The Ancient Temple: an immersive guided meditation
Climb a misty mountain path behind a nine-tailed white fox, all the way to a temple of candlelight and stone Buddhas. There, a masked guardian waits with a small candle, and a red door opens onto a landscape that belongs only to you.
Climb through the rain and the mountain mist to a hidden temple, with a white fox as your guide. Inside, hundreds of candles keep watch over great stone Buddhas.
The scene
Worn stone steps climb into the mist. A soft rain is falling, and the air smells of pine and wet cedar. Below, the valley disappears beneath the clouds.
- The intention
- To find safe shelter, hand what weighs on you to a candle, then rest in a sacred and timeless calm.
- What you do there
- Rest your palm on the giant door · Give a weight to a candle that rises away · Bow before a statue · Open the small red door
- The soundscape
- Rain on the stone · an old bell that rings only once · the low note of the mountain · a bird at dawn · Khoomei throat singing.
- The colors of this world
- Gold, red, dark wood, pale mist. Red and gold ribbons, thousands of floating candles, great stone Buddhas and lotus flowers on the water.
- Length
- 19 min
- Mood
- safe, sacred, timeless, grounding
Who it is for, and when
Choose The Ancient Temple when you have been carrying too much and need a place that feels safe. Its rain, candlelight and gentle guides suit a rainy evening or the end of a long week. Its 19 minutes fit easily into a quiet half hour. If sacred, timeless places move you, this is your world.
How the session unfolds
You climb worn stone steps through rain and mist, behind a white fox with nine glowing tails. A huge carved door opens under your gentle hand, and inside, hundreds of candles glow among giant stone Buddhas. An old guardian in a smiling wooden mask gives you a small candle, and each lamp you light wakes a painted legend. In a hall of floating candles, your candle can carry one weight away. A wooden bodhisattva opens its eyes and shows you the night the temple was built. Behind a small red door lies your own inner landscape, and dawn turns everything gold.
Tips to make the most of it
- Sit on a cushion on the floor, like the monks in the temple, and let your body grow heavy.
- Before you press play, choose the one weight you would like your candle to carry away.
- Afterwards, let Resonance, the singing bowl sound, play for ten minutes in Timed Ambience.
As you leave
Dawn turns the stone Buddhas gold, the rain stops, and a bird begins to sing.
Practice for free
Every session is in the MeditaDream app: free, no subscription, no ads, no account, and it works offline.
✦ Discover the appFrequently asked questions
What is the small candle for?
The guardian gives it to you to light a row of old lamps, and each one wakes a moving painting. Later, in a hall of floating candles, you can let it carry one weight up into the air.
Do I need to be Buddhist to enjoy this world?
No need. The Buddhas and the wooden bodhisattvas are part of the scenery. If you bow, it is a simple greeting rather than worship, and you can skip it.
What is behind the small red door?
No gold and no jewels, but a wide landscape from your inner world, perhaps a calm sea or hills under snow. It is the heart of the temple, and the guardian lets you open it yourself.