are firm,
Strong,
Stable,
Grounded.
With the aspects of closeness,
Perception,
Time,
You may have a different view.
Look closer at a mountain.
If we look a little closer,
We can see the wind,
How it affects the grass,
The waves of the grass.
We can see how it picks up snow at the top,
Moves it to other places.
We can see how the vegetation grows and dies continuously.
And on an even closer scale,
We can see the erosion over time.
Even closer than that,
We can see the changes of the molecules.
When you really look at the molecules,
You can be fascinated at the speed of vibration and gyration they are operating at.
On a microscopic level,
The molecules and atoms that make up the mountain itself are traveling at 270,
000 kilometers per second.
Now,
The mountain is quite literally dancing,
Constantly changing,
Constantly moving and shifting and evolving.
But only when we look close,
Only when we shift our perception,
Only when we focus.
This is why meditation can help remind us of the concept of impermanence so that we know everything is changing.
All energy is constantly changing.
Our identities change.
The things we attach ourselves to change.
The external circumstances change.
Our environment changes.
The things we have or want change.
The bad,
The good,
Everything in life will change.
So instead of fighting against it,
Let's embrace it.
Let's fall in love with that.
Go ahead and start coming back to awareness.
Start being aware of the surroundings in the room.
When you're ready,
Slowly open your eyes.
Now take this knowledge of the concept of impermanence and that everything is constantly changing.
Take this into your day.
Take this into your week,
Your month,
Your year,
The rest of your life,
Knowing that no matter how hard things get,
They always will change.
Always.
And I hope you find some happiness in that.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
I hope you have a beautiful rest of the day.
Namaste.
Namaste.
