Our reflection is apparent, obvious, substantial, graspable and before our very eyes: it is a safe place to live. We love that apparent being (or perhaps we hate it if we have self esteem issues). Either way we live in it, and imagine our lives being lived out by it.
But problem: its just a reflection. In the painting Narcissus can only see his reflection; he can't see himself. Likewise everyone is only ever looking at a reflection of ourselves: no one can actually see themselves.
And the painting shows us that we actually exist outside our reflection. The reflection is in the water; we are on the shore.
Likewise those who mistake their reflection for themselves live in the water, while those who realise that the Self they see is just an insubstantial reflection; they live in the security of the shore.
Its a trade off: grasp what is certain in the water but live an unsubstantial flickering life, or cast off sensual certainty and live in the security of freedom.
And so what of Death. For those on the shore what is there to lose? They never grasped for sensual certainty in the first place. But for those in the water they stand to lose that beautiful image that appears before them, but after a moments "reflection" they know is really just an illusion.
Errors abound when thinking about this. We may continually wonder what the relationship between the reflection and the real Narcissus. What is the link between what I think is myself and my real self. This is the old body/mind problem of Descartes. But such a question comes from not understanding that literally everything we think about ourselves is part of the reflection. There are not two things here: one on the bank and the other the shadowy reflection on the water. From Narcissus' perspective there is always only one thing: the reflection. There is only one thing. The moment we think there are two we are just dividing the mirage into parts. One, two, a million is all part of the reflection.
But then if there is only the reflection then how can we be on the shore? Such a question goes too far the other way. we didn't ask for Narcissus to throw himself in the water. The whole self doesn't need to be put in the water. The only thing in the water is the image of Narcissus. The problem for Narcissus is that this is all he can see. Yet if he thinks for a second he is not the reflection. He knows that because he is looking at the reflection. Its not the reflection actually looking at him. Well he may see someone looking at him from the water and fantasises for a second that it is another person, but a ripple of wind quickly shows him it is only a reflection and reflections don't look. Immediately he is thrown out of the water and his fantasies and back into being the one who is looking, and he is looking once again at just an empty reflection.
So bound to a habitual belief in a solid, fixed self we swing between thinking we are a solid thing on the shore separate from the reflection, and thinking that we are no different from the reflection. Both are actually false. If Narcissus just looks at the reflection--without adding anything to the situation--the fact he is not the reflection and the fact there is nothing but the reflection both meet in perfect harmony. But we like that reflection and we grasp for it and we quickly add that it is us, and then we calculate that we must be sitting on the shore being the one who looks and we join the reflection to the body and the soul and create a complete mess of ideas. But all this struggle is just part of the reflection. Anything we can grasp clearly with our senses or our mind is just reflection and we should avoid seeing it as our self. Our self is something much more, but it is ungraspable, so all we can do is just stop grasping (or rejecting) these reflections and things we want to have as our self.
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