A mountain meditation.
Coming to sit either on a cushion or stool or on a chair.
And if you prefer,
You can also do this mountain meditation standing.
Setting yourself up so that you can be at ease and alert.
A sense of balance.
Allowing the shoulders to be relaxed.
And a sense of contact with the floor,
At the feet or the knees.
Taking your seat.
And picturing a mountain as you sit here.
This might be a mountain that you know that you've climbed or looked at.
Or it might be a mountain that you've seen in a photograph or video.
And you can also do this meditation as you're sitting here,
As you're looking at a mountain that you've seen in a photograph or painting.
As you bring this mountain to mind,
Taking in its shape.
Or two.
Noticing its size.
Its majestic quality.
The way it's rooted in the earth's crust.
And the way it reaches up into the clouds.
See its stillness and its beauty.
Notice the slopes on the side of the mountain.
Perhaps they're covered with rocky outcrops or trees.
Perhaps there's snow on top of the peaks.
Perhaps there's fields and pastures around the base of the mountain.
And with this image of the mountain in mind,
Experimenting with bringing the image of the mountain into your own body.
So that you and the mountain can see the mountain in your own body.
And you can also do this meditation as you're looking at a mountain that you've seen in a photograph or video.
So that you and the image become one.
As though your head is the lofty peak of the mountain.
And your shoulders are the sloping sides.
And the legs and feet at the base of the body are like the base of the mountain,
Rooted into the earth.
A sense of uplift from deep in the body.
And a sense of rootedness,
Solidness,
Stillness.
As if you're rooted in the earth and reaching all the way up through the body to the sky.
Thank you.
Mountains can teach us a lot about sitting.
As mountains experience the seasons.
As winter passes over the mountains and brings snow and ice,
Darkness.
Spring arrives.
And perhaps trees and flowers appear on the mountain sides.
Birds and other animals populate the mountain.
Streams and waterfalls and then in summer,
Grass growing.
People walking on the mountains.
Animals out to pasture.
And then autumn arrives and again more changes appear on the mountain.
Falling leaves,
Blowing winds.
And in all these seasons,
In all these different weathers the mountain remains mountain-like.
Day and night passes.
Animals and people come and go on the mountain.
Sunlight,
Colors,
Shadows,
Clouds,
And the sun.
And then autumn arrives.
Clouds pass over the mountain.
Moment by moment there is change.
But the mountain essentially remains the same.
Still mountain.
Calmness abiding all change.
You you you you you you you you As we sit with this image we might embody the same stillness and the changes we experience moment by moment.
You you you From this mountain view you can see thoughts as if they're birds or clouds passing through the sky around you.
The fluctuations happening in your experience perhaps as sensations arise and pass away in the body.
Sounds,
Thoughts,
Feelings.
Just observing these fluctuations as fluctuations.
Just the weather.
The seasons are just the seasons.
Everything arises.
Everything passes away.
And the mountain remains mountain.
And the mountain remains mountain.
And the mountain remains mountain.
Just as you remain you in your essential nature.
The Thank you.
Embodying this same mountain-like stillness through all the changes we experience,
Unfolding moment by moment.
A sense of sitting surrounded by boundless sky that can hold anything and everything that arises,
Whether it's pleasant,
Unpleasant,
Or neither pleasant or unpleasant.
Allowing yourself to be really at home in this being here.
Simply holding this moment.
Touching it,
Feeling it,
Without trying to change it in any way.
A sense of abiding presence and stillness.
Embodying this same mountain-like stillness through all the changes we experience,
Unfolding moment by moment.
The birds have vanished into the sky.
And now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together,
The mountain and me,
Until only the mountain remains.
A sense of abiding presence and stillness.
A sense of abiding presence and stillness.
A sense of abiding presence and stillness.
