Zen & Buddhism

Mountain Meditation

Visualizing yourself as a mountain to develop stability, groundedness, and equanimity through changing conditions.

In mountain meditation, you imagine yourself as a mountain - solid, stable, unshaken by passing weather. Storms come and go, seasons change, but the mountain endures. This practice cultivates the equanimity to remain centered through life's inevitable ups and downs. Research shows that nature-based imagery in meditation reduces stress and increases feelings of connection to the earth. The mountain teaches us that we can be strong without being rigid, enduring without being resistant. Like the mountain, our true nature is already complete and needs nothing added.

Written about in

• What Zen says about fear and anxiety

  Sit as a mountain: weather crosses it, seasons change over it, and it stays. The image is for stability that does not require stiffness.