Mountain meditation
The mountains are calling and I must go. ―John Muir
👥 Serves: 1 person, 11-25 people, 2-10 people, 26-40 people, 41+ people
🎚 Difficulty: Medium
⏳ Total time: 11-30 minutes
🥣 Ingredients: A quiet place with no distractions, Internet to listen to the audio-recording, headphones / earphones (optional)
🤓 Wholebeing Domains: Awareness, Bioempathy, Positive Emotion
💪 Wholebeing Skills: Aligning with the cycles, Awe, Bioinspiration, Breathing, Calm, Centring, Contemplation, Mindfulness, Nature sensitivity, Peacefulness
Mountain meditation
📝 Description
A meditation practice to find calmness in Nature.
Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh reminds us that “peace is all around us—in the world and in nature—and within us—in our bodies and in our spirits.” Learning to touch this peace and to access it anytime you may need it, will bring true joy to your work and life as a changemaker. Meditation is a powerful tool to help you access this inner peace and joy. As he continues, “Meditation is not to avoid problems or run away from difficulties. We do not practice to escape. We practice to have enough strength to confront problems effectively. To do this, we must be calm, fresh, and solid. (…) If you are calm and still enough, you can reflect the mountain, the blue sky, and the moon exactly as they are.”
The following meditation practice has been realised by The Mindfulness Project, a London-based initiative to promote a secular and science-based approach to mindfulness meditation. You begin by imagining that your body is a mountain, and then are guided through imaging the different seasons that happen on the surface of the mountain, while at the same time, you keep an awareness that the inside of the mountain is never changing. It’s a safe place in the mountain and your body, that you can always access.
👣 Steps
Step 1 – Sit (30’’)
Adopting a sitting position that makes you feel alert and comfortable at the same time; so either sitting on a chair with your feet firmly planted on the ground, or sitting cross-legged on the floor, or in a kneeling posture.
Step 2 – Imagine a mountain (30’’)
Now bring to mind a mountain; maybe a mountain that you know well; maybe a mountain you have seen pictures of; or maybe just the general image of a mountain.
Step 3 – Feel into the mountain (2’)
Now feeling into the base of the posture that you have adopted… and feeling the connection points between your body and the floor, the cushion, or chair… feeling firmly rooted into this place, just like the mountain is rooted into its place on the earth… and feeling the wide and steady foundation of your posture, just like the base of the mountain in its widest point…
And feeling that your arms and the sides of your body are representing the sides of a mountain; the external surface… that the spine and the central part of your torso represent the centre of the mountain; the part of the mountain that is strong and steady… feel that your neck and head correspond to the lofty peak of the mountain; really feeling that your whole body represents a mountain… rounded, rooted, lifting, solid, elegant, and majestic…
Feeling into this mountain as a complete entity going through experiences and seasons…
Step 4 – Sense into autumn (3’)
And sensing now into the season being autumn… imagining that it is autumn time on the mountain… the leaves are turning and falling from the trees; there are only a few tourists and visitors and they’re leaving the mountain… some autumn storms peppered the mountain, sometimes with lightning and thunder… damp morning fog hangs around… and the mountain smells of the slow decay of leaves… increased darkness comes to the mountain as the days shorten… the animals hibernate and the birds migrate… as those changes occur, the mountain rests in its place, experiencing but seemingly impartial to the changes that are occurring on its surface… allowing the experiences on its surface to simply happen.
Now see if you can tune into a place but in the centre of the mountain… within your own body, deep inside, that remains untouched by the changes of the surface… a space that remains steady, warm, and spacious… as if there were a safe, warm, and well-lit cave right in the centre of the mountain… feeling into the quality of this place in your body and the sensations there… and this safe, steady place is deep in your core that can remain untouched by the events in your life.
Step 5 – Sense into winter (2’30’’)
And now the season gradually changes to winter around the mountain… Snow begins to fall, ice forms, the rivers and streams freeze over… there are many long periods of darkness, and many storms, and hurricanes, and avalanches… on the surface of the mountain feels a little dangerous and unsettled, but there are also crisp, bright, and calm days where the snow and ice sparkle and the clear winter sun shines… and yet there is still this place within the mountain, within your own body that remains untouched by what is occurring on the surface… tune into the quality of this place within yourself; know where this place is within your body, this place that can remain untouched by the weather, storm, the cold on the surface… this place that feels safe, bright, and warm… a place where you can rest and take refuge, irrespective of the external events…
Step 6 – Sense into spring (2’)
And slowly feeling that the mountain moves into springtime… the ice and the snow begin to melt; the streams and rivers flow with bright clear meltwater… flowers begin appearing: spring bulbs and blossoms emerge… leaves begin to sprout on the plants, and the trees and the birds return to the mountain and begin rebuilding their nests… their songs filling the air… the hibernating animals re-emerge and stretch… there is still the odd spring storm but the days are lengthening and brightening… there are longer periods of calm between the storms… a sense of renewed life, renewed energy… but irrespectively of what is occurring externally or on the surface of the mountain, feeling once again into that place within you… a place that remains untouched by whatever is occurring on the surface… a place of warmth, of safety, of brightness… connecting with that place within you and having a sense of being able to rest here, so that you can attend to activities on the surface…
Step 7 – Sense into summer (2’)
And feeling that the season slowly changes again to summer… summer comes to the mountain: long, hot, lazy days; trees, and bushes, and full leaf… you are experiencing the full-bodied summer days and short warm nights… streams and the rivers are flowing; the grass is a rich, deep green… the birds are completing their care of their young, by teaching them to fend for themselves… there is still the occasional summer storm… they are neither long nor fierce… knowing that there is that place within you; the place of safety, warmth, and brightness, that you can touch and inhabit and can connect with anytime that you feel that you would like to… it is always available to you… feeling into that place and resting there…
Step 8 – Closing (1’)
And allowing the image of the mountain to gently fade now… but retaining the knowledge that the place of steadiness and safety within yourself that you have experienced in this meditation, is always available to you, as you conduct your everyday life. And just before we bring this meditation to a close, having a sense of where your body is connecting with the earth… feeling the floor beneath your feet, and the chair or cushion beneath your legs and buttocks… connecting and sensing into the support and rootedness that is offered… feeling fully rooted into this place and this time.