Mindfulness Meditations guided by Una Keeley Professional MBSR Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Instructor The Mountain Meditation inspired by the work of Dr John Kabat-Zinn So sitting now with a straight back and with your head held erect above the shoulders and allowing your shoulders to fully relax placing the hands on your knees and if it feels comfortable for you,
Closing your eyes and bringing your attention to the flow of breathing feeling each in-breath and each out-breath practicing observing the breathing without trying to change it or manipulate it in any way allowing the body to be still sitting with a sense of dignity and a sense of being complete and whole and allowing the posture to reflect this sense of dignity and to reflect this sense of wholeness and as you sit here beginning to picture in the mind's eye as best you can the most beautiful mountain that you have seen or that you can imagine holding the image and the feeling of this mountain in your mind's eye and letting it gradually come into greater focus observing its overall shape perhaps its lofty peak high in the sky,
Perhaps the large base rooted in the rock of the Earth's crust and perhaps its steep or for you gently sloping sides noticing how massive it is,
How solid,
How unmoving,
How beautiful both from afar and up close perhaps your mountain has snow at the top or maybe trees at the lower slopes perhaps it has one prominent peak or maybe a series of peaks or a high plateau whatever its shape or appearance just sitting and breathing with this image of the mountain observing it,
Noticing its qualities and when you're ready seeing if you can bring the mountain into your own body so that the body sitting here and the mountain in your mind's eye become one so that as you sit here you share in its massiveness,
In its stillness,
In the majesty of the mountain you become the mountain rooted in the sitting posture,
Your head becomes the lofty peak supported by the rest of the body your shoulders and arms become the sides of the mountain,
Your buttocks and legs become the solid base rooted to your chair 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 bit more a breathing mountain unwavering in your stillness,
Completely what you are,
Beyond words and thought a centred,
Rooted,
Unmoving presence now as you sit here as the mountain becoming aware of the sun as it travels across the sky the light and shadows and the colours changing virtually moment by moment witnessing night as it follows day and day as it follows night a canopy of stars,
The moon,
Then the sun through it all the mountain just sits experiencing change in each moment constantly changing yet always just being itself the unmoving mountain it remains still as the seasons flow one into another and as the weather changes moment by moment and day by day calmness abiding all change in the summer there's no snow on the mountain except perhaps for the very peaks in fall and the autumn the mountain may wear a coat of brilliant fire colours in winter a blanket of snow and ice it may find itself at times enshrouded in clouds or fog or pelted by freezing rain people may come to see the mountain and may comment on how beautiful it is or on how it's not a good day to see the mountain none of this matters to the mountain which remains at all times rooted majestic and its essential self clouds may come and clouds may go the mountains magnificence and beauty are not changed one bit by the way people see it seen or unseen in sun or clouds broiling or frigid day or night it just sits being itself at times visited by violent storms buffeted by snow and rain and winds of unthinkable magnitude through it all the mountain continues to sit unmoved by the weather by what happens on the surface by the world of appearances and now in the same way as we sit here in meditation we can learn to experience the mountain we can embody the same unwavering stillness and rootedness 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 constantly experience the changing nature of mind and body and of the outer world we have our own periods of light and darkness our moments of colour and our moments of drabness we experience storms of varying intensity and violence in the outer world and in our own minds and bodies we endure periods of darkness and pain as well as moments of joy even our appearance changes constantly experiencing a weather of its own by becoming the mountain in our meditation practice we link up with its strength and stability and adopted for our own we use its energies to support our energy to encounter each moment with mindfulness equanimity and clarity it helps us 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 honoured 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 as we come to listen to sit to be you
