Welcome to the Mountain Meditation.
To begin,
Just invite you to bring a considered change to your posture.
Allowing your back to straighten comfortably.
Resting your hands in stillness on your knees.
Your neck long,
Stretched with your chin gently pointing down towards your chest.
You might like to just softly raise your shoulders and allow them to fall back into a place of comfort for you.
Allowing yourself to arrive to this Mountain Meditation in a dignified and considered posture.
Mountains are to all cultures,
Beliefs,
People all over the world and their motives of abiding presence and stillness.
So we hold this motif,
This symbol close to us as we come to this practice.
And as you're sitting here now,
I just invite you to bring to mind the most beautiful mountain that you can think of.
It could be a mountain that you've seen,
A mountain you've visited yourself,
Or it could just be a mountain that you've seen in pictures or photographs.
Whatever mountain it is,
Whatever image you've chosen to focus on,
Just ask you to hold that image in your mind's eye.
To draw your attention to the picture of this mountain until you have it clear in your mind.
Until you can see this abiding presence,
This stillness,
This image of a mountain sat before you now.
And perhaps your mountain has one solitary peak rising high into the sky.
Or perhaps it has a number of smaller peaks rising and falling,
Their crags and inlets casting shadows and sunlight.
Maybe your mountain is wide and roaming,
Or maybe your mountain has steep sides to it.
But however this image arrives to you now in this moment,
Just notice how massive,
How unmoving and how still this mountain is.
Sit with the image of this mountain and I ask you if you can to bring the image of this mountain into your body,
Into your posture,
Sat here and now,
So that that same unwavering stillness of the mountain,
The same calm abiding presence,
Is felt in your body here and now.
Your body sat in unwavering stillness.
And as you continue to focus on the image of the mountain,
Just allow your mind to notice how the sunlight falls on the mountain,
Casting shadows,
Colours coming to life under the fall of the sun's rays.
Perhaps vivid greens or blues from the plants and water on the mountain's edges.
Perhaps your mountain is coloured in greys and whites of the snowy peaks.
But just noticing the sunlight on your mountain giving way to dusk and twilight,
The colours changing as night falls on your mountain,
Shadows drawing out and lengthening and lightness giving way to darkness.
But as the light changes,
The mountain continues to sit unwavering,
Calmness abiding all change.
And as the weather changes on the mountain,
From the heat of the sunny day to the cool breeze of the wind moving through the trees on the mountain,
Shaking the grass.
And even as storms arrive,
The mountainside pelted by heavy rains and hails,
Lightnings striking the sides of the mountain.
Through all these changing weathers,
The mountain continues to sit unmoved by the weather.
And people will come and visit the mountain.
There'll be days when the mountain's trails are full of trekkers,
Full of people walking,
Climbing its sides.
And days where these paths lie empty,
People choosing no longer to visit the mountainside.
But through it all,
The mountain continues to sit,
Unchanged,
Unwavering in its stillness.
As autumn falls and the greens of the trees change to deep reds and yellows and browns,
The leaves falling from the trees forming a carpet on the mountain's sides.
The heat of the mountain changing to the cool autumn winds.
And moving further still into the snow and ice of winter,
The mountainside's now completely covered in a blanket of snow.
Then winter too will pass,
The ice melting down the mountainsides,
Forming rivers and streams,
Allowing waterfalls to flow.
And as winter passes,
Spring arrives,
New buds,
New colours bursting through.
And still,
Through all these changing weathers and seasons,
The mountain,
In all its massive,
Unwavering stillness,
Continues to sit,
Calmness abiding all change.
And as we sit here now,
I invite you to hold the image of this mountain in your mind and to embody this same unwavering stillness as we continue to sit.
Just as the mountain moves from day to night,
From summer to winter,
We too have light and dark that comes into our lives.
We too are attacked by outer storms,
Visited by people,
Stand alone away from people.
And our appearance changes as well,
Just like the mountains.
But just like the mountain,
We can continue in calmness,
In an unwavering stillness,
And we can continue to sit,
Unmoved by the weather.
For the weather of our own lives is not to be ignored or denied.
It's to be encountered,
To be honoured,
To be felt and known for what it is,
And to be held in high awareness.
So as we continue to sit here now,
Until the sound of the bowl ringing,
I invite you to hold the image of the mountain in your mind and to sit with calmness,
With unwavering stillness.
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