Hello my name is Matt and thank you for listening to this meditation.
This meditation is a live recording that was carried out for the Rolls-Royce meditation group during the corona pandemic when we were locked down as we were unable to meet so we met weekly via Zoom.
So this session is one that will encourage grounding and also stillness so I hope you enjoy the practice.
And then we'll make a start.
So with this meditation like I said it's an adaptation of the mountain meditation so in your mind's eye just picture a really beautiful mountain that you have visited or it could be a mountain in your mind that you generate.
Just for a moment just picture this mountain just noticing what you love about this mountain how strong it is how immovable it is this still presence of the mountain just take a moment just to notice that for now.
And then when you're ready picture the qualities of this mountain this stillness of this mountain coming into your body so you're at the bottom of your feet the bottom of your legs at the base of the mountain rooted into this crust of the earth and your head being the lofty top of the mountain so as you sit or as you stand you become this presence of the mountain you actually become the stillness yourself.
And as you sit just notice the breath starting to move in your body bringing awareness to this so you become this living presence of this mountain so as I was saying the legs being the base of the mountain head being the peak just allow that stillness though that quality of the mountain just to calm and be in your being.
Now as mountains stand and even though they are steadfast and immovable they obviously experience weather so mountains experience the sunlight experience the moon like they experience beautiful sunny days they experience the hard winters the hard rains that mountains experience all this weather as they stand still and also whether people come to visit them or not doesn't affect them whether a person likes the beauty of the mountain or somebody doesn't think that much of it the mountain just stands still firm just being itself and we can have this quality so as you sit and as you be aware of that quality of that you are steadfast the stillness is within you regardless of whatever weather's going on around you today in your life whatever pressures you might be feeling today you are still calm immovable mountain and just let these be your observations now the movement of the breath rolling in rolling out and this stillness of you as a mountain.
One of these things you can do with your focusing on that presence of that mountain is just drop your awareness down into your core down into the center of your chest into your belly so you feel that rootedness of the floor your head high and this stillness in the core and just let this be your place where you just observe just continue with this until you hear the next bell and then that's when we'll do our sankalpa practice for the day but just until they just continue with that feeling of steadfastness that solidness inner stillness you you just continue just watching the breath feeling that sense of stillness not being rooted just allowing all that weather just to move on by at the time being as we just ground ourselves in this presence of being the mountain.
And then when you're ready now just come away from that observation and that feeling of stillness of being in the mountain for a moment and we'll set some intentions for the day.
So thinking of the day as it's been so far think about what sort of qualities that you would like to see in your day or another variation you can do as well with this practice is with what's going on the moment you can set an affirmation for yourself so you know you could be saying to yourself I am calm you know today I am calm and you speak these sort of words to yourself.
So just now in the next few stages of the practice just allow yourself to think through what qualities you would like to bring as a sankalpa what affirmations you want to say to yourself today and when you're ready in your own time bring those in with your breath so picture them coming into your being and going down into your heart center into the furnace of the heart just let them take root and when you finish doing that just go back to your breath until I guide us in the next stage of our practice and then just as we start to approach the end of our practice for today we'll just do a bit of loving kindness practice not like not the long full practice but we just say some words of kindness out from our beings out into the atmosphere around us so you know impacting our local communities and the wider the wider world by sending these words of kindness.
So may all beings be happy may all beings be well may all beings be safe may all beings be peaceful and may all beings live at ease may all beings be happy may all beings be well may all beings be safe may all beings be peaceful and may all beings live at ease shanté shanté shanté peace peace peace shanté shanté shanté peace peace peace so just take a moment just to notice that stillness just before we move on to the sounds because this stillness stays with us throughout the day just need to bring our awareness to it throughout the day and then take your awareness to the sounds around you noticing what's there and then take your awareness to the chair or the cushion that has supported you and then we'll take our awareness out onto our feet just notice that firm floor again that support us as we've practiced if you like wriggle your toes around a little bit and we're going to take two breaths so breathe in through the nose out the mouth so take a lovely deep breath in again lovely deep breath in and then just start to open your eyes when you're ready
