Namaste.
This is Patti Jo in the empty nest at Mindful Living.
Thank you so much for joining me for today's Mountain Meditation.
All you will need is a bolster or a chair so that you can sit comfortably.
I will be sitting in a way that allows the back to be straight and the hips elevated.
If you're seated on the floor allow your knees to be in contact with the floor or close towards the floor so allowing the knees to fall forward slightly below the hips so that your bottom half of the body makes a stable base and out of this base the upper half of your body rises with a straight back yet soft and open.
And if you're sitting in a chair the soles of your feet make contact with the earth you're sitting towards the front edge of that seat and the back is also straight yet soft and the heart is open.
Allow the head to just float right on top of the shoulders and allow the neck and the shoulders to fully relax.
Let your hands rest in your lap.
Feel free to bring in a mudra of your liking and when you feel comfortable with your physical posture allow your eyes to close gently and slowly bring your attention to the flow of your breathing.
Feeling each in-breath and each out-breath just observing your breathing without trying to change it or regulate it in any way.
Allowing the body to be still and sitting with a sense of dignity,
A sense of resolve,
And a sense of being complete and whole in this very moment with your posture reflecting this sense of wholeness.
And as you quietly sit here picture in your mind's eye as best you can the most beautiful mountain you know have seen or can imagine.
And just holding this image and the feeling of this mountain in your mind's eye.
Letting it gradually come into greater focus observing its overall shape.
See its lofty peaks high in the sky and the large base rooted in the rock of the Earth's crust.
Notice its deep or gentle sloping sides and notice how massive it is,
How solid,
How unmoving,
And how beautiful both from afar and up close.
Perhaps your mountain has snow at the top and trees on the lower slopes.
Perhaps it has one prominent peak or perhaps a series of peaks or a high plateau.
Whatever its shape or appearance just sitting and breathing with this image of this mountain.
Observing it,
Watching it,
Noting its qualities.
And when you feel ready to see if you can bring the mountain into your own body so that your body sitting here and the mountain in your mind's eye become one.
So that as you sit here you share in the massiveness,
The stillness,
And majesty of the mountain.
You become the mountain rooted in this seated posture.
Your head becomes the lofty peak,
Supported by the rest of the body and affording a panoramic vista.
Your shoulders and arms the sides of the mountain and your buttocks and legs the solid base rooted to the earth or to your chair.
Now experience in your body a sense of uplift from deep within your pelvis and spine.
With each breath as you continue sitting become a little more a breathing mountain unwavering in your stillness completely what you are.
Beyond words or thought a centered rooted unmoving presence.
Now as you sit here become aware of the fact that as the Sun travels across the sky the light shadows and colors are changing virtually moment by moment in the mountains solid stillness.
Night follows day and day follows night.
The canopy of stars the moon and then the Sun and through it all the mountain just sits experiencing change in each 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 and day by day calmness abiding all change.
In summer there is no snow on the mountain except perhaps for the very peaks shielded from direct sunlight.
In fall the mountain may wear a coat of brilliant fire colors.
In winter a blanket of snow and ice.
In any season it may find itself at times surrounded by clouds or in fog or pelted by freezing rain.
People may come to see the mountain and comment and how beautiful it is or how it is not a good day to see the mountain if it's too cloudy or rainy or foggy or dark.
And 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 magnificent and beauty are not changed one bit by whether people see it or not or by the weather.
Seen or unseen in sun or clouds hot or frigid day or night it just sits being itself.
At times visited by violent storms buffeted by snow and rain and winds of unthinkable magnitude through it all the mountain simply sits.
Spring comes the birds sing in the trees once again leaves return flowers bloom in the high meadows and on the slopes.
Streams overflow with the waters of melting snow.
And through it all the mountain continues to sit unmoved by the weather by what happens on the surface by the world of appearances.
And in the same way as we sit in meditation we can learn to experience the mountain we can embody the same unwavering stillness and rootedness in the face of in the face of everything that changes in our own lives over seconds over hours over years.
And 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 our moments of color and our moments of dark drabness.
Certainly we experience storms of varying intensity and violence in the outer world and in our own minds and bodies.
Buffeted by high winds by cold and rain we endure periods of darkness and pain as well as the moments of joy and bliss.
Even our appearance changes constantly experiencing a weather of its own.
By becoming the mountain in our meditation practice we can link up with its strength and stability and adapt them for our own.
We can use its energies to support our energy to encounter each moment with mindfulness equanimity and clarity.
It may help us to see that our thoughts and feelings are preoccupations.
Our emotional storms and crises 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 characteristic is impersonal.
The weather of our own lives is not to be ignored or denied.
It is to be encountered honored felt 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 and wisdom.
Mountains have this to teach us and much more if we can become quiet long enough to listen.
So for a few more minutes continuing to sustain the mountain meditation on your own in silence staying for as long as you have to give and embodying the strength of that mountain remembering that we are not separate from nature.
We are nature.
We are nature.
So
