Seated comfortably with the back straight yet relaxed,
Allowing the shoulders to settle and placing the hands wherever is most comfortable for you.
Allowing the eyes to close if that feels right for you and bringing the attention to the natural flow of the breath.
The rising of each in-breath and the natural falling of each out-breath.
Observing the natural breath,
Not controlling or managing it in any way.
Allowing the body to be still.
Observing the breath and perhaps a sense of simply being here in this moment.
As you sit,
Bringing into the mind as best you can the image of the most beautiful mountain you've known or seen or can imagine.
Holding the image and the felt sense of this mountain in your mind's eye,
Letting it gradually come into clearer focus.
Observing its shape,
Its highest peak reaching into the sky,
The solid base rooted in the rock of the earth's crust.
Its steep or gently sloping sides.
Noticing how massive,
How solid,
How unmoving the mountain is and how beautiful and majestic.
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 or a high plateau.
Whatever its shape or appearance,
Just sitting and breathing with the image of this mountain.
Observing it.
Noticing its qualities.
And when you're ready,
Seeing if you can bring the mountain into your own body.
So the body that is sitting here and the mountain become one.
And sitting here,
Perhaps you share a sense of the massiveness,
The stillness and the majesty of this mountain.
Perhaps the sense of becoming the mountain here in this sitting posture.
Your head becoming the mountain's peak,
Supported by the body.
Your shoulders and arms,
The sides of the mountain.
Your buttocks and legs,
The solid base,
Rooted to your chair or cushion.
Experiencing in your body a sense of uplifting from deep within the pelvis and spine.
With each breath becoming a little bit more a living,
Breathing mountain.
Unwavering in your stillness.
Feeling completely what you are,
Beyond words,
Beyond thought.
A centered,
Unmoving presence.
And as you sit here,
Becoming aware of the sun as it travels across the sky.
Of the light and shadows and colors as they change with every movement.
As day turns to night and night turns to day.
The stars and the moon passing through.
And then the sun rising and passing through.
While the mountain simply sits,
Solid,
Majestic,
Unmoving.
Feeling changes as they pass.
Remaining still.
Remaining itself.
Sitting moment by moment,
Day by day.
Consciousness abiding through change.
As seasons change.
In summer,
Perhaps there is no snow,
Just trees and grass and rain.
In fall,
The brilliant colors of changing leaves blaze through.
In winter,
Perhaps blankets of snow and ice.
In all seasons,
Maybe clouds or fog or driving rain.
The mountain remains in stillness.
Its magnificence and beauty unchanged.
Its essential,
Unmovable self.
An abiding awareness.
Seen or unseen.
In sunlight or in clouds.
In day or night.
It remains still,
Unmoving.
Through violent storms.
Through snow and rain and raging winds.
The mountain unmoved by weather,
By whatever arises on its surface,
By the world of changing appearances.
And as we sit in meditation,
Experiencing the mountain,
Embodying the same unwavering stillness,
Rootedness.
In the face of everything that changes in our own lives,
By the second,
By the minute,
For over years.
In our lives and in our meditation practice,
We constantly experience the changing nature of mind and body and of the outer world.
We have our own periods of light and darkness,
Of storms and peaceful skies,
Of drabness and of vivid color.
We experience periods of darkness and pain,
As well as moments of joy and tranquility.
By becoming the mountain in our meditation practice,
We can embody its strength and stability,
Its energy and its rootedness.
Enjoying each changing moment with mindfulness,
With equanimity and with clarity.
Noticing that our thoughts and feelings,
Our various sensations,
Our emotional storms and crises are much like the weather on this mountain,
Impermanent and impersonal,
Events that arise in consciousness.
That even as we turn toward them,
Even as we accept and allow them to be just as they are,
They also give way as other events arise.
And as we hold these events in awareness,
Opening to and allowing them,
We come to know a deeper silence,
The stillness,
Greater clarity and wisdom.
These things the mountain can teach us,
The more we come to sit and to listen and to be,
To be just as the mountain.
