For recharging batteries and centering.
Benefits
Life does not always go as we wish, as we expect. Sometimes we feel unprepared and caught by surprise. Taking time to center ourselves is very important and provides benefit for being able to have the necessary strength to face difficult moments.
Example
I practice this meditation every time I need to strengthen myself; before a busy day perhaps, when I know that it potentially can be very full. I sit comfortably on the floor. I close my eyes and I start imagining a wonderful mountain, (my shape from a distance is like a mountain, with my head being the peak) its life and colors through the seasons and the different weather conditions. I try to feel like the mountain, stable and unchanged in its dignity throughout changes. I imagine people coming and going, making comments and still imagining the mountain unbreakable. Every time I imagine myself like the mountain, a slow sense of calmness comes to me, a sense of worth and dignity. I may go through seasons and rebellious weather in my life, yet still I can be stable and full of dignity.
At the end, I let go of the image of the mountain by keeping the feeling of solidity and I get ready for what I need to do next.
Variations
Reduced
You can vary the length as you wish. Once you have done it several times, bringing back to your mind the image of the mountain itself can be enough.
Extended
You can go into the details of every season: the white frozen winter, the colourful spring, the hot summer and the autumn with leaves falling all over. You can also go through the details of many weather conditions; wind, rain, sun, storm.
Online
You can also use the podcast with the recorded meditation.
Possible traps
If you lead the meditation for a group, ensure that you are also in the meditation, while talking at a slow pace. If you read, do not be fast, and keep moments of silence.
You can recall a mountain you have visited, a mountain you would like to visit or a mountain from your fantasy.
Additional resources
The Mountain Meditation – Podcast
MINDFULNESS
Mindfulness as a practice has a history of more than 2500 years and can be found in one way or another in all major religions. The most influential source for today’s practice and understanding of mindfulness can be found in Buddhism. The secular movement around it started in the 1970ies with the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn.
The most widely-spread definitions are:
- Guy Armstrong: “To know what one is experiencing while experiencing it.”
- Jon Kabat-Zinn: “The awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment.”
- Shinzen Young: He talks about three dimensions of mindfulness – Focus/Concentration on a chosen object with intention; Clarity about the true nature of this object in its details; Equanimity: an attitude of openness and acceptance towards the experience, one has while focusing on an object.
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