Marie Wolfe

Marblehead, MA, USA

Tony Brady

Dublin

Lisa Scordamaglia

Bellport, NY, USA

Wendy Bright-Fallon

New Jersey, USA

Amanda Foster

Middlesbrough, United Kingdom

Annie

Sandusky, OH, USA

London, United Kingdom

Senga

Elgin, Scotland, UK

Sara 

Stacey Rae Gibbs

Brentwood, (Los Angeles) USA

Explore the nature of impermanence to find peace and presence amidst life's constant changes.

English

Everything changes. Nothing stays the same. Learn how to use this to help you get through times of stress or upset as well as not seeking attachment at times of joy and happiness to maintain a more balanced and peaceful life.

Using Impermanence For A Peaceful Life

 Hello and welcome to this guided meditation on impermanence My name is Dali and I'm going to take you through some of the ways that I use impermanence To remind myself to be present, to be kind to myself And to generally bring about peace and calm to my day to day life So firstly let me tell you how I define impermanence The ever changing nature of all things Looking at it this way for me is a great reminder that Regardless of how I feel right now, I know that's going to change Because I've had many years experience of feeling all kinds of different emotions So whatever I'm feeling now, it's not going to last So with that, let's begin If you can get yourself into a comfortable position, whatever that means for you is absolutely fine And allow your eyes to gently close And take one or two, three at the most, very deep breaths Just to allow you to arrive in this moment And then let your breath settle into its natural rhythm And we're going to start with letting our attention rest gently on the breath Asking ourselves, what is my breath doing right now? What is my breath doing right now? And there's no right or wrong answers to this It's simply a case of paying attention, witnessing the breath You may still be breathing quite deeply That's alright, if that's your natural way, don't change it You might be breathing quickly, slowly You might have shorter breaths, you might have quite a silent breath Or there may be some noise there Whatever it is, there's no right or wrong Don't worry, just let it be Now I want you to bring your attention to how you're feeling right now Ask yourself, how am I feeling right now? And that's emotionally or mentally, whatever it is We're not going to change anything right now, we're just going to identify how we're feeling It could be happy, it could be sad, it could be upset It could be joyful or relaxed However you want to describe the way you're feeling is right for you in this moment We're not going to add any narrative or judge ourselves positively or negatively We're just watching, noticing the emotion or feeling Now once you've got that feeling identified Just pay attention to the word, whatever word you've given that feeling or emotion Just let your attention rest on the word, not the feeling, not the emotion Not the physical sensation in your body, just the word You can silently repeat this word in your head But try and disassociate it from the actual feeling Now to come back to impermanence The reason I ask you to disassociate the feeling or the emotion from the word Is to try and avoid any judgement Because with judgement comes positive thoughts or negative thoughts And with noticing, we more often than not can just stay neutral And that's what we're looking for So just let your attention rest on the word and not the feeling in the body So whatever it is that you were feeling that gave you this word, this label I want you to think back to a day last week or the week before When you felt something that you would describe as the complete opposite to that word So for example, if you're feeling sad Think of a moment from the last couple of weeks when you felt happy or vice versa And again just focus on the word Try not to bring the emotion into it We're using the words just as labels, just to notice those feelings But not allow ourselves to get carried away with the feeling Impermanence tells us that everything changes It refers to the fact that nothing is going to stay the same Whether it is improving or whether it's degrading It doesn't bring the judgement into it, it just recognises that everything changes So whatever we're feeling, we can recognise that that is going to change We need to use it at times of perceived pleasure As well as those negative times of upset Because if we attach ourselves to the idea of pleasure We're going to be disappointed when it ends If we remain in the moment with the idea of impermanence It means we can just experience it for what it is Knowing that it's not going to last Knowing that whatever's come up will also fall away Whether it's good or bad, positive or negative Everything changes And with a lot of meditations as well we talk about being distracted And not being a problem Because we can always begin again And much in the same way as that If we remind ourselves of impermanence We can begin again It's like a clean slate We know that feelings don't last It might not be the opposite that we feel It might be something completely different But just remember that it will change When we're planning to meet up with friends Or we're planning a vacation or a holiday Quite often we will look to the past And we'll remember a great night out we had A great meal, a great meet up Or an awesome vacation or holiday And we will try and recreate that on our next visit or our next meet up And no matter how close it comes to that experience It will never be the same experience There will be many elements of it that change We cannot recreate the past And we can't predict the future All we have is this moment And if we appreciate impermanence in the moment We'll know that those experiences will also change Even our memories of experiences change You and I could experience the exact same event But our personal experience and then our memories of it Will be different Just as if you revisit or try to recreate something It will be different Everything changes And I use this reminder of impermanence quite often At times of stress or anxiety I find it's a good way of calming down Of managing my breathing Because I know that whatever is happening is not going to last So if you find yourself distracted right now, that's okay Let that distraction go, whatever it was Come back to that word that you originally had To describe the way you're feeling And just stay with that word Now I want you to return your attention to the feeling Or the emotion that gave you that word originally Return to the feeling or sensations in your body right now And ask yourself, what am I feeling right now? Would you use the same word to describe it? Or has it changed? Even just a little, see if you can notice a change What word would you use now to describe the way you're feeling? Everything changes, constantly I had a teacher at school who quite often used to say The only constant in life is change And I don't think it ever resonated with me at the time But I get it now Just reminding myself of impermanence And sometimes be enough to allow those thoughts, those feelings, those sensations To dissipate, to soften, quieten down And give them the space to change It may not happen immediately, but it will happen And it will take time to remember impermanence To remember that all that rises also falls away But if you can, remind yourself of that I'm sure you will find your day to day life is a lot more peaceful You can gently open your eyes, take in your surroundings I hope you have a peaceful day See you again, take care