Climbing the Mountain

Digging deep. (www.mattmahoney.net)

A while back I offered a few thoughts on motivation - specifically, what is it that drives me and other like-minded idiots who seem to enjoy spending their free time running for hours and days upon end over mountains and through seemingly endless woods? Are we driven by recognition from others for our efforts? The thrill of it all? The swag? Or simply the personal satisfaction of pushing our own boundaries and accomplishing things that we once thought to be impossible?

I feel that most of my motivation is still extrinsic. As much as I hate to admit it, I am definitely an ego-driven individual. I consider internalizing my motivations to be an important step in my desire to let go of my own ego but it is certainly a journey that I am still on and seemingly far from completing. I recently came across a passage in the book "Zen and the Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig that struck me in which the narrator describes an experience involving a pilgrimage to a holy mountain in India. The subject of the story was in the company of devout pilgrims who were there to climb this mountain out of religious devotion, which he contrasted with his subject's own egocentric motivations:

"He never reached the mountain. After the third day he gave up, exhausted, and the pilgrimage went on without him. He said he had the physical strength but that physical strength 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 purposes 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.

To the untrained eye, ego-climbing and selfless climbing may appear identical. Both kinds of climbers place one foot in front of the other. Both breathe in and out at the same rate. Both stop when tired. Both go forward when rested. But what a difference! The ego-climber is like an instrument that is out of adjustment. He puts his foot down an instant too soon or too late. He's likely to miss a beautiful passage of sunlight through the trees. He goes on when the sloppiness of his step shows he is tired. He rests at odd times. He looks up the trail to see what's ahead even though he knows what's ahead because he just looked a second before. He goes too fast or too slow for the conditions and when he talks his talk is forever about somewhere else, something else. He's here but he's not here. He rejects the here, is unhappy with it, wants to be further up the trail but when he gets there he will be just as unhappy because then it will be 'here'. What he's looking for, what he wants, is all around him, but he doesn't want that because it is all around him. Every step is an effort, both physically and spiritually, because he imagines his goal to be external and distant."

There is so much in this passage that I can identify with, both on the trail and, in a larger sense, my daily life. I have a feeling I am going to spend a good bit of time trying to unpack this passage for myself. I can appreciate its reinforcement of the idea of truly being "in the moment." As it relates specifically to my running experiences, I have noticed a marked difference between the days when I am running for glory and gusto versus the days when I am content to embrace the experience itself without expectation, accepting whatever lessons the day might bring. The former tends to be both physically and mentally exhausting, while the latter is actually invigorating and can even be restorative. 

Like I said, I could go on about the implications for this reflection in my "day-to-day" but I think I'll leave that for another post. I have trail races over the next 2 weekends that I am using as training runs for October's main event. Perhaps I can use these runs as preparation for the mind as well as for the body - as opportunities to work on releasing my ego, becoming more like those selfless climbers described above. 

I think I'll close with a thought from Thich Nhat Hanh, one of my favorite writers whom I have referenced many times before in my blog:

Cheers, and happy trails!