Mountain Meditation

In this practice, we invite the stillness and stability of the mountain into our mind-body. By becoming the mountain in our meditation practice, we can link up with its strength and stability and adopt it for our own. We can use its energies to support our energy to encounter each moment with mindfulness, equanimity, and clarity.

Transcript

Welcome to this guided mountain meditation.

A meditation practice that helps us connect with our own inner stability and presence.

So taking these few moments out of our day to step out of autopilot and tune into our conscious awareness so that we can harness our own innate wisdom and intuition.

So finding your posture,

Taking a seat in your life.

So just checking in with how you're sitting,

The shape of the body,

Really a sense of this body sitting here,

This body being held here in space.

So sitting with a straight spine,

Your head held erect on your neck and shoulders and inviting the shoulders to fully relax here,

A softening into the shoulders,

A sense of the melting down and away from the ears.

So placing your hands on your lap and feeling a sense of being held and supported by the structure beneath you.

So maybe you're on a chair,

So feeling the structure of the chair beneath you,

The floor beneath supporting you and below that the earth supporting the floor.

So gently closing your eyes now if that feels right for you.

And just know that you can have the eyes open too if you wish.

So a soft unfocused gaze gazing down past your nose is fine too.

So you're making a choice here.

We always have choice.

So tuning into this body now.

How is this body today?

Bodies are different every day.

So really sensing into the body here.

And now we will take some deep inhales and exhales.

So inhaling through the nose deeply and then exhaling through the mouth.

Exhaling fully and then repeating the cycle of inhale and exhale.

So inhaling through the nose and exhaling.

Inhaling through the nose and exhaling.

Exhaling all the air out,

Really emptying the lungs and again filling the lungs.

Inhaling and then exhaling.

A sense of letting go of all that does not serve you in this moment in time on the exhale.

And one more just like that.

Inhaling deeply and exhaling.

And then we return the breath to its own natural rhythm.

So body breathing itself.

This body knows how to breathe.

Simply observing the natural inflow and outflow of breath.

Sensing into the texture of each in-breath and each out-breath.

So simply observing your breathing without trying to change it or regulate it in any way.

Allowing this body to be still.

And sitting with a sense of dignity to this dignified posture.

A sense of resolve.

A sense of being complete,

Whole in this very moment.

And your posture reflecting the sense of wholeness,

Steadiness,

Stillness.

And as you sit here picturing in your mind's eye as best you can the most beautiful mountain that you know already.

One that you've seen on your travels or one that maybe is bubbling up in your imagination right now.

So allowing the image or indeed the sense of the mountain.

So if there's nothing happening visually,

Just the sense of a mountain.

The feeling of this mountain.

Allowing it to bubble up in your awareness.

So holding the image and the feeling of this mountain in your mind's eye.

Allowing it to gradually come into greater focus or a greater sensation of the mountain.

So really getting a sense of its overall shape.

How this mountain peaks maybe high in the sky,

In the clouds.

The large base rooted in the rock of the earth's crust.

Its steep or maybe gently sloping sides.

And really taking in how massive this mountain is.

How solid,

How unmoving,

How beautiful this mountain is.

Both from far away and up close.

So zoning into the mountain and zoning out.

And perhaps your mountain has snow at the top.

Maybe trees on the lower slopes.

Perhaps it has one prominent peak.

Or maybe it has a series of peaks.

Or indeed maybe just a high plateau.

And whatever its shape or appearance.

Just sitting and breathing with the image or sensation of this mountain.

Observing it.

Noticing its qualities.

And when you feel ready,

Seeing if you can bring the mountain into your own body.

So that the body that's sitting here and the mountain in your mind's eye become one.

So that as you sit here,

You share in the massiveness,

In the stillness and the majesty of this mountain.

You become the mountain rooted in the sitting posture.

Your head becoming the lofty peak supported by the rest of the body.

Your shoulders and arms are the sides of the mountain.

Your hips and your legs are the solid base rooted to your chair or to the surface beneath you.

So experiencing in your body a sense of uplift from deep within the pelvis and the spine with each breath as you continue sitting.

Becoming a little bit more a breathing mountain.

Unwavering in your stillness.

Completely what you are.

Beyond words.

Beyond thought.

A centered,

Rooted,

Unmoving presence.

Now as you sit here,

Becoming aware of the fact that as the sun travels across the sky,

The light and the shadows and the colors are changing virtually moment by moment.

Night follows day and day follows night.

A canopy of stars,

The moon and then the sun.

Through it all the mountain just sits.

Experiencing change in each moment.

Constantly changing,

Yet always just being its essential self.

The mountain remains still as the seasons flow into one another and as the weather changes.

Moment by moment,

Day by day,

Calmness,

Abiding,

All change.

In summertime there's no snow on the mountain except perhaps for the very peaks.

In autumn the mountain may wear a coat of brilliant fire colors.

Oranges,

Reds,

Ambers.

In wintertime a blanket of snow and ice.

And in any season it may find itself at times and shrouded in clouds or fog or pelted by freezing rain.

And people may come to see the mountain and comment how beautiful it is or how it's not such a good day maybe to see the mountain.

None of this matters to the mountain which remains at all times its essential self.

Clouds will come,

Clouds will go.

The mountains magnificence and beauty are not changed one bit by the way people see it or not by the weather.

Seen are unseen.

In sun are clouds broiling a frigid day or night.

It just sits being itself.

And at times 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.

And in the same way as we come and sit in meditation we can learn to experience the mountain.

We can embody the same unwavering stillness and rootedness in the face of everything that changes in our own lives over seconds,

Over hours,

Over years.

In our lives and in our meditation practice we are constantly experiencing change.

Changing nature of the mind,

Of the body,

Of our inner and outer world.

We have our own periods of light.

We have our periods of darkness,

Of grayness.

Our moments of color and our moments of drabness.

Certainly we experience storms of varying intensity and violence in the outer world and in our own minds and in our own bodies.

We endure periods of darkness,

Of pain,

As well as moments of joy and brightness.

And indeed those periods of in-between-ness.

Even our appearances changing all the time.

Our bodies experience a weather of its own,

New creases on the skin,

Laughter lines,

Cells regenerating.

And by becoming the mountain in our meditation practice.

Ability,

Its strength and adopted for our own.

We can use its energies to support our energy to encounter each moment with mindfulness and equanimity.

This clear seeing.

And it may help us to see that our thoughts,

Our feelings,

Our preoccupations,

Our emotional storms,

The crisis that we endure.

And even the things that happen to us are very much like the weather on the mountain.

We tend to take it all so personally.

But really if we look closer,

Its strongest characteristic is impersonal.

The weather of our own lives is not to be ignored or denied.

It is to be encountered,

To be honored,

To be felt and known for what it is and held in our awareness.

And in holding it in this way,

We come to know a deeper silence,

A deeper stillness.

Tuning into our innate wisdom,

Our intuition.

And mountains have this to teach us and much more if we come to listen.

So coming back to this body,

Coming back to this breath.

Sensing into feelings in the hands or the feet.

This body again,

Seated here,

A sense of this body.

Maybe now making some movements with fingers,

Toes.

Beginning to move the body a little.

Opening the eyes if they were closed.

Maybe looking around the room and maybe noticing something you hadn't noticed before.

Inviting you now to stretch.

So maybe just reaching the arms up overhead and stretching if that feels okay for you.

And just connecting with yourself,

Giving yourself thanks for taking this time out of your life.

So that you can connect with your own inner stability and your own presence and be more awake in your life,

This clear seeing.

So inviting you now to take this sense of presence with you through the rest moments and hours of your day.

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Many thanks for this beautiful and grounding meditation. You phrase the wonderful comparison between the mountain and the self in beautiful and personal language. Namaste 🤓🙏🏻