The mountains of Cascadia and the Rockies aid in the practice of Insight Meditation.

Cascadia and the Rocky Mountain region both feature mountains that serve well as an aid to the practice of insight meditation. Tibet - a country of high mountains - is, after all, the place where the spacious aspect of meditation is given its most thorough expression. In all of these areas, mountain peaks represent the ability of meditation practice to help us transcend (go beyond) our usual fixation on afflictive thoughts and emotions. Spacious sky and vast vistas represent a wide-open awareness (facilitated by a focus on each exhalation) that forms the expanse out of which all thoughts and emotions appear and then dissipate like momentary clouds. The crispness of alpine air embodies the precision of this awareness which notices each thought or emotion in the very moment that it arises. The fact that wildflowers appear suddenly out of snowfield-covered meadows and then disappear back into snow once again symbolizes the transitory quality of all thoughts and emotions, which behave like echoes arising seemingly out of nothing, without any original "word" ever being spoken. In this photo, the lily shining - half hidden - at sunset next to a pond reinforces this sense that all things appear - and hover - out of the spacious lake of Divine love, arising as though out of nowhere, disappearing back into love, and then appearing yet again!

Photo: Avalanche lily, Mt. Rainier and a pond at sunset; Spray Park, Mt. Rainier National Park, WA; July 28, 2013