Mountain Meditation (MBSR)

This is a mindfulness practice developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn for MBSR, that uses a mountain as a powerful metaphor for the human experience. This practice draws on a mindful awareness of the present moment, inviting in a sense of calm, stillness and strength.

Transcript

The Aumgoing Earth Finding a position of stability and poise.

Upper body balanced over your hips and shoulders in a comfortable but alert posture.

Resting the hands on your lap or your knees,

Arms hanging in their own weight.

Finding an upright and dignified posture,

Alert but relaxed.

Beginning to sense into your body,

Feeling into your feet and legs,

Hips,

Lower and upper body,

Arms and shoulders,

Neck and head.

Allowing your eyes to close and bringing awareness to the breath.

Noticing the physical sensations of breathing on the in-breath and then on the out-breath.

Allowing the breath to be just as it is,

Flowing easily and naturally with its own rhythm and pace.

Allowing the body to be still,

Sitting with this sense of dignity and sense of resolve,

A completeness and a wholeness.

Knowing you're breathing perfectly well right now and there's nothing for you to do,

Nothing to be fixed,

Nothing to be changed.

As you sit here letting an image form in your mind's eye of the most magnificent and beautiful mountain you know.

Perhaps in your imagination or an image that you've seen or you may have even visited and just remembering.

Letting it gradually come into greater focus,

Even if it doesn't become a visual image,

Allowing this sense of a mountain,

This feeling of its overall shape,

Its lofty peaks high in the sky,

Its large base rooted in bedrock,

Its steep or gently sloping sides.

Noticing how massive it is,

How solid,

How unmoving and how beautiful.

Whether from afar or up close.

Perhaps your mountain has snow blanketing its tops or trees running down to the base or rugged granite sides.

It may be streams and waterfalls cascading over the slopes.

It may be peaks or a series of peaks or with meadows and high lakes.

Just observing it and noticing it and when you're feeling ready seeing if you can bring the mountain into your own body.

Sitting here so that your body and the mountain in your mind's eye become one.

You share in the massiveness and stillness and the majesty of the mountain.

You become the mountain.

Grounded in this sitting posture your head becomes the lofty peaks supported by the rest of the body and affording a panoramic view.

Your shoulders and arms become the side of the mountain.

Your buttocks and legs the solid base rooted to your cushion or your chair.

Experiencing your body a sense of uplift deep from within your pelvis and spine.

With each breath as you continue sitting becoming a little more breathing mountain alive and vital yet unwavering in your stillness.

Completely what you are beyond words and thoughts.

A centered,

Grounded and unmoving presence.

And as you're sitting here becoming aware of the fact that the Sun travels across the sky the light and shadows and colors are changing virtually every moment by moment in the mountains stillness and the surface teams with life and activity.

Streams,

Melting snow,

Waterfalls,

Plants and wildlife.

And as the mountain sits seeing and feeling how night follows day and day follows night.

The bright warming Sun followed by the cool night sky studded with stars and the gradual dawning of a new day.

Through it all the mountain just sits experiencing change in each new 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's no snow on the mountain except for the very peaks.

In the 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 in shrouded in clouds or fog or pelted by freezing rain.

People may come to see the mountain and comment on how beautiful it is or how it's not a good day to see the mountain that it's too cloudy,

Rainy,

Foggy or dark.

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

Clouds may come and go.

Tourists may like it or not.

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

Seen or unseen.

In sun or clouds,

Broiling or frigid,

Day or night.

It just sits being itself.

At times the mountain is visited by violent storms,

Buffeting by snow and rain and winds of unthinkable magnitude.

And through it all the mountain just sits.

Spring comes,

Trees leaf out,

Flowers bloom in the high meadows and slopes.

Birds sing in the trees once again.

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 its surface,

By the world of appearances.

Remaining its essential self through the seasons,

The changing weather,

The activity ebbing and flowing on its surface.

In the same way as we sit in meditation we can learn to experience the mountain.

We can embody the same central unwavering stillness and groundedness in the face of everything that changes in our lives.

Over seconds,

Over hours,

Over days and months,

Over years.

In our lives and in our meditation practice we experience constantly changing nature of mind and body and of the outer world.

We have our own periods of lightness and darkness,

Activity and inactivity.

Our moments of color and our moments of drabness.

It's true that we experience storms of varying intensity and violence in our 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 moments of joy and uplift.

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 adopt it for our own.

We can use its energies to support our energy,

To encounter each moment with mindfulness and equanimity and clarity.

It may help us to see that our thoughts and feelings,

Our preoccupations and emotional storms and crises,

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

We tend to take it all personally but its strongest characteristics is impersonal.

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

It's to be encountered,

Honored,

Felt,

Known for what it is and held in awareness and it is in holding it in this way we come to know a deeper silence and stillness and wisdom.

Mountains have this to teach us and so much more if we can let it in.

So if you resonate with this in some way with the strength and stability of the mountain in your sitting 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 the true stillness of the mountain.

So in the time that remains continuing to sustain the mountain meditation of your own.

In silence,

Moment by moment until you hear the sound of the bell.

You you you

Reviews

I very much like this straightforward version of the mountain meditation. My brain felt overwhelmed and anxious. Although these are still present, they feel reduced in their intensity after doing this meditation. Thank you.

Thank you for this mountain meditation.

Thank you ! I love the imagination of the mountain.

Really helpful metaphor and the first time I really grasped its meaning. Thank you.

I loved the flow and feel of this gorgeous meditation 🙏🏻. Your sweet, soothing voice Marion, made it easy to follow and remain present in each moment. 💞 This is a wonderful way to start my day, thank you 🙏🏻 🌸

Wonderful imagery. I plan on incorporating it into my practice.

Thank you for this peaceful, grounding experience. I reconnected with my sense of stillness and being, in quiet ways. I’m grateful, too, for the reminder that that which is essential about me always remains. May you be blessed and affirmed, as you have blessed and affirmed me, and all of us. I am grateful. Thank you.

Thank you very much- very peaceful and uplifting.

Enjoyed this, thank you. Nice voice, good pace and a different approach. Very calming. 🙏🏽