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Guided Meditation (60) Observing Change

Hello to everyone from Redwood City here at the Insight Meditation Center.

I would like to do the beginning of this meditation a little bit differently than usual. I would like to do a little guided imagery to begin, using an analogy that I've used many times for some of you and that I'm very fond of. Take a couple of minutes to be comfortable, perhaps in a meditation posture, and close your eyes. Settle in and just breathe deeply for a few moments. Relax your body and settle in a bit.

Imagine yourself sitting against the trunk of a tree, or some other comfortable place next to a river. Perhaps you have a day off and you've gone for a nice walk. There's nothing you need to do, and things are taken care of well enough in your life that you can just sit there in comfortable afternoon weather, maybe in the shade. Watch the river. Watch the current, the flow of the water, and the movements of little wavelets.

You're watching the flow ongoing. In some ways, it is ever-changing and forever changing—a constant constancy of inconstancy. Change is the flow. Sometimes leaves are floating on the river and float down along. Sometimes a twig, sometimes a boat, sometimes a duck floats down the river.

You're just observing and gazing at this, taking everything in, but not really studying anything or staring at anything. You are just relaxed and present. You let your thoughts do what they do. There's no censoring yourself, but there's also no big involvement with your thoughts, or particular interest in them. Because everything feels good, easy, and relaxed, it's just nice to be here gazing at the river.

At some point in meditation, when we're established well enough in the present moment, we've kind of done what needs to be done. We can just sit back and allow the practice to unfold by observing, watching, and allowing ourselves to be aware of all the changing phenomena in our body. The river of life is a constantly shifting and changing panorama of sensations, perceptions, thoughts, and feelings. Even if something stays for a while, you might try to just stay and watch the flow.

One of the places to do that is in your breathing. Breathing is kind of like the way the river is; it's a constant flow of inconstancy in that each in-breath comes and goes, flowing into the out-breath. There's a beginning of the in-breath, a middle, and an end. There is a beginning, middle, and end of the exhale.

All that can be felt as sensations in the body. So, it's not so much observing the breath as it is observing the kaleidoscope of changing sensations in your body as you breathe. Settle back and relax, as if you're leaning against a tree watching a river, observing how the sensations of breathing go on and on. They arise and they pass. Some of them spark into existence for a moment and then vanish, like a little wavelet on a river that is there for a moment and then returns to the river.

To settle further into this watching of breathing, take a few moments to relax your body more. Soften all over, as if you're relaxing your whole body in towards the breathing. Relax so that the body becomes a soft foundation for a soft river of changing sensations.

The more relaxed the body is, the more the body flows and changes, and things come and go, arise and pass. The more tense we are, the more we have the illusion of things being tight, constant, and continuous. Relax, soften the body, and settle in.

Then again, gaze kindly on your breathing. Be sensitive to the aspects of breathing that are constantly changing—the sensations of breath that come and go, that one morphs into the other.

Relax the mind. The more relaxed the mind is, the more it can be part of the flow of the river. The more tense the mind is, the more it tends to produce the illusion of constancy, of being unchanging. Soften the thinking mind, resting in the mind's ability to observe, to perceive, to sense experience.

Centered on your breathing, notice that all around it is also change. There are the changing, fluxing sensations of your body and the changing experiences that come into awareness—sometimes this, sometimes that. Wherever there is change—changing sensations or experiences—relax with it and open with it. Allow it, as if you're allowing it to relax you and open you further. It is as if anything that changes, that comes and goes, frees^[1] the mind further as the mind lets it pass through.

Change is an attribute of the present moment. The present moment itself is constantly changing in more ways than we usually notice. Settle back and observe how it is that the present moment is a constantly shifting and changing phenomenon, represented most by the breathing, the body's experience of change as you breathe. Relax into the river of change. Float on all the changing aspects of the present moment.

Sometimes we're resting in the change, observing it, and sometimes we're swept away in it. Our thoughts are also always changing, even if the same theme persists, and sometimes we get carried away in the flood of thoughts. The idea is to come back to the ground of the body, and from there, observe the change in the present.

Sit quietly, observing change. Gaze upon all things kindly. To the best of your ability, in a simple, maybe even unremarkable way, gaze upon all things kindly. The ability to do so has a lot to do with the ability to be confident in resting in awareness. Feel safe to rest here in awareness. From the safety of being aware^[2], gaze upon all things kindly.

Gaze upon all change in a compassionate way. Those who understand how things are constantly changing are less surprised that things go and things come, that things change. Being less surprised, there is more space to be kind, to have goodwill, generosity, and compassion for this world of ours.

May it be that our meditation practice together allows us to enter into the world with gift-bestowing hands. May we enter into the world with an orientation that's kind, supportive, friendly, and compassionate. We have these beautiful qualities of heart that can flow more easily the more we rest in change.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings everywhere be free.