Welcome to the Mountain Meditation.
Start by preparing your seated posture.
Find a comfortable position that is sustainable.
A position that offers you stability and poise.
Shoulders over your hips in a comfortable and alert position.
Hands in your lap or on your knees.
Hands hanging by your sides like heavy curtains.
Allow your body to feel rooted into the ground.
And sit with a sense of lightness,
Length and poise.
Once in position,
Take a moment to scan yourself.
Picture a photocopy line or bar scanner line Systematically working its way through you.
From the top of your head down to your feet.
Pay attention to the actual sensations of contact.
Notice any areas of tension.
Try to bring a mindful acceptance to whatever you notice.
Simply allow them to be there.
So often we want to change what we find.
Now start to become aware of your surroundings.
Sensing the space around you.
Try not to use your eyes.
And focus your other senses onto the space to your left.
And then behind you.
Then to your right.
Then above you.
And finally to your front.
I invite you now to take three deep,
Slow breaths.
With each calming breath,
Focus on fully inflating your lungs.
And with a sigh,
Gently release the breaths.
With each breath,
Let go of the day you're having so far.
Let go of the future,
The past,
Or any expectations you may have of this meditation.
Give yourself full permission to slow down.
To move away from that need to do more.
And simply focus your attention onto your natural breath.
Use each breath as an anchor to help fix you in the present.
I invite you now to draw your mind's eye to the image of a beautiful mountain.
It can be a mountain that is familiar to you.
It could be one that you've seen in a picture.
Or simply take this opportunity to imagine your own mountain.
Let it gradually form and come into focus.
And even if it doesn't become a clear visual image,
Allow the overall shape and feel of the mountain to wash over you.
Notice the shape,
Its lofty peak or peaks high up in the sky.
The large base rooted into Mother Earth.
Notice your mountain's sloping sides.
Get a sense of how big your mountain is.
How still and grounded it is.
How solid.
How unmoving.
How beautiful.
Perhaps your mountain has a blanket of snow on its peaks or sides.
Perhaps it has trees reaching down to the base.
Or maybe it's simply rocky and barren.
Maybe further down your mountain there are streams running down into the valley.
Which then form into rivers and lakes.
Let your mind's eye guide you.
Start to feel yourself become one with your mountain.
Your head becoming the lofty peak or peaks.
Your shoulders and arms become the slopes of your mountain.
Your legs and buttocks becoming the base.
Connecting and grounding you to the earth.
Each breath transforming you into mountain.
Grounding you.
Centring you.
Forging you as an unmoving presence beyond words and thought.
You become aware of the sun rising and starting to move across the sky.
Feel the heat of the sun on your mountain body.
Notice how the temperature changes as the sun changes position arcing across the sky.
Clouds start to form casting shadows over your mountain.
These clouds start to mass forming rain clouds.
Notice how the light and temperature changes on your mountain body.
The clouds then start to release their gentle rain covering your mountain.
The sun starts to gradually drop creating a beautiful sunset.
Rich colours wash through the sky and over you as mountain.
As the colourful sunset begins to dim it is replaced by the silver milky light of the moon.
Setting the scene for millions of sparkling stars to fill the sky.
All the while you sit as mountain grounded present and breathing as mountain.
A sense of calm and stillness washing over you as mountain.
Seasons come and go.
Spring brings new growth and vitality.
New trees,
Flowers,
Insects,
Birds and animals.
Summer brings warmth,
Colour and life.
When autumn comes the colours change to rusts,
Golds and reds.
Leaves fall covering your slopes in a collage of glorious colours.
And still your mountain just sits always present and unmoving.
Finally winter comes,
It's cold on your mountain.
Maybe there is snow on your peaks.
Storms may come,
Winds rain and hail.
Huge storms that crash against you causing trees and plants to be uprooted.
Streams to swell and flood.
But even through the strongest storms your mountain just sits,
Grounded,
Strong and peaceful.
No matter what is happening on the surface,
Mountain just sits with an unshakable sense of self,
Rooted in the face of all challenges and adversity.
We too will experience periods of light and dark,
Periods of stillness and movement,
Periods of happiness and sadness.
We also will experience our own storms both inside and outside of us and with varying degrees of intensity.
By becoming mountain as we meditate we can learn to endure pain and darkness as well as light and joy.
We too will experience constant changes and patterns in our emotions,
Moods and energy.
But like mountain we will have an inner strength that can enable us to calmly weather these storms with a quiet dignity,
Strength and unwavering resilience.
By adopting a gentle acceptance that change is simply part of life,
That storms will always pass,
Plans will always change and people will come and go in our lives.
We can forge a strength and resilience found only in adversity that will never leave us and can be called upon at any time.
Now sit and breathe this mountain,
Resting in awareness,
Savouring the moment.
