The following meditation is called the Mountain Meditation and it's taken from John Kabat-Zinn's book Wherever You Go,
There You Are.
Finding a comfortable seated position,
One in which you feel straight,
The spine is straight but not stiff,
Your shoulders are relaxed,
Your head is well supported by your neck,
Chin is more or less level parallel with the floor,
The neck is in line with the spine,
And placing your hands on your knees or together comfortably on your lap.
And when you're ready,
Taking a soft gaze on the floor before you or if you're comfortable closing your eyes,
Going ahead and gently closing your eyes and begin to bring your attention just to the flow of your breathing.
Noticing the sensations of each in-breath,
Maybe noticing the breath at the nostrils and the back of the throat,
And how each in-breath fills the lungs,
Expanding them,
Inflating the belly slightly.
And then paying attention to each out-breath in the same way,
Maybe noticing the differences of sensation that are associated with the out-breath.
And so as you're paying attention to the breath,
We're not trying to regulate it or change it in any way,
And doing what you can to just allow the body to naturally breathe at its own pace.
Each breath is a little different,
Some more shallow,
Some deeper,
And just sitting and observing and now cultivating a sense of dignity and resolve.
Finding a sense of being complete,
Sitting here,
Feeling whole in this very moment,
Completely here,
And your posture reflecting this sense of completeness.
And now as you're ready,
Beginning to picture in your mind's eye as best as you can,
The most beautiful mountain,
The most wonderful mountain you've ever seen or can imagine.
It may be a mountain you're familiar with or one that you completely make up or saw in a picture,
It doesn't matter,
But just holding the image of this mountain in your mind's eye and letting it gradually come more clearly into view.
Observing its overall shape,
Its lofty peak in the sky,
And the large base rooted on the earth,
The steeper,
Maybe gently sloping sides of the mountain,
And taking in how massive and how solid,
How unmoving it is,
Both from afar and up close.
Noticing if your mountain has snow at the top and maybe trees on the lower slope,
Does it have one prominent peak or maybe a series of peaks,
Or maybe just a high plateau.
Whatever its shape or appearance,
Just sitting and breathing with this image of the mountain and observing its qualities.
Of course,
The mind will wander.
It always does.
When you notice that it's wandered off,
Very gently escorting your awareness back to your seat in the cushion or the chair,
The sensation of the breath,
And then once again bringing into your mind's eye the mountain.
When you're ready,
Beginning to imagine that you can bring the mountain or the sense of the mountain right into your body,
So that your body as you're sitting here and the mountain in your mind's eye become one in the same.
Breathing in and breathing out,
You're sharing in the massiveness and the stillness and the absolute majesty of the mountain.
You become the mountain here in your sitting posture.
Your head becomes the lofty peak supported by the rest of the body.
Your shoulders are like the sides of the mountain,
And your seat and your legs,
They're the solid base rooting you to the cushion,
Rooting you to the earth.
Even experiencing a sense of uplift from deep within your pelvis and spine,
With each in-breath feeling that sense of uplift,
And with each out-breath,
That sense of being rooted to the ground,
With each breath becoming a little more like a breathing mountain.
You are unwavering in your stillness and completely what you are beyond words,
Beyond thought,
A centered,
Rooted,
Unmoving presence.
As the mind drifts off,
Each time just coming back to that sense of being centered and rooted,
Unmoving.
As you sit here,
As you're ready,
Becoming aware of the fact that as the sun moves across the sky and shadows and colors are changing virtually moment by moment in the mountain stillness,
Night follows day and day follows night.
The canopy of stars,
Then the moon,
And then the sun.
Through it all,
The mountain just remains itself,
Still,
Experiencing change in each moment,
Constantly changing,
Yet always just being itself.
The mountain remains still as the seasons flow into each other and as the weather changes moment by moment,
Day by day.
Calmness,
Abiding all change.
In summer,
There's no snow on the mountain except maybe on the top peaks,
And in the fall,
The mountain looks quite different.
It may wear a coat of brilliant colors,
And in winter,
A blanket of snow or ice cover the mountain.
In any season,
Things may change.
It may find itself enshrouded in fog or clouds or pelted by sleeting rain.
People may come and look at the mountain and comment on how beautiful it is or how it's not a good day to see the mountain,
That it's too cloudy or rainy or foggy or dark.
None of this matters to the mountain,
Which remains at all times its essential self.
Clouds may come and clouds may go.
Tourists may like it or not.
The mountain's magnificence and beauty is not changed one bit by whether people see it or not or whether they like it or not or even by the weather.
At times visited by violent storms,
By snow and rain,
Winds of unthinkable magnitude,
Through it all,
The mountain stays solid and strong,
Unmoved by the weather and all that happens on the surface.
And in the same way,
As we said in meditation,
We can learn to experience the mountain.
We can embody the same unwavering stillness and rootedness in the face of everything that changes in our own lives over seconds,
Over hours,
Even over years.
We all have our own periods of light and darkness.
We certainly experience storms of varying intensity and even violence in the outer world and in our own minds and in our bodies.
We endure periods of darkness and pain as well as moments of joy.
And even our appearance changes constantly,
Experiencing a weather of its own.
If you find that you resonate in some way with the strength and stability of the mountain,
It may be useful and helpful to make the mountain meditation part of your regular practice.
And now,
In the time that remains,
Continuing to maintain this mountain meditation on your own,
Moment by moment,
Until you hear the sound of the bowl chiming.
And try to say,
Hey,
You're doing fine,
You're working your butt off or something.
Maybe we focus a little bit more beyond the distance to the destination,
The purpose on
