A beginner's guide to meditation in the mountains

The word meditation puts a certain number of people off a mindful trek entirely, usually because it suggests either a religious commitment or a level of competence they do not have. Neither is required here, so it is worth describing plainly what happens.

What a morning sit looks like

It happens after tea and before breakfast, in whatever space the lodge has. A dining room with the stove going, usually. Sometimes outside if it is warm enough, which above Namrung in October it generally is not.

It lasts fifteen to twenty-five minutes. People sit on chairs, on benches, on their sleeping mats, against a wall. Nobody sits in full lotus on a rock at dawn, because it is minus two degrees and there is no reason to suffer for the aesthetic.

The practice guide says a few sentences at the start, keeps time, and says a few sentences at the end. In between there is quiet. That is the whole event.

The practice guides are trekkers with a long habit, not teachers.

The one instruction that matters

Put your attention on the breath. When you notice it has wandered, bring it back. That is the entire technique, and everything else written on the subject is commentary.

The part beginners get wrong is thinking the wandering is failure. It is not. The wandering is the exercise. Noticing you have drifted and returning is the repetition, in the way a bicep curl is the repetition. A session in which you drifted forty times and returned forty times was a good session. A session in which your mind stayed still was pleasant, but you did fewer repetitions.

You are not trying to have an empty mind. You are practising the return.

Breath at altitude is a special case

This is the one respect in which mountain practice genuinely differs, and it catches people out.

Standard instructions often say to breathe slowly and deeply, or to lengthen the exhale. Above three thousand metres, do not do this deliberately. Your body is already managing a reduced oxygen supply and has adjusted your breathing rate for good reasons. Overriding it consciously can leave you light-headed, and at altitude light-headed is a symptom you do not want to manufacture for no reason.

So the instruction changes slightly: observe the breath, do not control it. Watch what it is doing. Periodic breathing at night, where the rhythm speeds up and pauses, is common above 3,000 metres and is not dangerous by itself, though it can be alarming the first time. Observing it is fine. Fighting it is not.

If any breathing practice makes you dizzy, stop. And be clear about the difference between practice sensations and altitude symptoms: breathlessness while sitting still is never a meditation experience, it is a warning sign, and it means telling your guide immediately.

Walking practice, which most people prefer

Sitting is the smaller half. The trail offers something better, which is six hours a day of repetitive movement with nothing else demanded of you.

Formal walking meditation, done slowly with attention on each footfall, is a real practice but a poor fit for a day with eighteen kilometres in it. What works on the trail is simpler. Pick something to attend to and stay with it for a stretch: the rhythm of your feet, the sound of the river, the sensation of the pack on your shoulders, the pace of your breathing against the pace of your steps.

• Pick one thing to attend to. Feet, breath, or the sound of the river.

• Stay with it for a set stretch. One switchback, or the distance to the next chorten.

• When you notice you have drifted into planning or replaying, come back.

• Stop the practice when the ground gets technical. Attention belongs on the trail then.

The last point is not optional. On exposed traverses, on the suspension bridges, and on the descent from the Larkya La, look where you are going.

Six hours of repetitive movement is a better practice environment than most retreat halls.

Silent stretches

On some journeys we walk the first hour or two of the day without conversation. It sounds austere and is usually the part people end up liking most.

Ordinary trail conversation is pleasant and it is also constant, and it uses the same attention that would otherwise be available for the valley you have travelled a long way to see. An hour of not talking is not a hardship. It is the difference between passing through a place and being in it.

Nobody is policed. If you need to say something you say it. The group simply defaults to quiet until a set point, usually the first tea stop, and then it does not.

The monasteries

Time in the gompas is not a practice session, it is a visit, and the etiquette matters more than the technique. Walk clockwise around mani walls, chortens and prayer wheels, keeping them on your right. Remove your shoes at the threshold. Ask before photographing anyone, and ask separately about photographing inside, where the answer is frequently no. Do not point your feet at an altar.

If a puja is happening, you can usually sit at the back and listen. It is long, repetitive, loud in places, and completely uninterested in whether you understand it, which is oddly the best thing about it.

If you have never done this before

1. Try ten minutes a day for two weeks before you travel. Not to get good, just so the first morning on the trail is not also the first time.

2. Expect the first few sits to be uncomfortable and slightly boring. That is the normal experience and it is not a sign of unsuitability.

3. Do not set a goal. Goals are the one thing this activity reliably punishes.

4. Skip any morning you want to skip. Nobody counts, and the tea is also good.

None of the practice on a Drokpo journey is required, and none of it costs extra. Roughly half of any group sits in the morning and the other half drinks tea, and the trek works either way.