This meditation was recorded by MBSR teacher Adele Stewart at the day retreat at the Mount Kira Scout Camp in June 2020.
Finding yourself a comfortable seated position on a chair or meditation stool or cushion ideally with your hips and pelvis slightly above your knees.
Perhaps bringing some sense of a mountain to your posture.
Starting off by sensing the base of you rooted in the earth.
Might be the soles of your feet or the contact of your lower legs with the ground with each other.
Having a sense of having this nice firm grounded base.
Part of that firm base will include the sit bones.
Even moving subtly to have that sense of balance and groundedness of the sit bones.
And then noticing the spinal column rising out of the pelvis like the mountain looms high.
With the head on top like the lofty peak of the mountain.
Sitting nicely on the spinal column.
Gently balanced.
Perhaps allowing the shoulders to soften and slope like the sides of the mountain.
Right down into the arms and hands,
Relaxing gently on the lap or legs.
Noticing any tension or tightness that might be present.
Softly breathing in and out to perhaps just soften it a fraction.
Having a sense of being a breathing mountain.
Perhaps capturing a sense of the mountains equanimity.
The mountain is just itself.
What happens on the surface of the mountain or in the weather around it is neither here nor there for the mountain.
Whether it be delightful sunlight and dappled shade,
Tweedering birds or fierce storms and ice and snow.
The mountain just sits there being itself.
Doesn't need to try and be still,
Just is still.
Noticing any tension or tightness that might be present.
Gently allowing the attention to focus on the breath.
The breath.
The ever present breath.
The constant cycles of in and out.
The breath.
Having that sense of settling back.
Gently noticing the breath.
Coming and going.
The breath.
No need to block out any of the other weather in the mind.
Fleeting thoughts or sticky thoughts.
Sounds.
Body sensations.
Emotions and mood states.
Coming and going.
Is the breath.
Perhaps.
Perhaps as the mind steadies.
The mindfulness strengthening.
We can again be curious about the breath.
The felt sense of the breath.
Noticing the speed of the breath.
Its depth.
Its regularity or irregularity.
Any resistance in the chest or abdomen or nostrils.
Perhaps a general tone of the breath.
Gently noticing where it is on the spectrum of full of life and bouncy and springy.
Or at the near the other end.
A bit flat and lifeless.
Noticing with that kindly curiosity.
Perhaps you might notice its texture.
Maybe it's lovely and smooth and flowing.
Perhaps it's a bit rough and ragged.
Just noticing.
Becoming really intimate with the felt sense of the breath.
And now perhaps there's enough steadiness and mindfulness to expand the attention.
To take in the whole of the body.
Maybe starting with noticing the effect of the breath on the body.
The nostrils,
Throat,
Chest,
Abdomen.
Maybe the back and the sides.
The lower half of the body.
And expanding to notice other sensations in the body.
Areas that are soft or hard.
Tight or loose.
Contracted or flowing.
Cool or warm.
Moving or still.
Perhaps very subtle moving feelings like vibration in the fingertips.
Tingling in the toes.
Or pulsation in the chest.
Being gently curious.
Investigating sensations in the body.
Now taking attention to the breath.
Now taking attention to the area of the ears.
Starting off by noticing any sensations in the ears or within the ears.
Perhaps some sort of vibration or hair or glasses brushing the ears.
Perhaps no sensation.
Now shifting the focus of attention to the sense of hearing.
And noticing how sounds also constantly ebb and flow.
Ever changing.
And then labelling or analysing the sounds.
Perhaps noticing them as a soundscape.
Places that are loud or soft.
Short or long.
Continuous or not.
Pleasant or unpleasant.
Not looking for sounds.
Just sitting here receiving the sounds.
And as your mindfulness increases you might even notice that there are little silences between sounds.
Maybe just very short.
Noticing sounds and the silence between sounds.
Might be sounds within your own body.
In the room or in the outside environment.
Part of the texture of the soundscape.
Settling back and receiving sounds.
And perhaps your mind is steady enough and the mindfulness refined enough.
To notice there's also often sounds within our head.
Within our minds.
Our thoughts are often in the form of mental sounds.
And again without needing to analyse or label these thoughts.
Or getting lost in a train of thought.
Noticing if it's possible to sit with this steadiness and mindfulness.
And receive these thoughts.
Perhaps in the form of an audio.
Perhaps a constant little voice in the head commentating.
Or perhaps a very critical judgemental voice.
Or perhaps an encouraging voice.
There might be other internal sounds like a song,
A tune.
Or memories that involve sounds.
And again perhaps noticing if you can observe the silence between these sounds of our thoughts.
Or if you're a much more visual person perhaps noticing the visions coming and going and the space between them.
Perhaps with your mind so still and steady you might notice that thoughts often have body sensations underneath.
Often with some sort of emotional tone.
So the lightness and a noticing.
Not needing to go out and find this.
Seeing what arises.
You may notice other mind states which are partly thoughts and partly body sensations.
Like feelings of drowsiness.
Or restlessness.
Boredom.
Or more pleasant states like peace or calm.
Or maybe even joy.
All mind states coming and going,
Ebbing and flowing.
As best we can,
Not clinging to the pleasant or resisting the unpleasant.
Just like that mountain just allowing all the weather to come and go.
Perhaps at this point there's enough steadiness of mind and refinement of mindfulness to actually drop any one object of attention.
Just sit like the mountain observing all experience coming and going.
Impermanent,
Imperfect and impersonal.
If at any point this feels too overwhelming there's always the option of coming back to that home base of the breath.
But otherwise perhaps sitting like that mountain.
Noticing perhaps the breath.
Then a sound.
Then a thought in the form of words.
Maybe another thought in the form of fleeting visions.
Emotions.
Mind states.
Perhaps smells or tastes.
Body sensations within the body.
And on the surface of the body.
All our experience coming and going,
Ebbing and flowing.
No need to block out or reject any experience.
Allowing it all to just come and go as it will.
More and more effort comes home before everything is put into good health.
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Perhaps for the last few minutes of the meditation,
You might like to refresh your posture a little.
Take a couple of deeper breaths.
And either bringing the attention to the breath or continuing open awareness of all experience.
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Settling back and receiving experience.
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