The Mountain Practice For Stillness And Equanimity

Hello and welcome.

This practice is called the Mountain Meditation.

It is adapted from the version by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Inviting you to find a position that feels stable and poised.

So sensing perhaps your back straight,

Your upper body balanced over your hips and shoulders.

So it's a comfortable posture.

Alive and alert.

Awake to your experience.

Perhaps having your hands on your lap.

Letting your arms hang by their own weight.

Letting them fall to the sides of your body just as they are.

And sensing into the areas of contact.

So wherever your body is in contact with the surface.

And letting your eyes close if that feels right.

Or you can lower your gaze about 45 degrees.

And when you're ready,

Finding that anchor.

So it could be the sensations of breath.

Or it could be some other anchor in the body.

Perhaps the palms of your hands or some other area that is quite noticeable.

And if you're with the breath,

Not changing it in any way.

Just letting the breath breathe just as it is.

And almost finding it or noticing it.

You're already breathing.

So just noticing the breath sensations.

So everything is just the way it's supposed to be.

There's nothing to do here.

Nothing to change.

And so inviting the body to sit with stillness,

With a sense of dignity,

A sense of being complete,

Whole in this very moment.

So as you're focusing on that anchor,

Inviting that posture to reflect this sense of wholeness,

Whatever that's like for you.

And so now inviting you as you sit here to invite an image to your mind.

The most magnificent or beautiful mountain that you either know or you've seen in pictures or you can imagine.

Let it gradually come into greater focus.

And even if it doesn't come as a visual image,

That's okay.

Maybe just allowing the sense of this mountain or just feeling like the shape of the mountain.

Sensing its lofty peak.

This peak's very high in the sky.

And that larger base rooted in the earth.

And sensing the slopes on the sides.

And so whether you're imagining it as a visual or sensing it,

Noticing how massive it is,

How solid and unmoving,

How beautiful.

Whether it's from afar or up close.

And perhaps your mountain has snow blankets on the top and trees climbing down the base.

Or maybe it's rugged and it's rocky.

Maybe there's streams and waterfalls cascading down the slopes.

Maybe there's one peak or maybe there's a series of peaks.

Perhaps there's meadows and high lakes.

And so just taking a moment now to observe your mountain just as it is,

Noticing all of its qualities.

And when you're ready,

Seeing if you can bring that mountain into your own body,

Sitting here,

So that your body and the mountain in your mind's eye become one.

So as you sit here,

You share in the massiveness and the stillness and the majesty of the mountain.

You actually become the mountain.

So sitting here,

Imagining that mountain become one with you.

And so grounded in this sitting posture,

Your head becomes the lofty peak,

Supported by the rest of the body.

And from where you can have that sort of wide angle or panoramic view.

And your shoulders and arms become the sides of the mountain.

Your buttocks and legs become the sides of the mountain.

You become a solid base,

Rooted to your chair or your cushion.

And experiencing in the body a sense of uplift from deep within your pelvis and spine.

So rooted into the ground but uplifting towards the peak.

And so with each breath,

Inviting you to become a little more like a breathing mountain.

Alive and vital,

Yet unwavering in your stillness inwardly.

Just completely who you are,

Beyond words and thought.

A centered,

Grounded,

Unmoving presence.

And as you sit here,

Becoming aware of the fact that as the sun travels across the sky,

The light and shadows and colors are changing from moment to moment in the mountain's stillness.

And the surface of the mountain teems with life and activity,

Growth,

Streams,

Melting snow,

Waterfalls,

Plants,

And wildlife.

And as the mountain sits,

Seeing and feeling how night follows the day and the day follows the night.

That bright,

Warming sun followed by the cool night sky,

Filled with stars.

And then the gradual dawning of another new day.

And through it all,

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.

And so in the summer,

There's no snow on the mountain,

Maybe except for the very peaks.

And in the fall,

The mountain may wear a coat of colors,

Brilliant colors,

Reds and yellows and oranges.

And in the winter,

Perhaps a blanket of snow and ice.

And in any season,

It may find itself at times enshrouded in clouds or fog or pelted by hail and 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,

Or that it's too cloudy or rainy or foggy or dark.

And none of this matters to the mountain,

Which remains at all times its essential self.

Clouds may come and clouds may go.

Tourists may come.

They may like it or not.

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

In sun clouds or broiling or frigid or day or night.

It just sits being itself.

And at times even visited by violent storms,

Covered in snow and rain or winds of unthinkable magnitude.

And through it all the mountain sits.

And spring comes and the trees start to leaf out and flowers bloom in the high meadows and slopes.

And birds sing in the trees once again.

And the streams begin to overflow with waters of melting snow.

And 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,

All of the activity 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,

Hours,

Or years.

In our lives and in our meditation practice,

We experience changes constantly,

The changing nature of our minds and our body and of the outer world.

We have our own periods of light and darkness,

Of activity,

Inactivity,

Moments of color and moments of drabness.

And it's true that we experience storms of varying intensity and violence in the world and in our own minds and bodies,

Buffeted by high winds,

By cold and rain.

We too endure periods of darkness and pain,

As well as the moments of joy and uplift.

Even our appearance changes constantly,

Experiencing sort of 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,

And 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.

So the weather of our own lives is not to be ignored or denied.

It's to be encountered,

Honored,

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 it in.

So if you find that this resonates with you some way,

The strength and stability of the mountain 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 and true stillness.

And so in the time that remains,

Inviting you to continue to sustain the mountain meditation on your own in silence,

Moment by moment,

Until you hear the sound of the bell.