Narcissus and Goldmund - a Tribute

Some photos just have something that makes them special. I’m thinking of one of the meditation hall of a Zen centre in New York. Monotone, the meditators sit in disciplined rows. All dressed in black, on black cushions, they are stark in their regimentation, casting long shadows against the empty white walls. I think it caught my attention because it appealed to my sense of order and aesthetically I found it beautiful. I would have loved to be able to go there each morning and start my day in that way.

Another image is not a photo but a thing - the dangling phalluses that are found hanging from many of the houses in Bhutan. Extremely graphic in their detail, they are fertility symbols that are important to the earthy and I suspect raunchy farmers whose homes they adorn. I say raunchy because in Bhutan is found the temple of Chimi Lhakhang, the Temple of Fertility, that is dedicated to the mad saint and yogi Drukpa Kunley who is said to have initiated the 5,000 women who sought his blessings through sexual intercourse. The stories of Drukpa Kunley are a riot of rule breaking mayhem and sexual chaos. Demonstrating that enlightenment may be achieved through any number of means, as he challenges the more staid tradition, and his very busy flying willy becomes known as the ‘Thunderbolt of Flaming Wisdom’.

So why do I write about these two quite opposite things in this blog? It’s because they are in many ways attempting to achieve the same thing and, when misunderstood, also fail in the same way.

I believe both are about the key Buddhist concern of creating ‘skilful means’ - wise methods - that help us step beyond being caught up in all the ‘me stuff’ that can be so painful, sticky and difficult. The Zen meditation hall renders everyone's differences down to a uniform simplicity that leaves no place on the surface for personal display. Everyone wears the same robe, many with hair cropped close, and all motionlessly assume the required meditation posture that is itself an expression of the trans-personal stillness of the buddha-nature that at realisation is known to be everything. It’s all incredibly Japanese, a culture where the notion of being a separate individual simply makes no sense. A person is a person because of their place within the interdependency of things. And surprisingly the tales of Drukpa Kunley say just the same thing. But instead of doing so by the removal of all that is individualistic, they do it by taking the smallness of personal identity caught within the narrowness of social mores and blow it all to pieces in an orgy of excess and delight. This is reflected in the Tibetan and Bhutanese temples: a blaze of colours, paintings and fabrics, golden male and female buddhas in union resting in their niches, the monks sway as they chant and drink salted butter tea as dogs unimpeded run in and out. In this homely and slightly ramshackle atmosphere, all the ‘me stuff’ is just not taken that seriously.

But it can go wrong. Even as we sit upon our exquisitely constrained zafu in the Dojo or visualise ourselves within meditation as a lavish tantric deity, the manager self who believes its job is at all costs never to let go, who has been defending us since we were small from whatever terrors our childhood held, remains present. This self has the ability to covertly colonise our practice. To take it and subvert it to the egos needs. To infiltrate what is designed to deconstruct the sense of a separate and isolated self and turn it into something that makes the ‘me’ even more cleverly defended. And it can turn ugly. The beauty of the Zen ritual with its formal bowing and marking of time with clappers and bells may become a fascistic repression instead of a gateway to liberation, and the gaiety and wild joy of tantrism may degrade into a debauchery that traps us even deeper within the mire of samsara. Buddhism can become a golden cage.

So what to do? Whichever tradition we practice, what we will inevitably meet will be ourselves. Whether it’s a black robe or maroon, what goes on beneath it will be the same. Thoughts come and go, emotions well up, perhaps overwhelm, and then fade away. Parental and sibling wounds are triggered all over again. It can be pretty boring but sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s a blessed relief from the all the me stuff that consumes the mind. And our job beneath all the Buddhist razzmatazz is just to stay present and kind. And not be too surprised to find that we are really all much the same beneath our robes. To find contentment through the acceptance of just being a flawed human being who will remain so until we are not. (As if we have a choice). And who knows, maybe we will eventually be let off the hook of being special!

NW. 1 September 2025  With thanks to Hermann Hesse who so carefully drew these two extremes and their fundamental similarity within his novel Narcissus and Goldmund. Aesthete and Lush.