The Mindfulness Blog

Yep. I'm channeling the incredible Neil Young-- another of my all-time favorites. Thanks for sharing your music, and your observations about life!

I've been wondering for the longest time about Sugar Mountain-- where is it, and if it's really a metaphor, what is it a metaphor for? I have a few thoughts that I'd like to share and, not surprisingly, they lead me to two of my favorite topics: Mindfulness and meditation.

There are varying interpretations of the song, and one that I am particularly drawn to, argues that Sugar Mountain is a metaphor for our lost childhood. For me, however, it's a place of non-judgment and non-attachment. A place that is child-like, but not child-ish.

Non-judgment doesn't mean anything more complicated that what it's literal meaning suggests: Awareness of people, places and things that doesn't also carry a particular meaning or significance. Non-judgment is essentially neutral-- not good/bad, or pleasant/unpleasant.

Non-attachment is different, but it certainly flows from non-judgment. It, too, is not a complicated concept: Awareness of people, places or things to which one is not stuck or wed. Flexibility in our thinking and evaluation of things, is what it's all about.

The next time we catch ourselves in the act of judging or attaching, maybe we can check those impulses, and remind ourselves of what we are doing? That's the beginning of the kind of awareness that mindfulness and meditation can help us cultivate.

Oh to live on Sugar Mountain!