When I created a customized guided meditation for a corporate client. I included in this meditation imagery of a mountain to promote stableness of mind. As I have been returning to my book-in-progress manuscript, I discovered this passage I wrote in relation to how the story we write about ourselves can be conquered by the steadiness of our inner truth and resilience.
The story and all of its embellishments provide a sensuous distraction from the present state of being. It attracts us, and we are swooned by its very nature. Of course, the story is attractive, as reality itself can seem rather dull to the ego mind. The ego insidiously swirls the story surrounding you so you will feel anything other than peace. If you are focused on what is out there, even in the mind that is, then you will not recognize the riches of peace. The past, the future, the slights, the anxieties and on it goes to make us drugged and sleepy to the alert state we could experience.
Drowsiness comes when we are not alert and when we are weighted down too much by our seeming problems. We create our problems. We make a problem out of everything and anything. There is no problem. There is a solution, and that is awareness, alertness, which brings peace of mind.
Bring the Light of awareness to your judgment. And when you do, the Light will lead the way out of the darkness judgment has caused for you. Let it be the torch leading you out of the dank and damp cave. Follow it, follow the lead of Wisdom that is not your own You know that you have been unhappy in this state of constant judgment. It is wearying and exhausting. Let all things be.
When we begin to sit in quiet, it is foreign to us. The noise and calamity of the world seem more natural. Quiet and stillness are our natural state. You may find this a funny statement and question how it can be true when out your window or on your TV the evidence presents differently.
What I have found when I sit on my meditation cushion in a state of mindfulness is the steadiness of a mountain. The seasons may change, the winds may blow, the torrential rains may wash away what surrounds me, the heat may be oppressive, yet the mountain remains standing strong and tall despite it all. You too must become this mountain of strength to what faces you each day. You can only do this by practice. Not only in meditation but outward each time a phone call or email arrives when the boss barks out an unreasonable order when the kids sneer at you when you hold your ground or anything that appears in your life. This can be the sadness, the anger, the depression, and the twinges of any uncomfortable emotions brought to the surface.
Acknowledge these feelings but know you are not these feelings and not the story begging to be written. Sit strongly as the mountain, see the weather circling you, yet do not allow it to wear you down.
A beneficial practice to use is the Mountain Meditation. In this short meditation, you envision yourself as a mountain, towering in its strength. You imagine the seasons as they change and still you stand unaffected by this change.
Try this short practice now. Additional longer practices available in Library.
Original 4/15/21
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