This is how Milarepa begins to tell one of his revelatory dreams to his Guru, Marpa. Quotations about Milarepa are full of references to the mountain ...
A man of the mountains... a man of the spirit...
"In the vast regions of the northern continent, I dreamt there was an immense mountain, whose summit touched the sky. Around this peak moved the sun and the moon, their rays lighting up the heavens further below..."
This is how Milarepa begins to tell one of his revelatory dreams to his Guru, Marpa. Quotations about Milarepa are full of references to the mountain, which here represents the b'Ka'-rgyud-pa school founded by Marpa himself. The towering summit, so high that it touches the sky, represents the priceless goal of Enlightenment and Love.
There is no need to go as far as such metaphorical interpretations. Milarepa himself speaks of mountains in a very concrete way: "Roaming the wild mountains is a path to liberation".
You only need to read any one of the biographies of Milarepa's life to realise how important "the mountain" was for a Tibetan man. And it could not have been otherwise.
It rises on the updraughts of the spirit to become a symbolic element and a vehicle for philosophical and existential meanings.
Milarepa flees his native village, the family home where, right after the death of his parents, he suffers vile injustices at the hands of his uncles. He flees to seek revenge, a revenge through the art of black magic. He then practises black magic, atrociously avenging the injustices he has suffered. Yet in the course of this search for revenge he lives deeply his own pain and that of others, the shared toil of existing.
Milarepa ...
... repents and entrusts himself to the great Guru and Master Marpa, swearing him eternal loyalty and obedience in exchange for liberation from this inextinguishable ... suffering!
The theme of the mountain recurs more and more often in Milarepa's life. He withdraws to meditate among the remote mountains of Tibet, sometimes even giving up the basic need to eat in order to pursue the aim of spirituality, the attainment of total knowledge and enlightenment.
Mountains appear again and again in the sage's dreams, and shape his inner growth even more, strengthening his spirit and his awareness.
"... during the night, in my dreams, I could cross the universe without hindrance in any direction - from the summit of Mount Meru (1) to its base - and I could clearly make out everything..."
Milarepa seems to reach his own enlightenment also through the physical, as well as symbolic, ascent of the mountains of Tibet. And anyone who goes into the mountains knows well the spiritual effect of climbing or of simply walking, even if only for that brief time of reflection in which each of us finally manages to be nothing other than ourselves while being one with the universe...
(1) Mount Meru is the sacred mountain of Hindu and Buddhist mythology, placed at the centre of the universe. It represents the place where pain and misery would be unknown.
Sources:
Vita di Milarepa - Rechung-Dorje-Tagpa - Oscar Mondadori 2001
- La vita di Milarepa - Gtsang-Smyong He-ru-ka - Utet 2004