This is the impermanence,
Uncertainty and self-compassion meditation.
To begin,
Please find a comfortable upright position or you can try this lying down.
And when you're in that comfortable position,
Please close your eyes either partially or fully.
Taking a few easy breaths.
And putting a hand on your heart or in some other soothing place.
Doing this as a reminder to bring not just awareness but kind,
Warm awareness both to yourself and to your experience.
And while we have our hands here,
Let's do one minute hand on heart meditation together.
So breathing in what we need and then breathing out what we don't need.
Breathing in what we need and breathing out what we don't need.
Breathing in compassion and breathing out whatever gets in the way.
Breathing in what we need and breathing out what we don't need.
And now continuing to bring attention to your breath but now just noticing the movement of the breath as you inhale and as you exhale.
Feeling the sensations of breathing in and the sensations of breathing out.
Noticing how each inhale is followed by an exhale.
How neither one is permanent or final and how one keeps leading to the other over and over again.
Inhaling and exhaling.
Inhaling and exhaling.
And widening your attention now to your body as a whole.
Noticing that so many changes are happening in your body in this very moment.
In this moment that might seem quite still.
Your body is made of so many different parts.
Arms,
Legs,
Head,
Skin,
Blood,
Bones,
Nerves,
Muscles and these parts themselves are made of smaller parts,
Cells.
Just as you sit or lie where you are,
See if you can get a sense of the movement that's happening in this moment of apparent stillness.
Maybe your heart beating,
Your blood flowing,
Nerves pulsing.
So much is in motion,
In movement in this time of stillness.
Maybe acknowledging also that on a subtler level all parts of your body are made of molecules and atoms and subatomic particles and these are in constant motion too.
And the same is true of your mind.
Turning your attention now to your mind and maybe noticing the way that it also has many parts or the contents of your mind are many.
You have thoughts,
Perceptions,
Feelings,
Memories,
Images,
All kinds of things and they follow one after another.
So as you're paying attention just notice now as best you can this ever changing flow of experiences in your mind.
Just see if it can be like you're someone looking out a window onto a busy street watching the cars and the buses and the people just passing by over and over.
As best you can just letting what you notice be as it is.
Observing this ever changing nature of your mind.
And having reflected a bit on the impermanence of your inner world of your body and of your mind,
Extending this awareness now to the outer world and to start just recognizing that everything in your immediate surroundings and environment,
Your cushion,
Your chair or the surface you're sitting on or lying on,
The floor,
The walls,
Windows,
The ceiling,
The furniture,
Books,
Any other objects in the room.
All of these objects appear to be solid and static but each one is actually a mass of tiny particles zooming around in space.
We can't see this with our eyes but we know that it's so.
Seeing if you can acknowledge that to yourself.
Then letting your awareness travel even further out beyond the walls of your room and reflecting on other people the way that their bodies and minds are also constantly changing,
Constantly in motion.
The same is true of all living beings,
Animals,
Birds,
Insects.
It's true for trees,
Mountains,
Oceans,
Rivers.
It's even true for inanimate objects in the world like houses and buildings,
Roads and cars.
And it's true in the wider universe,
The earth itself,
The sun,
The moon,
The stars.
All of us being composed of these atoms and tiny particles and mostly lots and lots of empty space.
We're constantly changing,
Constantly in motion.
Everything stays the same for any of us even on that very physical level.
It's constantly changing.
So as you sit with this putting a hand on your heart or some other soothing place and seeing if it's possible to feel more of a softening in yourself and a tenderness as you recognize the poignancy,
The possibility and the beauty of this life.
How it's impermanent like this for you and for everyone.
And then following your breath,
Breathing compassion in and breathing out whatever you don't need.
Breathing compassion in and breathing out whatever gets in the way.
As you continue to recognize and feel into this tenderness of being human,
Of being alive,
Just breathing in what you need and breathing out what you don't need.
And continuing for a few more breaths this way.
Breathing compassion in and then breathing out whatever gets in the way.
And then for now letting go of this practice and just noticing how you feel.
Knowing that there's no particular way that you're supposed to feel in this moment and that however you feel is okay.
And then as you feel ready gently opening your eyes.
