Stable, Limitless, and Open

AA wrote: Beautiful! Thank you, Sabina. 😄

Stable, Limitless, and Open

Body, like the mountain.

Heart, like the ocean. 

Mind, like the sky.

                      Dogen

In times of uneasiness or doubt I sometimes feel as if my place in the world is not obvious, as if I were a cloud, slowly dissolving into thin air. Then I need to ground myself. Dogen’s idea of “body like a mountain” often comes to my mind, and meditating on the poem above is a good help to become grounded again.

I sit down cross-legged, close my eyes, follow my breath for a couple of moments, and visualize Dogen’s words:

·            Body, like the mountain - I see and feel my body, steady on the floor, stable like a mountain. With every breath earth energy fills it from below, it calms down, and becomes one with all living things.

·            Heart, like the ocean - I see and feel my heart opening up to become as vast as an ocean to take in and care for all that it encounters.

·            Mind, like the sky - I see and feel my mind, vast and empty like the sky. Thoughts and emotions come, pass through it, and leave again. I let them all go, out into the wide open space

When I re-enter my day, I am back HERE again, grounded and happy.