LIBERATION

Wielding a mobile phone and roaming around in his saffron Massimo Dutti T-shirt goes Tibetan lama Acu Sangye. He's not searching for some cheap chat thrill or monetary gain, but rather a phone signal so he can offer wisdom to the peoples of Dingri county. After spending twenty years in isolation, enlightened Lama Acu's practise now largely revolves around serving humanity, and a big part of this is clambering over the rugged, rocky landscape to get connected.

The meeting of Lama Acu, in the darkness of the southernmost Rongbuk Temple meditation cave at the foot of Everest I6,900 feet above sea level was both the geographical and spiritual apex of my Himalayan pilgrimage through China, India, Ladakh, Nepal and Tibet - but it was nothing that he said and nothing that he did. After he hung up his phone for the day he lead me to the inner chamber of the cave complex, where we sat and meditated.

While the world without was wrestling with real and imagined acts of terror and occupation, I was wrestling with a very personal subjugation, heightened by a re-reading of the 14th century Nyingma text revealed by Karma Lingpa known as the Bardo Thodol or The Tibetan Book of the Dead or Liberation rough Hearing During the Intermediate State.

After meditating with Acu for some time in the relative warmth of the temple cave, I decided to go on my way. Climbing up the stone steps, back out to the surface I was struck by a truly profound realisation.

I was stood at the very foot of the tallest peak in the world — and yet somehow I had forgotten this completely while inside the cave. It occurred to me then all of a sudden that if I was able to ignore such a physical colossus, it must be possible to ignore anything that I encounter - physically or mentally.

And that, quite simply, was the realisation, that was the liberation.