Hello and welcome to this mindfulness meditation with me,
Heather Talbot.
This meditation is taken from the excellent book,
Mindfulness-Based Re-naps Prevention.
And it's very popular with the in-person mindfulness group I run here in BC,
Canada.
So I hope you'll find it helpful.
So settling into a comfortable position with your spine straight but relaxed.
With your head balanced easily on your neck and shoulders.
Trying to sit with a sense of dignity and ease.
Letting your body support the intention to remain wakeful and present.
When you're ready you might allow your eyes to close if that's comfortable for you.
And if you choose to keep them open,
See if you can allow them to rest in a soft gaze.
Perhaps a few feet in front of you on the floor.
Now allowing your attention to rest in the sensation of the breath as it naturally flows in and out of the body.
Just observing your body as it breathes.
Coming into stillness.
Sitting with a sense of completeness with your posture reflecting this.
And now when you're ready bringing to mind the image of a mountain.
Picturing the most beautiful mountain you've ever seen or can imagine.
Focusing on the image or just the feeling of this mountain in your mind's eye.
Allowing it to come more clearly into view.
Noticing its overall shape.
The lofty peak in the sky.
The large base rooted on the earth.
Steep or gently sloping sides.
Noticing how massive it is.
How unmoving it is.
How beautiful both from afar and up close.
Its unique shape and form.
Perhaps your mountain has snow at the top and trees on the lower slopes.
Perhaps it has one prominent peak or a series of peaks and a high plateau.
However it appears just sitting and breathing with the image of this mountain.
Observing its qualities.
And when you're ready seeing if you can bring the mountain into your body so that your body sitting here and the mountain in your mind's eye become one.
So that as you sit here you become the mountain.
Your head becomes the lofty peak.
Your shoulders and arms the sides of the mountain.
Your buttocks and legs the solid base rooted to your cushion or chair.
Noticing in your body a sense of uplift from the base of the mountain up through your spine.
And with each breath becoming more and more a breathing mountain.
Unwavering in your stillness.
See what you are beyond words and thought.
A centred,
Rooted,
Unmoving presence.
As the sun travels each day across the sky and light,
Shadows and colours are changing virtually moment to moment.
The mountain just sits.
In the mountain's stillness night follows day and day follows night.
Seasons flow into each other and 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 peaks.
In the fall the mountain may wear a coat of brilliant colours.
In winter a blanket of snow or ice.
In any season it may change.
It may find itself in shrouded in fog or clouds or pelted by sleeting rain.
People may come to see the mountain and be disappointed if they can't see it clearly or they may comment on how beautiful it is.
And through all this seen or unseen.
Sun or clouds.
In sweltering heat or in freezing cold.
The mountain just sits.
Solid and unwavering.
At times visited by the sun.
The sun is shining through the mountains.
Visited by violent storms.
Snow.
Rain and winds of unthinkable magnitude.
Through it all the mountain just sits.
Unmoved by what happens on the surface.
As we sit here holding this image in our mind.
We can embody the same unwavering stillness.
Unroutedness.
In the face of everything that changes in our own lives.
Over seconds.
Hours.
And years.
In our meditation practice and in our lives.
We experience the constantly changing nature of mind and body.
And all the changes in the outer world.
We experience our own periods of light and dark.
We experience storms of varying intensity and violence in the outer world and in our minds.
We endure periods of darkness and pain as well as moments of joy.
Even our appearance changes constantly.
Like the mountains.
Experiencing a weathering of its own.
By becoming the mountain in our meditation.
We can touch these qualities of strength and stability.
Adopting them as our own.
We can use the energies of the mountain to support our efforts to encounter each moment with mindfulness.
It may help us to see that our thoughts and feelings,
Our preoccupations,
Our emotional storms and crises,
All the things that happen to us are much like the weather on a mountain.
We tend to take it personally.
But like the weather,
It's impersonal.
Holding it in this way,
We come to know a deeper silence and wisdom than we may have thought possible right here within the storms.
Mountains have this to teach us if we can come to listen.
So in the last moments of this meditation,
We need to sit with this image of the mountain.
Embodying its rootedness.
Stillness.
And majesty.
Autumn.
And then bringing your awareness back to the breath noticing the rhythm of the breath seeing if you can take a few deeper breaths right into the belly maybe starting to wriggle the fingers and toes and then feel welcome to stretch or move the body in any way that might feel nurturing or helpful and when you're ready opening your eyes thank you for joining me in this practice
