In these columns I’ve been discussing an essay called, “Mountains and Rivers Sutra,” written by Zen master Eihei Dogen in 13th century Japan. Today’s column will be a guided mountain meditation that may help you penetrate the essence of what Dogen means when he says, “The blue mountains are constantly walking.”
This meditation is normally done in a sitting position, and begins by sensing the support you feel from your chair or cushion. Find a position of stability and poise, upper body balanced over your hips, shoulders in a comfortable but alert posture, hands on your lap or knees, arms hanging by their own weight, like heavy curtains, stable and relaxed.
When you are ready, bring awareness to your breath, the actual physical sensations of breath, feeling each breath as it comes in and goes out. When the mind stabilizes even a little, allow an image of a mountain you have known to form in your mind. Feel its overall shape, its peaks, its base rooted in the bedrock of the Earth’s crust.
Now, imagine, if you will, that you are that mountain. Let your head become the peak supported by the rest of your body and affording a panoramic view. Let your shoulders and arms become the sides of the mountain. Your buttocks and legs become the solid base. With each breath, become that breathing mountain, alive and vital, yet unwavering in inner stillness, beyond words and thought, a centered, grounded presence.
As you sit, become aware that as the sun walks across the mountain, light and shadows constantly change and move in the mountain’s stillness. Your surface teems with life and activity — streams flow, snow melts, night follows day and day follows night. Through it all, you, the mountain, sit still, experiencing change in each moment, aware that you are constantly changing, yet always just being yourself.
In any season, you may find yourself enshrouded in clouds, visited by violent storms, buffeted by snow and wind. But through it all, the mountain sits. When snow falls, the mountain is there. Snow melts and there is furious water flowing down, making great gouges out of the mountainsides, but the mountain is still there. Though blistering summer heat, it is still there. Lightening strikes the top; it is still there. It’s been there for a thousand years. It will be there for the next thousand years.
Dogen says, “Because the blue mountains constantly walk, they are constant.” What is more constant than a mountain? A mountain is the very image of constancy and yet the mountains are constantly walking. Everything in the mountain is literally changing. We now know that every atom on that mountain is in motion. The mountain is walking, in constant motion, and yet it is constant in its impermanence.
Suggested practice: Take some time to record this meditation and then during the day go to a place where you will not be interrupted, find a comfortable sitting posture and listen to the recording.
Kuya Minogue is the resident teacher at Sakura-ji, Creston’s zendo. This column is part of a long essay on an essay by 13th century Zen master Eihei Dogen and is inspired by the teaching of Norman Fishcher. For more information, Minogue can be reached at 250-428-6500, and previous columns are available at www.zenwords.net.
