Lake Meditation

Some people find the image of a lake particularly helpful. Because a lake encompasses a wide expanse of water, one can naturally adopt the lying-down posture when imagining it, although practicing it while sitting up is also possible. Water, as elemental as rock, showcases its strength by wearing down even solid rock. Its enduring force surpasses that of rock’s solidity. Water also has the enchanting quality of receptivity. It parts to allow anything in, then resumes itself. Hitting a mountain or rock with a hammer causes it to chip and fragment due to its hardness. Paradoxically, the hard surface leads to fragmentation upon impact. But if you hit the ocean or a pond with a hammer, all you get is a rusty hammer. A key virtue of water power reveals itself in this.

Some people find the image of a lake particularly helpful. A lake’s vastness evokes a reclining position, yet practicing while sitting is also feasible. The imagery of water supports both postures for this practice. Water, elemental like rock, exhibits superior strength as it erodes solid rock formations. Its force surpasses the endurance of rock. Water also has the enchanting quality of receptivity. It parts to allow anything in, then resumes itself. Hitting a mountain or rock with a hammer causes it to chip and fragment due to its hardness. Paradoxically, the solid structure leads to fragmentation upon impact. But if you hit the ocean or a pond with a hammer, all you get is a rusty hammer. A key virtue of water power reveals itself in this.

To practice using the lake image in your meditation, picture in your mind’s eye a lake, a body of water held in a receptive basin by the earth itself. Note in the mind’s eye and in your own heart that water likes to pool in low places. It seeks its own level, asks to be contained. The lake you invoke may be deep or shallow, blue or green, muddy or dear. With no wind, the surface of the lake is flat.

Mirrorlike, it reflects trees, rocks, sky, and clouds, holds everything in itself momentarily. Wind stirs up waves on the lake, from ripples to chop. Clear reflections disappear. But sunlight may still sparkle in the ripples and dance on the waves in a play of shimmering diamonds. When night falls, the moon dances on the lake, or if the surface remains still, it reflects the moon along with the outline of trees and shadows. In winter, the lake may freeze over, yet teem with movement and life below.

Once you’ve created a mental image of the lake, merge with it as you recline on your back or engage in meditation. Embrace your energies with awareness and self-compassion, mirroring the earth’s basin cradling lake waters. Allow receptivity. Breathing with the lake image moment by moment, feeling its body as your body, allow your mind and your heart to be open and receptive, to reflect whatever comes near.

Experience the moments of complete stillness when both reflection and water remain completely clear, and experience other moments when the surface disturbs, becomes choppy, and stirs up, losing reflections and depth for a time. Through it all, as you dwell in meditation, simply noting the play of the various energies of your own mind and heart, the fleeting thoughts and feelings, impulses and reactions which come and go as ripples and waves, noting their effects just as you observe the various changing energies at play on the lake: the wind, the waves, the light and shadow and reflections, the colors, the smells.

Do your thoughts and feelings disturb the surface? Is that okay with you? Can you see a rippled or wavy surface as an intimate, essential aspect of being a lake, of having a surface? Can you not only identify with the surface but also with the entire body of the water, so that you embody the stillness beneath the surface too? This stillness mostly encounters only gentle undulations, even when the surface is whipped into frothiness.
In the same way, in your meditation practice and in your daily life, can you identify not only with the content of your thoughts and feelings but also with the vast unwavering reservoir of awareness itself residing below the surface of the mind? In the lake meditation, we sit with the intention to hold in awareness and acceptance all the qualities of mind and body, just as the lake sits held, cradled, contained by the earth, reflecting sun, moon, stars,
trees, rocks, clouds, sky, birds, light, caressed by the air and wind, which bring out and highlight its sparkle, its vitality, its essence.

TRY: Using the lake image to support sitting or lying in stillness, not going anywhere, held and cradled in awareness. Note when the mind reflects; when it is embroiled. Note the calm below the surface. Does this image suggest new ways of carrying yourself in times of turmoil?