Mountain Meditation For First Responders

This is a 15-minute Mountain Mediation, from the teaching and tradition of Jon Kabat Zin. A beautiful visualization and reflection on our connection to the resilience, strength and wisdom of the mountains around us.

Transcript

Welcome to this 15-minute Mountain Meditation Practice.

This meditation is normally done in a sitting position,

Either on the floor or chair,

And begins by sensing into the support you have from the chair or cushion,

Paying attention to the actual sensations of contact.

Find a position of stability and poise,

Upper body balanced over your hips,

Your shoulders in a comfortable but alert posture,

Hands on your lap or your knees,

Arms hanging by their own weight like heavy curtains,

Stable and relaxed.

Actually sensing into your body,

Feeling your feet,

Legs,

Hips,

Lower body,

Upper body,

Arms,

Shoulders,

Neck,

And head.

When you're ready,

Allow your eyes to close,

Bringing awareness to breath,

To the actual physical sensations,

Feeling each breath as it comes in and goes out,

Letting the breath just be as it is without trying to change or regulate it in any way,

Allowing it to flow easily and naturally with its own rhythm and pace,

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

Allowing the body to be still and sitting with a sense of dignity,

A sense of resolve,

A sense of being complete,

Whole in this very moment,

With your posture reflecting this sense of wholeness.

As you sit here,

Letting an image form in your mind's eye of the most magnificent or beautiful mountain that you know or have seen or perhaps can imagine,

Letting this vision gradually come into greater focus,

And even if it doesn't come as a visual image,

Allowing this sense of this mountain and feeling its overall shape,

Its lofty peak or peaks high in the sky,

The large base rooted in the bedrock of the Earth's crust,

Its steep or gently sloping sides.

Notice how massive it is,

How solid,

How unmoving,

How beautiful,

Whether from afar or up close.

Perhaps your mountain has snow blanketing its top and trees reaching down to the base or rugged,

Granite sides.

Perhaps your mountain is in the desert with none of those things.

There may be streams or dry beds or waterfalls cascading down the slopes.

There may be one large peak or a series of peaks or bluffs or domes,

Perhaps meadows with high lakes or rock formations with similar beauty.

Observing this mountain,

Noting its qualities,

And when you feel 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,

So that as you sit here,

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

You become the mountain.

Grounded in this sitting posture,

Your head becomes the lofty peak,

Supported by the rest of the body and affording a panoramic view,

Your shoulders and arms the sides of the mountain,

Your buttocks and legs the solid base,

Rooted to your cushion or chair,

Into the floor beneath you,

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

With each breath,

As you continue sitting,

Becoming a little more a breathing mountain,

Alive and vital,

Unwavering in your inner stillness,

Completely what you are,

Beyond words and thought,

A centered,

Grounded,

Unmoving presence.

As you sit here,

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

The light and shadows and colors are changing virtually moment by moment in the mountain's stillness,

And the surface teems with life and activity,

Streams,

Melting snow,

Waterfalls,

Plants,

And wildlife.

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 moment,

Constantly changing,

Yet always just being itself.

It remains still as the seasons flow into one another,

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 or in crags shielded from the direct sunlight.

In the fall,

The mountain may wear a coat of brilliant fire colors.

In the winter,

The mountain may be blanketed with snow and ice.

In any season,

The mountain may find itself at times enshrouded 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 or rainy or foggy or dark.

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 mountain's magnificence and beauty and wisdom 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,

The mountain just sits,

Being itself.

At times visited by violent storms,

Buffeted by snow or rain and winds of unspeakable magnitude.

Through it all,

The mountain sits.

Spring comes,

Trees leaf out,

Flowers bloom,

Birds sing.

Streams overflow with the waters of melting snow.

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 own lives,

Over seconds,

Over hours,

Over years.

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,

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 the outer world and in our minds and bodies.

Buffeted by high winds,

By cold and rain,

By heat,

We endure periods of darkness and pain,

As well as the moments of joy and uplift.

Even our appearance changes constantly,

Experience a weather of its own.

By becoming the mountain in our meditation practice,

We can link up with its strength and stability and adopt them for our own.

We can use the energies of the mountain 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,

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 let it in.

So if you find you resonate in some way with the strength and stability of the mountain,

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 with wakefulness and true stillness.

So in the few moments that remain in this practice,

Continue to sustain the mountain meditation on your own in silence,

Moment by moment,

Until you hear the sound of the bell.

The sound of the bell.

The sound of the bell.

Reviews

Really enjoyed this one !

Thank you Namasté

Thankyou. I badly needed a reminder that it is the weather, it is a storm of the mind. Needed just a little encouragement, and this is it. Namaste.

one of my favourite meditations. thank you.

Just what I needed!

Really enjoyed the imagery & experience. Pace was a bit fast, but very thoughtful, and soothing voice.