I’ve been reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance for the last several months. It’s a heavily philosophical book
(the subtitle is: An Inquiry into Values) and has taken a lot of willpower
for me to continue reading it. I often put it down for weeks at a time in favor of a
lighter read. I’m still only half way
through but it’s got a lot of interesting things to say so I continue reading. Last week I read something that rocked me so hard I put the book down
and didn’t open it again until I forgot why I stopped reading it to begin with.
Phaedrus wrote a letter about a
pilgramge to holy Mount Kailas, the source of the Ganges and the abode of
Shiva, high in the Himalayas, in the company of a holy man and his adherents.
He never reached the mountain. After
the third day he gave up, exhausted, and the pilgrimage went on without him. He
said he had physical strength but that wasn’t enough. He had the intellectual
motivation but that wasn’t enough either. He didn’t think he had been arrogant
but thought that he was undertaking the pilgrimage to broaden his experience, to gain understanding
for himself. He was trying to use the
mountain for his own purpose and the pilgrimage too. He regarded himself as the
fixed entity, not the pilgrimage or the mountain, and thus wasn’t ready for it.
He speculated that the other pilgrims, the ones who reached the mountain,
probably sensed the holiness of the mountain so intensely that each footstep
was an act of devotion, an act of submission to this holiness. The holiness of
the mountain infused into their own spirits enabled them to endure far more
than anything he, with his greater physical strength, could take.
I’ve been ego-climbing. I’ve got this vision of the person I
should be, want to be, and know I can be. This person is no more than what I
see as my own potential. Therefore, it’s an achievable goal. Every time I mess
up I look ahead and see how far away that vision is. Then I get discouraged.
While I’m thinking about being discouraged I trip over another rock that I
might have seen had I not been so focused on my discouragement. It’s
frustrating. I’m frustrated. I feel like I’ll never reach this lofty goal that
I’ve created for myself.
When I read this passage I was convicted of my ego-climbing.
My motives were exposed and laid bare in front of me. I realized that I’m on
this hike for myself. To fulfill my goals. To become the person I think I
should be.
But that’s not how it should be. I should be on this hike
because the mountain is holy, the journey is holy, because “Holy, Holy, Holy�
is calling me up the mountain. I should be hiking just because I’m called to
hike. Not out of a need to get somewhere. Not out of a need to prove that I
can. Not out of a need to become the person I’ll be at the end of the journey.
We’ve all heard that saying, “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the
journey.� Easier said than done. It’s easy for this journey to become about the
destination, about who I want to become, and not about the journey of pure and
simple obedience.
(continued here: Ego Climbing (Part 2))
