Everest and Enlightenment

I couldn't sleep. I lay in bed, blankets, sleeping bags and rugs piled on me, keeping the cold out, but I could not sleep. Partly this was the altitude, but also excitement.

The next day we would make Everest Base Camp. Our Destination, our goal, our grail. Would I find what I was looking for there?

It was going to be a long day. We would leave Labuche by 7am, walk up the dry glacier valley for three hours to Gorak Shep, the last and highest lodge. After a short break, we would then trek a further three hours to get to Base Camp, before turning round and heading back to Gorak Shep.

This would be where our paths separated from Padmasambhava too. He carried on to Tibet, whilst we would turn round and go back. His journey into his Kingdom of enlightenment carried on, ours would end.

It was of course deadly cold when we started. The air was so thin, that occasional dizzy spells would overcome me. I had to pant forcibly at times, like a woman in labour, just to try and stay on my feet.

Three hours to Gorak Shep. There were two little lodges, an outside toilet and shower, a shed for the horses and cows, and that was it. We were at the end of the world. We stopped for tea, dropped or bags off, and carried on.

It had been at least a day since we had seen any vegetation, but if anything, it got bleaker. The detritus left by retreating glaciers made the landscape more like a war zone. The path meandered through the wasteland, sometimes on top of a ridge, sometimes through the rubble fields, always hard going.

We passed a sign for the base camp. The mountains were getting closer. We could see white ice falls , and live glaciers. We were almost there.

The final steps were across what appeared to be a slag heap. This was deceptive, it was a fine coating of black dust, gravel and grit over white ice. Small pools of ice blue water on either side of the path, slippery sections of pure ice. Ahead we could see a group of people on a small hill.

And then we were there. Base camp. It looked no different from any other part of the slag heap, but there was a monument, lots of prayer flags and little stone cairns or chedais.

We had made it. The elation and exhaustion all kicked in at once. The emotion was almost overwhelming, I squatted down, too tired, both physically and mentally, to do anything.

But there were rituals that needed to be completed, so I forced myself up. We hugged and congratulated each other, we took pictures of us all. We had also bought prayer flags for friends and family experiencing difficulties back home and so laid them to rest.

'Look at the Glacier down there!' Mark pointed. 'Shall we go down? Indra is it safe?'

He nodded, and we skidded down the gravelly slope to a small ice stream. There were some stepping stones, but it took some courage, not to mention some balance, to leap across to the looming ice bergs.

The difference between the grimy base camp and this clean, white, pure ice was startling. If the dirt and the grime was cleaned away from the surface, then underneath there was beauty.

According to Buddhist teachings, this was like the mind. Its nature is pure, but it is clouded by delusions, the three poisons amongst them. If they are cleansed, then suffering would cease and we could live in enlightenment. If the grit could be removed from Base Camp, then its beauty would be revealed.

But now we were here, I wanted nothing more than to head back down. To leave the clean white beauty of emptiness and enlightenment of Padmasambhavas Kingdom.

It was too much for me, too empty, too still, too cold, too lifeless. I wanted the warmth and life and excitement of the world below in all its depth and sometimes dirty glory. Yes, there was suffering and pain and ugliness there too, but there was joy and love and beauty too.

The three poisons might be obstructions to happiness, but sometimes removing them from us might also take away important parts of being human too. If we took away anger, desire and ignorance, we might take away the will to live, the urge to create, the ability to know, the desire to stand up and defend what we are, the ability to love.

The three poisons might be there in our minds, but so are fires that makes us alive. Staying up in Padmasambhavas Kingdom, might remove the poisons, but might put out these fires as well.

True enlightenment isn't static. It isn't just about attaining deep realisations of emptiness, of cessation of desire and of abandoning anger, of one ness of spirit. It is not just ascending to the blissful high and tranquil places and staying there, but is also about descending back again to the joyful rich and alive places low down. It is both the transcendence to bliss, and the dance to joy.

The further we stretch ourselves, the deeper we travel into Padmasambhavas Kingdom, and back again to the teeming world below, the more balance, stability and real enlightenment we experience.

I didn't regret coming at all. To see this beauty was a true privilege. To have struggled physically and succeeded was a massive achievement. It was a journey, both inward and outward that I will probably never undertake again.

I just didn't want to stay there. I had done what I came to do. I knew now, what I wanted to do next in my life, where I was going, what I wanted to achieve.

When we returned to Base Camp, just before we left, I placed two stones on top of each other. The first broad and flat and grey, a solid foundation, the other a chunk of crystalline quartz, sparkling and beautiful. The two things that I want to achieve next in my life. My next two grails.