7 Days of Mama Zen - Mountain Meditation

Welcome to this mountain meditation.

This meditation is normally done in a seated position,

Either on the floor or a chair.

As you sit here,

Notice the support that you receive from either the floor or the cushion or a chair beneath you.

Gets into your body,

Feeling into your feet,

Your legs,

Your hips,

Your lower and upper body,

Your arms,

Your shoulders,

Your neck,

Even your head.

And then when you're ready to,

Allow the eyes to close and start to notice the breath.

Notice the actual physical sensation of the breath,

Feeling each breath as it comes in and goes out,

Letting each breath just be as it is without trying to change or regulate it in any way and allowing it to flow easily and naturally with its own rhythm and pace.

Knowing you are breathing perfectly well right now and there is nothing for you to do.

Allow the body to be still and sit with a sense of dignity,

A sense of resolve,

A sense of being complete or whole in this very moment.

Your posture reflecting this sense of wholeness.

As you sit here,

Let an image form in your mind's eye of the most beautiful or magnificent mountain you know of or have seen or can imagine.

Let it gradually come into a greater focus and even if it doesn't come as a visual image,

Allow the sense of this mountain and feeling in its overall shape,

The large base rooted in the earth,

Its steep or gently sloping sides.

Notice how massive it is,

How solid,

Unmoving,

How beautiful whether from afar or up close.

Perhaps your mountain has snow blanketing its tops and trees reaching down to the base or rugged granite sides.

There may be streams or waterfalls cascading down the slopes.

Maybe there's one peak or a series of peaks or meadows and high lakes.

Love and notice this mountain that you've called to mind.

And then when you feel ready,

See if you can bring the mountain into your own body 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.

And 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,

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

With each breath,

Allow yourself to feel even more aligned with this mountain,

Alive and vital yet unwavering in your stillness,

Completely what you are,

Beyond words and thought,

A centered,

Grounding,

Unmoving presence.

And as you sit here,

Become 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.

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 and the gradual dawning of a new day.

Through all of it,

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 and as the weather changes moment by moment and day by day,

Calmness abiding all change.

In summer there is no snow on the mountain.

In the fall the mountain may wear a coat of brilliant fire colors.

In winter a blanket of snow and ice.

In any season it may find itself enshrouded in clouds of 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 clouds may go,

Tourists may like it or not.

The mountain's magnificence and beauty are not changed one bit by whether people see it or not,

Seen or unseen,

In clouds or sun,

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 sits.

Spring comes,

Trees leaf out,

Flowers bloom in the high meadows and slopes,

Birds sing in the trees once again,

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 colour 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,

We endure periods of darkness and pain as well as moments of joy and uplift.

Even our appearance constantly changes,

Experiencing 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 its energies 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,

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 if we can let them in.

So that is why we practice sitting and resonating 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 in true stillness.

So as you continue to sit here,

Sustain the mountain meditation on your own.

In silence,

Moment by moment,

Until you hear my voice again.

Its time to allow the image of the mountain to start to fade away.

Become aware of your own body in the position that you sit.

Notice again your breathing and deepen it,

Almost yawning your body awake.

When you feel ready to you can open the eyes and slowly allow yourself to become aware of the room in which you sit.

Notice your surroundings,

The sounds that you can hear.

And then when you are ready to,

Its time to return to your day with the stillness and strength of the mountain.