In the Mountain Meditation by Jon Kabat-Zinn,
We are invited to bring to mind an image of a mountain that resonates with us.
This meditation is normally done in a sitting position,
Either on the floor or a chair,
And begins by sensing into the support you have from the chair or the cushion,
Paying attention to the actual sensation of contact.
Finding a position of stability and poise,
Upper body balanced over your hips and shoulders in a comfortable but alert posture,
Hands on your lap or on your knees,
Arms hanging by their own weight,
Like heavy curtains,
Stable and relaxed.
Sensing into your body,
Feeling your feet,
Legs,
Hips,
Lower and upper body,
Arms,
Shoulders,
Neck,
Head.
And when you are ready,
Allowing your eyes to close,
Bringing awareness to 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 in any way,
Allowing it to flow easy and naturally with its own rhythm and pace,
Knowing you are breathing perfectly well right now,
Nothing for you to do but allowing your body to be still and sitting with a sense of dignity,
A sense of resolve,
A sense of being complete or,
In this very moment,
With your posture reflecting this sense of wholeness.
As you sit here,
Letting an image form in your mind's eye of the most magnificent,
Or beautiful mountain you know or ever seen or can imagine,
Letting gradually come into greater focus and even if it doesn't come as a visual image,
Allowing the sense of this mountain and feeling its overall shape,
Its lofty peaks or peaks high in the sky,
The large bays rooted in the bedrock of earth's crust,
Its step or gently sloppily slides.
Noticing how massive it is,
How solid,
How moving,
How beautiful,
Whether from far or up close.
Perhaps your mountain has no blanketing,
It's top and trees reaching down to the bays or rugged granite sites,
There are many streams and waterfalls cascading down the slopes,
Maybe,
There may be one peak or a series of peaks or with meadows and high lakes.
Observing it,
Noting its qualities and when you feel ready,
Seeing if you can bring the mountain into your own body,
Sitting here so that your body and the mountain in your mind's eye become one,
So that as you sit here,
You share in the messiveness and the stillness and majesty of the mountain,
You become the mountain.
Grounded in the 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 side of the mountain,
Your sitting bones and legs the solid base,
Rooted to your own cushion or your chair or the floor,
Experiencing in your body a sense of uplift from deep within your pelvis through and up your spine.
With each 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 thoughts,
A centered,
Grounded,
Unmoving presence.
As you sit here,
Becoming aware of the fact that as the sun travels across the sky,
The light and the 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 it all the mountain just sits,
Experiencing change in each moment,
Constantly changing,
Yet always just being itself.
It remains still as the season flows into one another,
As the weather changes moment by moment and day by day,
Calmness,
The abiding all change.
In the summer there is no snow on the mountain except perhaps for the very peaks or in the cracks shielded from the direct sunlight.
In the fall the mountain might wear a coat of brilliant fire colors,
Yellow,
Red and orange.
In winter a blanket of snow and ice.
In any season it might find itself at times shrouded 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 is not a good day to see the mountain that is too cloudy or rainy or foggy or dark.
None of this matter to the mountain,
Which remains at all time its essential self.
Clouds may come and clouds may go,
Tourists may like it or not.
The mountains' magnificence and beauty are not changed one bit by whether people see it or not,
Seen or unseen,
In sun or clouds,
Brawling or cold,
Day or night.
The mountain 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 tree once again,
Streams overflow with the waters of the melting snow.
Through it all the mountain continues to sit,
Unmoved by the weather,
By what happens on its surface,
By the words of appearance.
The mountain remains itself,
Its essential self,
Through the seasons,
The changing of weather,
The activity,
Having and flowing on its own surface.
In the same way as we see it in meditation,
We can learn to experience the mountain,
We can embody the same central unwavering stillness and groundedness in the phase of everything that change in our own lives over seconds,
Over hours,
Over years.
In our life 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 color and our moments of dreblness.
Is it true that we experience storm of varying intensity and violence in the outer world and in our own minds and bodies,
Buffeted with high winds by cold and rain,
We endure periods of darkness and pain as well as moments of joy and uplift.
Even our appearance changes constantly,
Experiencing a weather of its own.
By becoming the mountain we can link up with its strength and stability and adopt this quality for our own.
We can use these energies to support our energy to encounter each moment with mindfulness,
Equanimity and clarity.
It might 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 characteristics are impersonal.
The weather of our own lives is not to be ignored or denied,
It is to be encountered,
Honored,
Felt,
Known for what it is and held with awareness.
And in holding it in this way,
We come to know a deeper silence,
Stillness and wisdom.
Mountains have this to teach us and much more if we can let it in.
So if you find you resonate with some way with the strength and stability of the mountain in your sitting,
It might be helpful to use it from time to time in your own meditation practice to remind you what it means to sit mindful with resolve in true stillness.
So in the time that remains,
Continue to sustain the mountain meditation in your own in silence moment by moment through your day,
Through your life.
Keeping the image of the mountain as you walk through your life.
