This is a mounted meditation.
To begin,
Move into a seated position,
Either on the floor or in a chair.
Turning a comfortable position that reflects a sense of stability and alertness.
Placing your hands on your lap or on your knees and allowing your arms to hang by their own weight,
Easy and relaxed.
Sitting with a sense of dignity,
A sense of being complete,
Whole in this very moment,
With your posture reflecting this sense of wholeness.
When you feel ready,
Gently closing your eyes and bringing your attention to the flow of your breath,
Feeling each in-breath and each out-breath.
Just observing your breathing without trying to change it in any way,
Allowing it to flow easily and naturally,
At its own rhythm and pace.
As you sit here,
Bring an image of a magnificent mountain into your mind's eye.
It can be a mountain that you've seen,
Or simply a mountain that you can imagine.
This mountain can take on any form,
It can be any size or shape,
It may have one high peak or many.
Just allowing the sense of this mountain and its appearance to come more and more into focus for you.
Perhaps your mountain has snow on it,
Or maybe it's blanketed by a dense forest,
Or it's a simple rock face.
Whatever the mountain looks like for you,
Just settling on a clear image of the mountain,
Noticing its large,
Firm base set firmly in the earth's crust,
Taking in how massive this mountain is,
How solid it is,
How unmoving,
And how beautiful it is from both afar and up close.
Whatever your mountain's appearance,
Just sitting and breathing with the image of it in your mind's eye,
Trying to observe everything you can about it,
Taking it all in,
Being completely present with the image of it in your mind's eye.
And whenever you're ready,
Seeing if you can bring the mountain into your own body,
So that the body sitting here and the mountain in your mind's eye become one,
So that as you sit here,
You share in the massiveness and stillness and majesty of the mountain.
You become the mountain as you sit here in this sitting posture,
With your head becoming the tip of the mountain,
Supported by the rest of your body,
Your legs representing the solid base.
Experiencing the mountain in your body,
And as you breathe,
Becoming a little more a breathing mountain,
Unwavering in your stillness,
Completely what you are,
Beyond words and thought,
A centred and moving presence.
As you sit,
Notice how the landscape around you changes.
The sun rises and sets,
The moon appears,
Sitting brightly in the dark sky,
Along with the twinkle of many stars.
And then gradually the sun brings the dawn of a new day.
As the mountain sits,
Seeing and feeling how night follows day and day follows night.
The weather changes,
Bringing along the sun,
The wind,
The rain,
Sometimes hail or snow.
At times the mountain is enshrouded with clouds,
Other days it stands in the warm sun.
The many seasons bring along many conditions.
In the summer the mountain sits under the blistering sun.
The autumn sees the mountain wear a coat of brilliant colours,
And the winter brings a blanket of snow,
Ice and freezing rain.
In the spring the mountain is cloaked in flowers and the birds sing in the trees once again.
Streams overflow with the waters of melting snow.
And through it all the mountain sits,
Calmness abiding or changed,
And moved by the weather or what's happening on its outer surface.
No matter what changes occur around the mountain,
The mountain remains stable,
True to itself,
Never changing,
Although always present.
Many people come to see the mountain and comment on how beautiful it is or how it's perhaps not such a good day to see the mountain.
Although none of this bothers the mountain,
Who remains its essential self at all times,
The mountain's magnificence and beauty are not changed one bit by the way people see it,
Nor by the weather.
Seen or unseen,
In clouds or in sun,
When it's boiling or freezing,
Day or night,
The mountain just sits,
Being its true essential self.
At times it's visited by violent storms,
Buffeted by snow and rain and winds of unthinkable magnitude.
Through it all the mountain continues to sit,
Unmoved by the weather,
By what happens on the surface,
By the world of appearances.
There are many things that we can learn from the mountain.
We can start to adopt its unwavering presence,
Its stillness and equanimity.
It teaches us that we can be present in the face of our ever-changing lives,
While remaining true to ourselves and our own nature.
Just like the mountain experiencing the ever-changing weather,
We too experience the many changes in our lives.
The mountain teaches us that through it all we can remain our true essential selves.
We can have periods of stormy weather,
Where we may be faced with enduring periods of darkness and pain.
Or we can also experience periods of joy and uplift,
Yet through it all we remain steadily present.
Even as our outer appearances change,
Experiencing a weather of its own,
We remain with ourselves.
The mountain teaches us that we can be strong and stable,
Despite the ever-changing weather.
We can use its stability and adopt it as our own,
To encounter each moment with mindfulness and clarity.
It may help us to see that our thoughts and feelings,
Our preoccupations or our emotional storms and crises,
Even the things that happen to us,
Are very much like the weather on that mountain.
We tend to take it all personally,
But its strongest characteristic is impersonal.
The weather of our own lives is not to be ignored or denied.
In fact it is to be encountered,
Honoured,
Felt and known for what it is and held in awareness.
And in holding it in this way,
We come to know a deeper silence and stillness.
So if you find you resonate in some way with the strength and stability of the mountain that you are sitting in,
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 wakefulness,
In true stillness.
Silence have many things to teach us,
And much much more if we come to listen.
Silence have many things to teach us,
And much much more if we come to listen.
