Mountain Meditation So this meditation recording was requested after one of my live sessions on Insight Timer by the community.
And this meditation that I am a way to guide you through is a traditional meditation from John Kabat-Zinn.
And this is an adaption of his original script that I discovered online.
And I would love to share it with you today.
It is a great practice to return to,
To feel grounded when you may be experiencing chaos in the world.
So traditionally done in a seating position.
Either on the floor or a chair.
But if the seating position isn't accessible to you today,
You could also do this lying down.
But it may help you with your visualization to be seated in an upright posture.
So finding that support you have from the chair or the cushion,
Wherever you are.
And just paying attention to the sensations of contact.
Finding a position of stability and poise so that your upper body is balanced over your hips.
Your shoulders are above your hips in a nice comfortable position.
Maybe just resting your hands on your lap or on your knees or just gently hanging by your sides.
So feeling the body stable.
Tall.
Sensing,
Feeling your feet.
Your calves,
Your thighs.
Your bottom,
Your belly.
Your shoulders.
Your neck,
Your head gently resting.
When you're ready,
Allowing those eyes to close if you haven't already and just bringing awareness to your breath.
To the physical sensations of the breath.
Feeling each breath as it comes in and goes out.
Just allowing your breath just to be as it is without trying to change it or regulate it in any way.
Just allowing it to flow easily and naturally with its own rhythm and pace.
Knowing that you're breathing perfectly well right now.
There's nothing for you to do.
Just allowing your body to be still.
Sitting with this sense of dignity,
Of completeness,
Of wholeness.
And as you sit here,
Just letting an image begin to form in your mind's eye of the most magnificent,
Beautiful mountain.
And this may be a mountain that you already know or one that you can imagine.
And just letting it gradually come into greater focus.
And even if it doesn't come as a visual,
Just allowing the sense of this mountain,
The feeling of its overall shape.
It's a lofty peak or peaks high in the sky.
The large base rooted in the bedrock of the Earth's crust.
And its steep or gently sloping sides.
Noticing how massive it is.
How solid it is.
How unmoving and beautiful,
Whether from far or up close.
Just observing your mind.
Has it got snow blanketing its top?
Or trees reaching down to the base.
There might be streams or waterfalls.
Rugged granite sides.
Just observing and noticing its qualities.
And when you feel ready,
Seeing if you can bring the mountain into your own body sitting here,
So that you become the mountain.
So that you can share in the massiveness and stillness and majesty of the mountains.
So grounded in this posture,
Your head becomes the lofty peak.
Supported by the rest of the body,
Your shoulders and arms,
The sides of the mountain.
Your buttock and legs the solid base routed to your cushion or chair.
And just experiencing in your body a sense of uplift from deep within your pelvis and spine.
And with every breath.
As you continue sitting,
Becoming a little more a breathing mountain.
Alive and vital.
Yet unwavering in your inner stillness completely what you are.
Beyond words and thought a centred,
Grounded,
Unmoving presence.
And 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.
The mountain's surface teems with life and activity.
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 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.
The weather changes moment by moment and day by day.
Calmness fills the mountain.
In summer there's no snow on the mountain except perhaps for the very top peaks.
And in fall,
The mountain may wear a coat of brilliant fire colours.
And in winter a blanket of snow and ice.
In any season,
It may find itself 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.
None of this matters to the mountain.
It remains at all times its essential self.
Clouds may come and go,
Tourists may like it or not.
And the mountains' magnificence and beauty are not changed one bit by whether people see it or not.
Seen or unseen in sun or clouds,
Day or night.
It just sits.
Being itself.
Taking a moment,
Breathing into your mountain.
Feeling your strength and stability.
At times the mountain is visited by violent storms.
Of snow and rain and winds of unthinkable magnitude.
And through it all the mountain sits.
And spring comes and trees leaf out and flowers bloom in the high meadows and slopes And birds sing in the trees once again and streams overflow with the waters of melting snow And through it all,
The mountain continues to sit.
Unmoved by the weather.
By what's happening on its surface,
By the world of appearances.
Through the seasons,
The changing weather,
The ebbing and flowing.
And 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 life changes in our own lives.
Over seconds,
Over hours,
Over years.
And in our lives and in our meditation practice.
We experience constantly the changing nature of the mind and body.
We have our own periods of lightness and darkness.
Activity and inactivity.
And it's true that we may experience storms of varying intensity.
From our outer world and in our own minds and bodies.
But we can sit like the mountain in these moments.
We can breathe and hold steady and celebrate the moments of joy and uplift.
And even if our appearance changes constantly.
We can connect with our own inner self and strength.
By becoming the mountain in our meditation practice,
We can link with its strength and stability and adopt them for our own.
We can use its energies to support our energy.
To encounter each moment with mindfulness and clarity.
It can help us to think of our own thoughts,
Feelings and emotions a bit like the weather.
We can tend to take it personally.
But it's completely impersonal.
The weather of our own lives is not to be ignored or denied,
It's to be encountered,
Honoured and felt.
And held in awareness.
And in holding it 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 in your city.
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.
And true stillness.
So connecting with your breath.
Connecting with the elongation of your spine.
Feeling that strength and stability being absorbed into your body.
And we're gently going to guide ourselves back to this present moment,
Back to our day,
Knowing that we can come back to this meditation at any time.
So thank you for choosing and selecting this meditation today.
I really appreciate our Insight Timer community and also the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn.
And also Palouse Mindfulness who created this meditation script.
Thank you.
