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Talk + Meditation: How to Find Peace in Impermanence
July 12, 2025

Life can feel like it’s coming at us from all sides—relationships change, plans fall through, our bodies age, and the world keeps shifting under our feet. It’s totally normal to feel uneasy or anxious in the face of all this unpredictability.

But what if we could relate to change in a different way—not as something to fear, but as something we can move with, and even find peace within?

So this week, I explored one of the Buddha’s most fundamental insights: that everything is changing. And not in a dry or philosophical way, but in a deeply practical sense—how seeing this clearly can actually help us suffer less.

We look at how habitual anxiety takes hold, how to recognize when we’re actually okay in the moment, and how to find stability inside ourselves even when life feels chaotic.

There’s also a reflection on how impermanence doesn’t mean everything is meaningless—far from it. In fact, it can help us loosen our grip on what’s hurting us, open more fully to what’s good, and even discover what is unchanging at the core of our being.

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Talk: How to Find Peace in Impermanence

Download the Talk: Audio | Transcript

Timecodes:

00:00 Letting Go of Needless Anxiety

3:18 Strength Without Fear

4:50 Facing Impermanence

7:16 Two Foundations of Practice

12:07 Time, Change, and the Edge of Creation

15:42 The Buddha’s Core Teachings

21:36 Finding Refuge in a Changing World

32:24 Impermanence and Relationships

39:52 What Doesn’t Change

A Meditation: Releasing Anxiety, Feeling Alright Right Now

Download the Audio of this Meditation

When life feels uncertain and your body is holding onto tension, it’s easy to get swept up in worry and lose touch with any real sense of calm. In this meditation, I’ll guide you toward settling into your body, easing out of unnecessary anxiety, and finding a deep, reassuring sense that—at least in this moment—you’re basically all right.

These teachings are offered freely, at no charge. 

And if you like, you may wish to participate in the age-old tradition of generosity through making an offering yourself – called “dāna” – to support Rick and the Wednesday Meditations. Generosity itself is a beautiful practice that opens and gladdens the heart, relaxes the contraction of “self,” and ripples out into the world to touch many people – and perhaps, eventually, even oneself. 

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