Session 019: A Spring in the Mountains

Talk + Guided Meditation Session 019: May 13th, 2020, by Sophia Ojha Ensslin and Cristof Ensslin

Banner Photo by Madhu Shesharam on Unsplash

Talk

A Walk Through a Mountain Forest

Guided Meditation

Imagine: you walk through a wild forest in the mountains. There’s no trail, just wilderness. You have to really watch your step, because there are loose rocks and brittle logs under the leaf covered, sloped land. There are thorny bushes in the way. A slight touch could mean a cut in your hands. 

It’s worth paying close attention though. Not only for your safety, but for your enjoyment: looking up into the branches of the trees, you spot a scarlet tanager and his family. What a sight to see the fiery red with a dash of pitch black on his side. 

Handout

This week we have a 3-page handout. It is posted below as blog content for you. Plus, you can download it by clicking on the button below:

As you dwell in this visual pleasure, your ears pick up the sound of a stream. Through the thicket around you, you hear the gurgling of water. It sounds refreshing, uplifting. So, you follow the sound and find the stream. It’s fresh and clean and crisp. A real treat for ears and eyes.

You decide to hike upstream from where the water is coming from. After a short while you come to that place of nature’s magic, where the stream springs out of the mountain - as if out of nowhere. The water collects in a small pool the diameter of a washtub, then runs off over pebbles, rocks and boulders. Dipping your fingers into the icy cold water feels delightful, smooth. Yet after a while, it gets way too cold to continue.

As you taste some of the water, cupping your hands and enjoying the pure flavour of this life source, there’s a fresh scent in the air. It’s spring after all, so flowering plants and trees are advertising their pollen and nectars to birds and bees of this pristine mountain forest.

It’s such a peaceful scenery, you decide to stay for a few more minutes. And why shouldn’t you? As you stand there with all your five senses activated, your mind can relax and pay full attention to the present moment. This is serenity, this is quietude.

Mindful Being by Paying Attention to All Our Senses

In the above visualization we can easily imagine how to get mindful. All we have to do is pay close attention to all our five physical senses: Sight, Hearing, Touch, Taste, and Smell. Instead of dwelling in some thought, we use our mind to pay attention to only the present moment.

We can do this in every moment possible, throughout our day. The more we do it, the more serene and clear our mind becomes. That allows for better decisions at work or in our personal life, whether in regards to relationships, activities or things.

It’s easily said, but hard to do. That’s why we meditate. It’s our practice ground for present moment awareness.

How Our Mind Works, And What to Do with That Knowledge

As we pay attention, we can gain insight into how our mind (Buddhist view calls the mind the sixth sense base) works:

1. There is a sense contact. We see or hear something, we smell or taste something, or our skin is touched by something. Or we think a thought in our mind.

2. A feeling arises in us, which can be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.

3. There is some kind of perception or recognition, say we identify the shape and color that we see as a bird commonly known as Scarlet Tanager.

4. Our mind reacts with thoughts and craving - usually in a highly habituated manner. If we see the Scarlet Tanager, we’re in pure awe of the rare sight, want to take a picture, tell our spouse, share it on social media, make a plan to use the data of our phone to do so, pondering whether it’s worth paying for the data plan or rather wait until we have free wifi access at home, ask ourselves what the best caption for this picture would be, or whether we should first double check with our birding book or app to make sure not to embarrass ourselves by misidentifying our spotted bird (as we did the other day, boy was that a heart ache afterwards!), and on and on and on… and off we go into plans and memories - away from the present moment.

The sooner we can interrupt this automated, out-of-control, habitual reaction, we can replace it with mindfulness - meaning A) knowing what’s going on in this moment, as well as B) doing the right thing for this moment so to keep peace in place or create it if it’s not there yet. That is gaining power of one’s mind.

Mind you: doing the right thing can mean to think something through thoroughly, make a plan or learn from the past. But more often than not, it means to just acknowledge the moment and be aware that the next moment has already arrived. As our mindfulness grows, we can discern the right thing from the wrong thing more and more easily. It takes practice, patience, and persistence; like anything worth learning.

Ideally, we catch the process in stages 1, 2, and 3. As our mind is quick carrying on by itself in stage 4. The great Buddhist teacher Ayya Khema says that a fully enlightened being (in Pali: Arahat) thinks only thoughts that he or she wants to think. That’s what our practice aims for, whether in meditation or in our mundane everyday activities.

The spring in the mountains simile above helps us remember that our senses (especially the five bodily senses) are our gateway to the present moment, and with it peace.

Let’s practice now by meditating.

Peace,

Sophia + Cristof