The Mountain Meditation.
Begin by sensing into the support you have from the ground,
Whether you're resting on a crag or in a clearing,
On a stool or mat,
Paying attention to the actual sensations of contact.
Finding a position of stability and balance,
Comfortable and alert.
Feeling into your body,
Your feet,
Your legs,
Hips,
Lower and upper torso,
Arms,
Your shoulders and your head.
When you're ready,
Noticing your breath,
The actual physical sensations,
Feeling each breath as it comes in and goes out.
Letting the breath be just as it is,
Without trying to change or regulate it in any way.
Allowing it to flow with its own rhythm and pace,
Easily and naturally.
Just letting your breath be your breath.
Feeling a sense of being complete and whole in this moment.
As you rest here,
Letting an image or sense form in your mind's eye of the most magnificent or beautiful mountain you know or have seen or can imagine.
Letting it gradually come into greater focus.
Its lofty peak or peaks high in the sky,
The large base rooted in the bedrock of the earth's crust.
And steep or gently sloping sides.
Noticing 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 granite sides and there may be streams and waterfalls cascading down the slopes.
Perhaps one peak or a series of peaks.
Observing it,
Noting its qualities and when you feel ready,
Seeing if you can bring this sense of the mountain into your own body resting here so that your body and the mountain in your mind's eye become one.
Sharing in that massiveness and stillness and majesty of the mountain,
You become the mountain.
Grounded in your 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 where you're resting.
Feeling in your body a sense of uplift from deep within your pelvis and spine.
With each breath as you continue resting,
Becoming a little more a breathing mountain.
Alive and vital,
Yet unwavering in your inner stillness.
Only what you are,
Beyond words and thought,
A centred,
Grounded,
Unmoving presence.
And as you rest here,
Becoming aware of the fact that as the sun travels across the sky,
The light and shadows and colours are changing virtually moment by moment in the mountain's stillness.
And the surface teams with life and activity.
Streams,
Melting snow,
Waterfalls,
Plants and wildlife.
As the mountain rests,
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 then the gradual dawning of a new day.
Through it all the mountain just rests,
Experiencing change in each 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.
Calmly abiding all change.
In summer there's no snow on the mountain,
Except perhaps for the very peaks or in crags shielded from direct sunlight.
In the autumn the mountain may wear a coat of brilliant fire colours.
In winter a blanket of snow and ice.
In any season it 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.
The mountain's magnificence and beauty are not changed one bit by whether people see it or not.
Seen or unseen,
In sun or clouds,
In heat or coolness,
Day or night,
It just rests being itself.
As spring comes,
Trees leaf out,
Flowers bloom in the high meadows and slopes,
Birds sing in the trees once again.
Through it all the mountain continues to rest,
Unmoved by the weather and changing of the seasons,
Remaining its essential self.
It may help us to see that our thoughts and our 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,
But rather encountered,
Honoured,
Felt,
Known for what it is and held in awareness.
Even 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 let them.
So in the time that remains,
Continuing to sustain the mountain meditation on your own,
In silence,
Moment by moment.
