So this is a guided meditation on impermanence.
This is an ordinary moment.
If you can,
Close your eyes and just focus on the sensation of breathing.
Try to become aware of the breath,
The in-breath and the out-breath.
Just become aware of this ordinary process that seems so natural that we rarely even think of it.
And yet it's this process of breathing that keeps us alive throughout the ordinary moments of our day.
And now imagine next to you a large platform.
You're standing next to this large platform or a stage and it's empty,
There's nothing on it.
And I want you to imagine your favorite possessions.
This could be your computer,
Your watch,
Your smartphone,
Maybe it's a TV or your car.
Just imagine all of your favorite stuff.
And now imagine them being placed on this platform or on this stage one at a time.
And when they get placed there,
They simply disappear.
Everything that gets placed on the stage dissolves and just disappears.
Just imagine yourself for a moment seeing all of your stuff one by one being placed on there and then it's gone.
And how does that feel knowing all of your stuff is now gone?
And now I want you to imagine all of your friends,
All of your co-workers,
People that you know.
Just imagine their voices,
They're all talking to each other and they're sharing their stories.
And as they do this,
They're all slowly stepping on that stage in single file one by one.
And as they do,
They disappear one by one until they're all gone.
And after that,
I want you to imagine your family,
Your parents,
Siblings,
Children.
I want you to imagine their voices.
I want you to envision their smiles and feel the love that you have for each one of them.
Just imagine them all stepping on that stage,
Each disappearing one at a time.
And notice how now you're standing there next to that stage and you're all alone.
How does it feel now to know your friends and family,
They're all gone.
They've all stepped on that stage.
And I want you to picture the room where you are or the space where you are,
Your bed,
Your books,
All of your other possessions.
All of them on that stage now,
And they all disappear.
And you continue to scale back.
Picture your neighborhood,
Picture your yard,
The feeling of the sun on your face and the feeling of the wind on your skin and rain.
Everything,
Everything you see,
It's all on that stage and it all disappears.
And now as you stand there,
I want you to imagine your memories,
Your feelings,
All the knowledge you've gained from the books that you've read and the school classes that you've attended,
Every word you've ever heard,
Your entire vocabulary,
Every song you've ever listened to,
Every sound you've ever heard,
All being put on that stage.
And it's all disappearing.
And as each of these things goes one by one,
Now there's just you.
And it's just you standing there.
And now you walk onto that stage and you slowly disappear.
And then the stage is the only thing that's there and then the stage disappears.
And now that's it.
There's nothing.
There's nothing left.
There's just the awareness of emptiness,
The emptiness of all that is.
I want you to notice what you feel as you become aware of this emptiness.
And death will come in an ordinary moment just like this one.
Now bring your awareness back to where you are,
The room that you're in,
The space where you are.
Open your eyes if you had them closed.
I want you to just look around for a moment and notice how wonderful it is to just be alive.
This is a simple guided meditation practice that can serve as a reminder that death will come in an ordinary moment,
A moment just like this one.
But for now,
This ordinary moment is anything but ordinary because this is an extraordinary moment of being alive.
And this is the nature of impermanence.
Things are continually changing.
One thing ends and another thing starts,
But in the end it's all impermanent.
And what there is is emptiness.
I want you to think about that,
To just enjoy the feeling of how great it is to just be here with everything just the way that it is,
With the bank account just the way that it is,
The friendships just the way that they are,
You know,
The student loans that you have just the way that they are,
Everything just the way that it is,
And how good that can feel.
And this is the meditation on impermanence.
