The Tao vs. Ego Approach to Climbing Any Mountain

Many of you have written me asking me if I would continue to address my interpretation of Tao, or my following of Tao. I would be happy to do so. A long time ago, before I even knew anything about the Tao, I was actually quite already in tune with it. This is something I would eventually have to lose in order to rediscover later. Indeed there is a verse of Tao Te Ching that tells us, often we lose by what we gain, and we gain by what we lose. This was certainly true of my journey that was at one time on a good and pure and truthful track. But the journey was sidelined, corrupted, altered. My truth was being lost by the more I gained. Competition, status, recognition, and other lures of the ego replaced what at one time were virtuous simple pursuits. It took me a long time to gain that purity and simplicity back again. I certainly lost by what I had gained.

But before that time when things went awry, I remember reading and following the exploits of Sir Edmund Hillary, and his conquering of Mount Everest. When he was asked “Why did you climb Mount Everest?” I remember to this day the chills and meaning I got from his answer. I just got it. Many did not. Many were criticizing his answer as flippant, arrogant, trite, and evasive. And of course people attack what they do not understand. I related to the answer deep inside myself. I just got it. I didn’t need to study it or contemplate it. It was whole and entire and yet decidedly Tao. I think back on that answer often now and would like to share with you something about the meaning behind it. When asked “Why climb Everest?” Hillary answered in all manners of Truth, “Because it is there!”

Now before I get into this, let me tell you. If you have not ever seen or witnessed an event like an Everest climb, go out and read or see video of someone who has accomplished it. It is described by all as ‘life changing.’ Many people have died and will die trying to scale Everest. Most will report seeing God or their version of creation by attempting the feat. All are changed in some way. For many it is where life meets death and vice versa, and from that, real meaning springs forth, not from the mind, but from somewhere else.

I am going to discuss the Tao approach to climbing mountains. The truth is we all have mountains to scale in our life. So I will use the word mountain and mountain climbing in the most literal but also the most metaphorical way that you can envision. And I am talking about real mountains. I am not talking about the ego’s creation of mountains from molehills and the need for drama that people seem to manifest to feel ‘big’ within themselves. I’m talking about struggles that will define you as a person. Whether this is dealing with intense grief from a loss, dealing with the loss of a long term relationship, battling yourself or watching someone you love battle terminal illness; all these things I think could fall under the metaphorical category of mountain climbing.

Another side of that humanness in all of us, are the mountains that we choose for ourselves to climb. So I will use mountain climbing literally, and interject as well with contest dieting and training as a smaller version of smaller climbing when appropriate.

So there are the mountains that we choose to face in life, and then there are the mountains we find ourselves facing. The first thing to acknowledge about a Tao approach to mountain climbing is the mountain is the teacher, we are its students. The ego tends to get that backwards and I will address this. The test of anything is its potential for us to learn from it. The tasks we chose (the workout, the program, the mountain, the field of study) are tested themselves only by the satisfaction that they bring to our being. If process produces tranquility then it is right for you. If it disturbs or disrupts then either the process must change or the mind will need to change. The test of the usefulness of any process is always someone’s own mind; someone’s own heart. The problem to address is falsehood. So many people feel ill at ease even in peaceful process and so many more like in my Industry say “I love competing” yet an obvious observation is that the process of competing brings only disruption and not tranquility of mind and spirit. This is the most common falsehood I see in my industry, especially among Figure competitors. They are climbing mountains for the wrong reasons. Therefore the result will only bring dis-satisfaction.

In every non-problem or circumstance where we choose the challenge, normalcy allows for endless possibilities and promises to greatness; not for what is accomplished, but for what is discovered. And for those mountains we must face and climb that we do not chose, the solution lies within that very problem. It is only now a mountain because we have not faced it beforehand. But beyond the solution to the problem of that mountain climb, lies something greater. Too many of us stop at only seeking solutions. How will I get over this? Why did he/she do that to me? What will I do now? What we fail to see is the other side of that mountain climb. Beyond that solution, lays possibilities. Beyond the solution there are truths and powers that we miss because we seek only solutions. Beyond the solutions lies transcendence. This is the real gift of the mountain climb. So now let me break down the actual mountain climb. All of us should be able to identify ourselves as climbers within the scenario. To do so honestly will be enlightening to all aspects of your being.
So the question begs not only “why climb a mountain”, but in terms of process “how”, to climb mountains?

The Ego Climber and The Tao of “The Path”

A mountain needs to be climbed with as little effort as possible, and without desire. Non-effort is a part of effort. We all need to learn the contradiction of a phrase like “trying hard to relax.” The reality of the climb then is determined by your own nature. I have borrowed from my own Industry of performance and coined the phrase “Spiritual Workload Capacity.” I think all of us can benefit from memorizing that phrase as a starting point to process. So how fast you climb any mountain has a lot to do with this. If you become winded, you slow down. If you become restless, you speed up. Simplicity. You climb the mountain in balance between restlessness and exhaustion. All matters of process require balance. This is Tao.

When that balance is accepted, by not comparing to others for example, then the climb can continue. With the balance assessed within yourself between restlessness and exhaustion, then you stop thinking ahead, and realize the uselessness in doing so. Once that is accomplished and accepted, each footstep on the climb now is something unto itself. The footstep in the process of the climb is not just a means to an end now, but a unique event unto itself. Each step allows the opportunity for a different feel, different feedback, and unique perspective. From each point and footstep along the climb observations become apparent. This rock looks loose, what a great view of the water, the air is a little thinner, this plant is new at this point. These are things we ‘should’ notice along any climb anyway but we do not as we become ever focused on results or solutions, ‘that’ top of ‘that mountain’. So we make the actual climbing insignificant because the ego tells us it is.

But to live only for that future goal of the acquiring that mountain top is shallow. It has no meaning. As we will see, goal fulfillment is only self-rewarding when the goal is discovery. In contrast, a life devoted to ‘gain’ is full of pitfalls, misery, emptiness and suffering. Climbs start to equal suffering.

So by focusing on the mountain peak and the summit our rationalizations of what is important takes us over. But these are illusions. We forget the nature of the mountain itself. It’s not the top of the mountain that sustains life; it’s the sides and the valleys. Things only grow in these places along the climb. There is no life at the top. And yet, there can be no sides of the mountains without the tops. The top defines the sides and their nature. This is a lot like attaching importance of sets/reps/loads in training without experiencing the biofeedback that they provide. We create these constructs and then arrogantly forget their overall context.

We forget the nature of the climb and the mountain. Yet any effort that has self-glorification as its only final goal will at some point, end in calamity. When you try to climb a mountain to prove how big you are, the size of that mountain prevails. You almost never make it and if you do, you are negatively imprinted by that experience. Some people develop the ego mantra to ‘stop telling your ego about the size of that mountain, and instead tell that mountain about the size of you.’ While that is motivating dogma to be sure, it creates a duality of conquering that is also an illusion. If you view the climb with fear from the bottom, then you are captured by ego, if you view it with arrogance from the top, you are on the other side of that same ego equation. Both represent meaninglessness. The victory of any climb viewed as ‘conquering’ is then hollow. From here, like most competitors, in order to sustain the ego’s perception of victory you have to prove yourself again, and again, and again, in some other way. Usually this means finding another mountain to climb, even if you have to create one in your own head, and in your own life.

With the ego climb and ego climber there is that need to fill a false image. We end up fearful that our image is not only not true, but will be found out, so we keep proving, proving, proving, by climbing, climbing, climbing. This just induces a state of spiritual and physical exhaustion.

Our mountains overcome us.

They seem bigger now than they actually are. Physical strength and stamina is now not enough to accomplish the climb. Intellectual motivation is also just not enough. The climb itself has now created its own demons in the ego. Now many of us cannot conquer issues that were not even present just down at the bottom of the mountain. Binge eating for competitors post-contest, etc. These all become huge ‘issues’ separate from the climb. And even though we have the intellectual capacity to overcome them, we still cannot. It is no longer enough. We have lost by what we have gained. Why? The problem is that people undertake a journey and hold only their own purposes in mind, such as seeking solutions and not entertaining transcendence. By doing so they create the self as some fixed entity. The mountain then is now ‘serving’ some selfish purpose of need and want. The climb reflects that in that it now creates more problems than it solves.

The Tao approach sees the mountain differently. The real climber, who ‘experiences’ the summit does so because he seeks it out differently. The real climber does not see himself or the mountain as fixed entities. Both become a level of experience that serve and transcend each other. It is said it is better to travel than to arrive. But this is incomplete. The Tao climber sees that travelling and arriving are the same. They happen at the same time, and they create each other along the way. As you climb and travel that mountain, you arrive simultaneously somewhere new with each step: Somewhere that could have only been arrived at, by travelling and arriving a moment earlier somewhere else. Only when the mountain becomes intensely appreciated, can each step of the climb within it, become “The way” “The Path” which is the definition (if there can be one) of the Tao.

Climbing then becomes an act of devotion. It is no longer about conquering mountains but instead submitting to them. The climber acknowledges, accepts and embraces the mightiness of what is before him, not ahead, but as traveller and arriver now. The mountain, the game, the situation, the circumstance, the contest, are all something else entirely. The sanctity and specialness of that unique mountain climb is now also infused and becomes a part of the climber himself. They are not separate. This new spirit of the climber enables him to endure far more than physical strength or intellectual know how could accomplish on its own. This is the Tao of pursuit/non pursuit, effort, as non-effort. There is no conquering because there is nothing there to be conquered, only to experience and know about.

Struggle, discipline, survival, become something else; not measured against the ego, but absorbed in the Spirit; forever travelling and arriving at the same time with each footfall of the climb. This is empowering. Competing and conquering is NOT!

Reducing the journey, the travelling, the arriving, the whole process to sets/reps/grams/calories/winning/losing/periodizing performance/ does more to negate the spirit than to embrace it. When every-thing becomes a ‘thing’ to rail against rather than an active part of the climb, the meaning of each footstep is lost. The Tao of enhancing spiritual workload capacity is stagnated. With the Tao approach to mountain climbing, freedom from process allows for acknowledging freedom within process. Creativity is awakened here.

The Ego Climber, The Ego Competitor

To the untrained eye, ego climbing and self-less climbing look the same. Both types of climbers place one foot in front of the other (both perform sets and reps) both stop the climb when they are tired. Both proceed when rested. But there is in fact a huge difference. As a coach I have witnessed every nuance of this difference all along its continuum. This difference is what creates the post-contest, post climb, post event, post circumstance, fall and emptiness that fill people with depression, angst and other negative influences.

I have seen clients not even place in a contest but embrace the discovery that the event made available to them; and I have seen those who win shows all the way up to pro status, while their lives crumble all around them.

The ego climber is like an instrument, of and from the climb that is out of adjustment now. The ego climber neglects what a Tao climber acknowledges. The ego climber does not rest when tired. He misses the importance of each footstep, misses the views along the climb. His steps become faulty but he climbs anyway. This is how and why many people actually die trying to scale a mountain. The ego climb kills them. This is much akin to the set/reps/ and calories worshippers who follow ridiculous advice and void experience at their own expense. A Tao athlete would never endure the protein only, 3 hour cardio rituals of contest prep, not because they couldn’t, but because they would see it for what it is and refuse to. If the climb does not serve “THE” purpose, then it does not serve any purpose.

And if, at this point you think the climb is still about the mountain peak, or the stage, or the trophy, or the validation at the end, then you are sure to suffer the slings and arrows of this mentality of weakness.

And so the ego climber continues with his blinders set on discipline. The ego climber looks up only to view the climb that awaits him; but what is ahead is the same view of the same climb as last time he looked two seconds previously. It’s the same for contest prep when tomorrow is going to be a repeat of today, even though it doesn’t have to be. Nothing is gained. Nothing is learned. Nothing is absorbed. Spiritually, workload capacity is a non consideration as the ego climber climbs now merely to finish climbing. There is no sense or justification to it.

The ego climber continues to go too fast or too slow. There is no reliable biofeedback to determine pace because relevance is gone. The ego climber fails to acknowledge the conditions and the environment on the mountain, the altitude, the slope, the air, the ground: Just like the absolute dieter who fails to acknowledge biofeedback cues and maintains the same calories deprivation, denial, endless cardio, all because the journey has become only a footnote to being a slave to the process. The servant has become the master.

Mentally the anguish of the separation of the climber from himself is easy to observe as a coach or bystander. The out of synch and disconnected climber or contest dieter will talk about ‘something else’, ‘somewhere else’, ‘anything else.’ I see this all the time. Off season athletes talk about looking forward to the next ‘diet.’ Dieting athletes talk about their next ‘off-season.’ They are not spiritually absorbed in process but are instead obsessed with it, and possessed by it.

The ego climber, ego competitor, is obsessed with ‘here’ but is not truly actually ‘here.’ He is not present except in ritual. Indeed he now rejects what is here and seeks what is instead, ‘over there.’ The climber just wants to be further up the mountain. Nothing else. But when he gets there now with this mentality of exhaustion he will be just as unhappy because that will be his new ‘here.’ So that just creates in his mind another and different ‘there’ to get to.

Just like the contest dieter who at 8 weeks out, after dieting for some six weeks, just wants it to be closer, but at four weeks out, that closer is now ‘here’ but he can’t stand it; and instead seeks the new ‘there’ of two weeks out and so on. He no longer is on The Path. In the process now the climber hasn’t gathered any psychic momentum. He instead just feels the power of that mountain winning over the ego.

Yet the irony of the Tao approach is what is missed by the ego climber and ego dieter. They miss that what they now are seeking is all around them, but they reject it simply because it ‘is’ all around them and therefore can’t be right. They miss that the ‘there’ they seek is actually ‘here’ and always has been. And they would have been able to capture it and build from it and absorb it had they only truly been witness to their own experience of it along the way. Their way. The contentment of right here, right now is the surest and most secure footing available during any climb. But these ego climbers and ego competitors can’t see it, so they can’t have it. So instead they keep seeking what is outside themselves, supplements, deprivation, and denial. Surely ‘suffering’, must make the ego more deserving they think.

Yet suffering just leads to more and more ‘wanting’ in the ego. Now the ego wants what was perceived as normal only a short time ago, before the mountain, before the contest. So because of the ego pursuit the endless circle of emptiness and striving continues. Maybe the answer is now on top of that next mountain? Yes that must be it. Maybe it was my climbing equipment? True enough. Maybe it’s that ‘new and other diet’ a harder one at that. That is the answer. It’s always ‘out there.’ And by following that logic the ego climber and ego dieter get more and more out of step, out of synch. And then every step, every workout, every meal, every day, is now an effort. It exhausts him even more physically and spiritually than before. He now longs and pines for what was normal only a short time ago. He wonders if he can ever really again know what ‘normal’ will feel like if he has it. He has lost his Way. There is no Tao when self-glorification is the means and ends of pursuit.

As I note in the preface to my new book, a quote by Paul Eldridge, “A man who has pedaled twenty-five thousand miles on a stationary bicycle has not circled the globe. He has only garnered weariness.”

All this disconnection to self, because goals are plotted and imagined as distant and external, instead of ignited within and actualized as a growing flame, where the mountain, the workout, the diet, the circumstances are all a part of the soul’s journey of travelling and arriving. It is right here, not ‘out there.’ All the while people kid themselves, telling themselves it’s all about the journey, but they don’t walk that talk.

There is no winning or losing in a Tao pursuit; there is only discovery from and within process. To the Tao climber often “those who learn to walk away, live to climb another day.” No one on a true path would endure insanity for any external reward. Those on a Tao path realize if a climb is meant to be or not. They know that sometimes what is gained is far less meaningful than what is lost. So within that mountain climb what is acknowledged is that the Tao is the spirit of the valley in the climb. It is not and never will be the acquisition of that mountain top. The valley sustains the life and the mountain and the climb. So what any person can learn climbing any mountain or at the completion of any contest prep, is that there is no meaning at the top, or upon completion; except for the meaning you gathered in getting there. If you gathered weariness and separation that is what you will inherit. Emptiness.

Enrichment and growth lie in process and The Path. To serve a purpose, a climb needs to have a purpose. That purpose is always discovery; enhanced spiritual workload capacity is the result. This is where enrichment lies. It’s not in the trophy, the placing, the pats on the back, the title, the kudos. No, instead it is that inner spark, acknowledging itself for its own sake.

No one can sustain living on a mountain summit, and no one can sustain contest form. It is not an identity. You are not a mountain climber or a bodybuilder. You are instead a person who does bodybuilding or climbs mountains. You are a person experiencing what cannot be sustained because of the human call to do so. It is a call to grow from experience. It is a call to actualize that all of it is part of you, and you are a part of all of it. You become the process. The process becomes you. Process is not something you blindly follow. It is something you deeply feel. This is the Tao approach to mountain climbing.

Why do you climb the mountain? Because it is there.

For this Blog even more than most, some of you will get, most of you will not. My hope is that more of you will open yourselves to your own experience of mountain climbing, whatever form it may take.

I welcome your comments on my forums