How To Flow With Life

Flowing with life means living in accordance with the laws of nature. In this lesson, we examine how the wisdom of impermanence teaches us to stop grasping and resisting that which is always changing and to recognize our happiness is not coming from the objects of our desires or fears but instead from the cessation of the grasping and resisting.

Transcript

I want to start with an ancient Sufi story tonight about a king that was constantly being torn between happiness and sadness,

That whenever something difficult or challenging was going on in the kingdom,

He was so easily thrown into despair and to sadness,

And that his happiness was so fragile that he would just crumble so easily and be constantly disappointed and feeling disappointment,

And he'd finally had enough of this.

He's like,

I can't take this anymore.

I can't live like this anymore.

So he asked his advisors to go out into the kingdom and find a sage,

Someone that can come back and give him some advice so that he can live more peacefully,

More harmoniously,

More happily.

So the advisors go out into the kingdom,

And they,

Way off in the edges of the kingdom,

They find this hermit sage,

And they explain to the sage what's going on,

And he says,

Ah,

I have exactly what the king needs.

So they all go back to the palace,

And the sage is in front of the king,

And the king says to him,

I will give you anything.

I will pay you anything if you can teach me how to be more at peace,

More happy.

And the sage says,

Well,

What I have is worth more than all the gold you have in the kingdom,

But I will give this to you as a gift as long as you promise to honor it.

And the king says,

Absolutely,

I will honor it.

So he hands him this little box,

And the king opens it up,

And inside is this simple gold band,

Gold ring with an inscription,

This too will pass.

And the king looks at it,

And he's kind of confused,

He's not sure what to do with it.

And the sage says,

I want you to always wear this ring,

And no matter what is happening before you label it as good or bad,

I want you to read this inscription,

And these words will set you free and bring you the peace in your heart that you so desperately desire.

So,

Of course,

This is the wisdom of impermanence,

This deeply,

Deeply profound teaching that keeps trying to remind us that everything in this world,

Everything we are seeing,

Hearing,

Touching,

Tasting,

Smelling,

Interacting with,

Experiencing,

Is impermanent.

It's always changing,

There is nothing permanent.

And when we apply this wisdom to the three types of experience that we have,

That it brings peace in our hearts.

So when the winds of change come in and bring those unpleasant conditions,

And we know our habitual response,

As we push back,

We resist,

It shouldn't be happening.

But then we think of these words,

This too will pass.

And we can just feel the resisting drop away,

Melt away.

We can feel that spaciousness and that peace in our heart by remembering whatever it is we're experiencing,

It won't last.

And when we're experiencing the neutral conditions that we tend to think kind of skew towards the negative side,

When we're just,

There's not much going on,

We're feeling a little bored and we know that habitual response that we have is we've got to fill it up.

I can't possibly experience this boredom,

I need something to fill myself up inside.

And we know that craving feeling,

How that is.

But when we remember this too will pass,

Again,

We can feel that spaciousness,

That letting go,

That remembering,

Oh,

I actually did find a little space in my day and now I have it,

Like let me enjoy this,

Let me appreciate this,

Because it won't last.

And when the winds of change bring in the pleasant conditions,

To remember too that these conditions won't last either.

So when we get into that craving mind,

That clinging mind of wanting the good conditions to stay,

Thereby already turning the suffering into the pleasant conditions,

We remember,

Oh,

This too will pass.

So my best response is to appreciate these good conditions,

To have gratitude in these conditions,

Because they won't last.

And by doing that,

We actually do extend them out longer.

There's no grasping,

There's no clinging.

So the more that we embody these teachings,

The more that we embrace them,

The wisdom of impermanence,

The more easily we flow,

Right?

Just throughout our day,

We don't get stopped 50 times a day like we normally do,

Like,

Oh,

That shouldn't be happening,

That shouldn't be happening,

That shouldn't be breaking,

They shouldn't be doing that.

Every time we go,

Oh,

This too will pass,

This too will pass,

This too will pass,

And we're free.

So intellectually,

I think we all pretty easily understand this teaching.

It's our own experience that this is the way it is,

It's always changing.

And yet,

We don't really believe this to be true.

All we have to do is look at our actions.

We're all on board right here,

And we walk out the door,

We turn off our computers,

And we're right up in our thoughts again,

If only I could get rid of that one thing,

That one difficult person in my life,

If only I could get this relationship over here,

Or this object over here,

Or this experience.

And yet,

All we're doing is applying all of this effort through our clinging,

Our chasing,

Our wanting,

And then all this resisting aversion and pushing back.

So a lot of tension in there for a fleeting moment of happiness.

All this work for a fleeting moment.

And we can understand from a neurobiological view what's happening in our brain,

Yeah,

We get a little hit of dopamine,

We get a little high from it,

Right?

When we get the reward,

We get a little high,

Or pushing away the bad thing,

Like there's a reward in that,

We get a little high from it.

But that's all fleeting,

A little high.

And below that fleeting high,

Though,

Is a peace,

A sense of contentment,

Of ease,

Of satisfaction.

That's what we really want.

And the cause of that is not the external object,

It's not getting the external object or pushing away the experience.

It is the ceasing of the clinging,

Of the craving,

Of the resisting,

Of the aversion.

It is the absence of the craving and clinging and resisting that brings us the peace that we so desperately want to experience.

But we keep attributing that peaceful feeling to the object,

Thinking that that's what's actually bringing it.

It's not.

We have all this angst leading up to it,

And then it's the absence of it that makes us feel so good.

The objects can't really do a whole lot for us.

You know,

We think that they're doing something.

We fool ourselves into believing it,

Which is why we stay on this cycle,

That we keep chasing it,

Well,

Okay,

Maybe not that thing.

You know,

I just need to try a little harder,

I need to go for something a little bigger.

We keep looking for that permanent object,

That one thing that's going to stick,

But the wisdom of impermanence is that it's all impermanent.

In the world,

It's all impermanent.

And so,

You know,

If we keep chasing,

If we spend our whole lives chasing,

Again,

All that angst,

All that tension,

That frustration,

That fear of not getting it,

The fear of getting what we don't want,

All of that for just this little moment of happiness,

Like that's insane.

You know,

It makes,

It creates,

Our happiness is so fragile.

We are so easily perturbed,

Disturbed,

Disappointed,

Dissatisfied,

You know,

Just always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It's a terrible way for us to exist,

And yet we keep repeating it because we keep believing,

Well,

Maybe,

Maybe this one thing can do it.

I'll keep trying.

And so the wisdom of impermanence and the wisdom of these four little words,

This too will pass,

Help free us.

So when we do experience the difficult email that comes in,

Or the difficult boss,

Or the difficult friend,

Or the,

You know,

The internet going out,

The computer breaking down,

The iPhone not working,

The,

You know,

Just any unpleasant conditions,

To keep remembering,

This too will pass.

And as soon as we say that,

We feel that sense of freedom just opening up inside of us,

Like,

Oh yeah,

It's not going to last.

Like that brings us back into reality,

That these things,

They're coming and going.

Don't make your happiness dependent upon them.

It doesn't mean that we don't want,

Or that we don't enjoy the pleasant conditions,

That you don't have a party and have all your friends come over.

It doesn't mean that.

It's to remind us that these are all impermanent conditions,

To have gratitude when you're experiencing the good conditions,

To know they won't last,

To know when all your relationships are in a good working order,

Have gratitude.

That's amazing.

That's great.

It won't always stay like that.

Sometimes there's a little distance between our relationships.

Sometimes we have a fight with our partner,

You know,

That there's always change happening within our relationships,

Happening within our external conditions,

Happening within us.

Right?

One minute we're feeling some discomfort,

The next minute we're feeling comfortable.

It's always changing.

And this is what the ancient Sufis were telling us.

It's what Jesus said,

Just one slight shift in word,

This too shall pass.

This is what everyone is saying.

The more that you can live your life according to the reality of the world we live in,

The more easily you will flow,

You will be more present,

We're more accepting,

We're kinder,

We're less,

You know,

It's that clinging.

It's the absence of the clinging and the resisting.

It's okay when something unpleasant arises because it's going to,

The car breaks down,

You know,

The air conditioning breaks,

And whatever it happens to be,

It's like,

Okay,

This will pass.

And every time we say those words,

We're taking it from that intellectual understanding down into that place of knowing.

And that's where we've got to get this teaching because the difference between the intellectual understanding and the place of knowing is the difference between suffering and peace.

And so the more that we've used this teaching,

Just remembering these four simple words and keep saying it to ourselves,

Whether the conditions are good,

Neutral,

Or unpleasant,

To keep reminding ourselves and notice,

Actually,

My happiness is coming from the lack of clinging and resisting.

It's not dependent upon those objects.

And that is amazing news.

When we realize that,

Oh,

This was all on me.

Every time I let go,

I feel that sense of peace and harmony with him.

And we flow.

We flow with the ups,

We flow with the downs.

And the more that we flow,

I have found,

There actually tend to be more ups.

Doesn't mean we're impervious to the downs,

But they're just not,

They're not as sticky.

They're not as much of a problem anymore because you expect it to,

Right?

Of course,

It's going to change.

Why would my conditions be any different than anyone else's?

Of course,

They're going to change.

So we're living more in tune with reality,

With the way things are.

We're more in harmony with our environment and we're more in harmony with ourselves.

Feeling that peace in our heart,

Knowing those four simple words,

This too will pass.

Reviews

Thank you so much for sharing yourself with me. I feel much less complicated and more free.

I love your stories and I enjoyed listening to this excellent reminder. Thank you Meredith 💕🙏🏼

Thank you for this very powerful reminder. And if I may make a suggestion, please consider using a lower toned Bell or no bell at all for people like myself that have a noise sensitivity. (hyperacusis, and tinnitus.)

Such a simple but profound message, delivered with such compassion and caring. Exactly what I needed to calm and meet the day. Thank you so very, very much!

So appreciate this clear and honest wisdom from you 🙏🏻

Great talk. I was just telling myself those 4 words the other day. It definitely helps. Great reminder. Thank you🙏💛🙏

I learning so so much from these amazing talks Merideth ! I so so grateful I’ve found you 🙏💕