The Mountain.
This is generally a sitting meditation and best carried out in a fairly upright chair with your eyes closed.
Begin by finding a comfortable seated position which is neither so comfortable that you are likely to fall asleep,
Or so uncomfortable that you are distracted.
Notice the feel of the chair beneath and behind you,
And the sensation of your feet on the floor.
Your hands can rest comfortably in your lap with the palms either up or down.
Really paying attention to your breathing now.
Noticing each in-breath and each out-breath.
Not trying to change your breathing in any way.
Just noticing it the way it is.
Not trying to make your breath deeper or to change its pace.
Allowing it to flow easily at its own pace.
Letting your body be still and peaceful.
Nobody wants anything.
Nobody needs anything.
Just a sense of completeness and wholeness.
Begin to bring your awareness to the image of a beautiful mountain.
Perhaps one that you know or are familiar with,
Or let your imagination create a beautiful mountain.
Some people are very visual and others less so.
If you can't get an image of a mountain in your mind,
Then just think about one,
Or get a sense of the strong majestic mountain in your thoughts and feelings.
Think about the overall shape,
Its lofty peak,
Or peaks high into the sky,
The large base rooted in the bedrock of the earth's crust.
Its steep and gently sloping sides.
Noticing how massive it is,
How solid,
How unmoving,
How beautiful.
Whether from afar or up close.
Perhaps your mountain has a snow covered top and trees reaching down to its base,
Or rugged granite sides.
There may be streams and waterfalls cascading down the slopes.
There may be one peak or several peaks,
Or with meadows and high lakes.
Observing it,
Noting its qualities and when you feel ready,
Seeing if you can bring the mountain into your own body,
Sitting here so that your body and the mountain in your mind's eye become one.
So as you sit here,
You share in the massiveness and the stillness and the majesty of the mountain and you become the mountain.
Grounded in the sitting posture,
Your head becomes the lofty peak,
Supported by the rest of the body and affording a panoramic view.
Your shoulders and your arms the sides of the mountain.
Your pelvis and legs the solid base rooted to your chair.
Experiencing in your body a sense of uplift from the deep within your pelvis and spine.
With each breath as you continue sitting,
Becoming a little more a breathing mountain.
You are alive and vibrant,
Yet unwavering in your inner stillness.
Completely what you are,
Beyond words and thought,
A centered,
Grounded,
Unmoving presence.
As you sit here,
Become aware of the fact that as the sun travels across the sky,
The light and the shadows and the colors are changing,
Moment by moment,
In the mountain's stillness.
And the surface teams with life and activity.
Streams,
Melting snow,
Waterfalls,
Plants and wildlife.
As the mountain sits,
Seeing and following how night follows day and day follows night.
The bright warming sun,
Followed by the cool night sky studded with stars and a gradual dawning of a new day.
Through it all,
The mountain just sits,
Experiencing change in every moment.
Constantly changing,
Yet always just being itself.
It remains still as the seasons flow into one another and as the weather changes moment by moment,
Day by day,
Calmness remains through all change.
In the summer,
There is no snow on the mountain,
Except perhaps on the very top.
In autumn,
The mountain may wear a coat of brilliant fiery colors,
In winter a blanket of snow and ice.
In any season,
It may find itself at times masked by clouds or fog or attacked by freezing rain.
People may come and see the mountain and comment 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 mountains,
Magnificence and beauty are not changed one bit by weather,
By people.
Seen,
Unseen,
In sun or cloud,
In warmth or chill,
Day or night,
It sits,
Sits being itself,
At times visited by violent storms,
Smothered by snow and rain and winds of unthinkable scale.
Through it all,
The mountain sits.
Spring comes,
Trees leaf out,
Flowers blossom in the high meadows and slopes.
Birds sing in the trees once again.
Streams overflow with the waters of melting snow.
Through it all,
The mountain continues to sit,
Unmoved by the weather or what happens on its surface,
By the world of appearances remaining its essential self,
Through the seasons,
Through the changing weather,
Through the activity ebbing and flowing on its surface.
In the same way,
As we sit in meditation,
We can learn to experience the mountain.
We can embody the same central,
Unwavering stillness and groundedness in the face of everything that changes in our own lives over second,
Over hour,
Over years.
In our lives and in our meditation practice,
We experience constantly the changing nature of mind and body and of the outer world.
We have our own periods of light and darkness,
Activity and inactivity,
In moments of colour and in moments of darkness.
It's true that we can experience storms of varying intensity and violence in the outer world and in our own mind and body,
Rocked by high winds,
By cold rain.
We endure periods of darkness and pain,
As well as the moments of joy and uplift.
Even our appearance changes constantly,
Experiencing a weather of its own.
By becoming the mountain in our own meditation practice,
We can link up with its strength and stability and adopt them for our own.
We can use its energies to support our energy to encounter each moment with mindfulness,
Calmness and clarity.
It may help us to see that our thoughts and feelings,
Our emotional storms and disasters,
Even the things that happen to us,
Are very much like the weather on the mountain.
We tend to take it all personally,
But its strongest character is impersonal.
The weather of our own lives is not to be ignored or denied.
It is to be encountered,
Honoured,
Felt,
Known for what it is and held in awareness.
And in holding it in this way,
We come to know a deeper silence,
Stillness and wisdom.
Mountains have this to teach us and much more if we can let it in.
So if you find you resonate in some way with the strength and stability of the mountain in your sitting,
It may be helpful to use it from time to time in your meditation practice.
To remind you of what it means to sit mindfully with resolve and with wakefulness in true stillness.
So continuing to sustain the mountain meditation in your everyday life in silence,
Moment by moment.
When you feel ready,
Stretch out,
Open your eyes.
Thank you for taking the time to experience this meditation.
I'm Gareth and I hope mindfulness helps you to fulfil every moment.
