Marc Gafni – MERGING WITH THE MOUNTAIN

There is a wonderful Zen story about two mountain climbers. The first, old and slightly bent, slowly makes his way up the mountain. The second, young and in good form, bounds past him, racing confidently to the summit. In late afternoon they meet again. The older man still climbs gently, step after step, towards the summit. The younger man lies exhausted, unable to move, at the side of the path. As they pass each the younger cries out to the older, “I don’t understand — What do you know that I don’t?” Responds the old man, eyes twinkling with compassion and laughter, “The difference between us is simple. You come to conquer the mountain but the mountain is stronger than you, so you are conquered. I come to merge with the mountain — so the mountain loves me and lifts me to her summit.”
To merge is to traverse the chasm that separates object and subject. It is to become one with your reality, to be on the inside of the experience.
Erotic living is living on the inside. The opposite of Eros is therefore alienation. To be alienated is to always feel that you are an outsider with no safe place to call home.
The result of non-erotic living is always bad choices, betrayals and pain. I am not in the flow. I wind up always having to watch my back. I am on the outside — exiled from my inner castle. I have lost face.
The face is the truest reflection of the erotic. To lose face is to become de-eroticized.

Marc Gafni
posted on marcgafni.com
please share comments at info@marcgafni.com