Man On The Mountain

The first thing I noticed about Karma wasn't his maroon robes or weather-beaten face, but his laugh. It erupted from somewhere deep in his belly and echoed off the Himalayan peaks, causing a few snow-dusted ravens to take flight from a nearby prayer flag pole. I was hunched over my backpack outside a teahouse in Tengboche, Nepal, altitude 12,687 feet, trying to decide if my altitude sickness medication was making things better or worse.

My path to this moment had begun six months earlier when, reeling from a messy divorce and the collapse of my tech startup, I'd impulsively bought a ticket to Kathmandu. I had no mountaineering experience, no real plan, and absolutely no business being on a solo trek to Everest Base Camp. But there I was, on day four of what was supposed to be a two-week journey, already questioning every life choice that had led me there.

"First time in mountains?" Karma asked, still chuckling as he watched me reorganize my pack for the third time that morning. His English was accented but clear, likely from years of working with Western trekkers.

I nodded, somewhat sheepishly. "That obvious, huh?"

"Only to someone who has seen many first-timers." He settled onto the wooden bench beside me, producing a thermos from somewhere within his robes. "Tea?"

The liquid he poured was unlike any tea I'd tasted before – butter tea, I would learn later, a Tibetan staple made with yak butter and salt. It should have been revolting, but something about the thin mountain air and the bone-deep cold made it taste like the most comforting thing in the world.

"You are going wrong way about pack," he said, gesturing to my chaotic attempt at organization. Without waiting for permission, he began to pull things out and reorganize them. "Weight must be here, close to back. Like carrying child."

I started to explain that I'd watched several YouTube videos about proper backpack loading, but he waved this away. "Videos good for learning names of mountains, maybe. Not good for learning mountains themselves. Mountains must be felt, not watched."

There was something about his presence that put me at ease – perhaps the way he seemed so completely at home in this harsh landscape, or maybe just the fact that he was the first person in days who had spoken to me as a person rather than a tourist.

"You walk with me today," he declared. It wasn't a question. "I go to Pangboche. Same way you go."

And just like that, I found myself walking alongside a Tibetan Buddhist monk on a narrow trail carved into the side of the Himalayas. The path wound through rhododendron forests and across suspended bridges spanning deep gorges, prayer flags fluttering in the wind above us.

As we walked, Karma told me his story. He had been born in Tibet but had fled to Nepal as a child with his family in the 1990s. They had made the same crossing that many Tibetan refugees did – over high mountain passes, in secret, often at night. He had nearly died of exposure during the journey.

"But mountains," he said, pausing to gesture at the massive peaks surrounding us, "they taught me important thing. Life is not about surviving or not surviving. Is about how you walk path given to you."

He had become a monk at twelve, studying first in Nepal and then in India. Now, he split his time between a monastery in Pangboche and working as a cultural guide for trekking companies. But his real passion, I would learn, was teaching Western visitors about what he called "mountain wisdom."

"Too many come here looking for conquest," he said, pointing to distant Everest, its peak shrouded in clouds. "They want to say they have climbed highest mountain. But mountain is not for conquering. Mountain is for learning."

We stopped for lunch at a viewpoint overlooking the Dudh Kosi river valley. While I mechanically ate my trail mix, Karma produced a small food bundle from his robes. Inside was a simple meal of tsampa (roasted barley flour) mixed with butter tea. He showed me how to roll it into little balls with my fingers, a technique I managed to perform with significantly less grace than he did.

"In monastery," he said, watching my clumsy attempts with amusement, "we learn first to eat mindfully. How can mind be clear if we do not even know what we put in mouth?"

As we continued walking, Karma began to point out things I would have missed – tiny purple flowers growing from seemingly solid rock, the different calls of hidden birds, the way the wind changed direction at certain points in the trail. He showed me how to walk efficiently on the steep terrain, placing my feet in a way that conserved energy.

"Body knows how to walk," he insisted. "Problem is mind getting in way."

At one point, we passed a group of porters carrying enormous loads of supplies up to higher villages. Each man bore at least twice his body weight in goods, secured by a strap across his forehead. They moved with incredible speed and grace despite their burdens.

"You see?" Karma said after they passed. "They not thinking about walking. They walking like water flows – finding natural way."

As the afternoon wore on, I found myself sharing things I hadn't told anyone – about my failed marriage, my business collapse, the creeping sense of worthlessness that had driven me to this remote corner of the world. Karma listened without judgment, occasionally nodding or humming in acknowledgment.

"You know story of snow leopard?" he asked suddenly, after I had finished a particularly self-pitying monologue about my ex-wife.

I shook my head.

"Snow leopard is most beautiful cat in mountains. Very rare. Many tourists come hoping to see one. They bring expensive cameras, hire special guides. But snow leopard only shows itself when it wants to be seen. Cannot be forced."

He paused to adjust his robes. "Happiness is like snow leopard. More you chase it, more it hides. But if you walk right way on path, sometimes it finds you."

We reached a particularly treacherous section of trail – a narrow ledge with a sheer drop to one side. I felt my heart rate spike, my breathing becoming shallow. Karma noticed immediately.

"Close eyes," he instructed.

"What? But I'll fall!"

"Close eyes," he repeated firmly. "Now feel wind on face. Feel which way it pushes you."

Reluctantly, I closed my eyes. The wind was coming from my right, pushing me slightly toward the mountain side of the trail.

"Now open eyes and walk. Wind is teaching you safe way."

He was right – by paying attention to the wind, I found myself naturally maintaining a safer position on the trail. It was a small lesson, but one that would stay with me.

As we approached Pangboche, the sun was setting behind the mountains, painting the snow-capped peaks in shades of pink and gold. Karma led me to a small teahouse run by his sister, where he insisted I stay the night rather than continuing to the larger lodges favored by most trekkers.

That evening, sitting in the teahouse's tiny kitchen, Karma's sister served us a simple meal of dal bhat (lentils and rice), which we ate cross-legged on cushions around a low table. The room was warm from the cooking fire, and the walls were covered in photos of the Dalai Lama and various Buddhist teachers.

"Tomorrow," Karma announced, "you come to monastery before continuing trek. I show you something important."

The next morning, I followed him up a steep path to the Pangboche Monastery, one of the oldest in the region. The morning prayer session was just ending, and the sound of horns and chanting still echoed in the crisp mountain air.

Inside, Karma led me to a small shrine room. The walls were covered in colorful murals depicting Buddhist deities and saints. In the center of the room sat a glass case containing what he told me was a sacred relic – supposedly the scalp and hand of a yeti, preserved for centuries.

"You believe in yeti?" he asked, watching my reaction to the relic.

I hesitated, not wanting to offend. "I... don't know."

He laughed that booming laugh again. "Good answer! Not knowing is excellent place to begin wisdom. Problem with most people is they too quick to say yes or no. Real truth is usually in space between yes and no."

He then led me to a window overlooking the valley. From this vantage point, you could see the trail I would be taking toward Base Camp, winding its way up through the mountains.

"Life is like this trail," he said. "From here, you can see whole path ahead. Looks simple, yes? But when walking, you only see few steps ahead. Rest is unknown. Secret is to trust each step, not whole journey."

Before I left, Karma gave me two gifts. The first was a mala – a string of prayer beads that he had used for many years. The second was a piece of advice that would change my life.

"You come to mountains running away from life," he said, "but mountains teach you cannot run away. Can only run toward. So now you must decide – what are you running toward?"

That question would echo in my mind for the rest of my trek, and indeed for years to come. It fundamentally shifted how I viewed my situation – not as a series of failures to escape from, but as a starting point for something new.

I completed the trek to Base Camp, but that's not the important part of the story. The important part is what happened after I returned home. I stopped seeing myself as a victim of circumstance and started asking myself Karma's question: What was I running toward?

The answer led me to make changes I never would have considered before. I went back to school to study environmental law – something I had always been passionate about but had dismissed as impractical. I started volunteering with a local Buddhist center, not as a convert to Buddhism, but as someone seeking to understand more about the wisdom Karma had shared.

Most importantly, I learned to approach difficulties differently. When things got tough, I would hear Karma's laugh and remember his words about the wind on that treacherous mountain path – sometimes the very things that seem to be pushing you off course are actually showing you the way.

Over the years, I've stayed in touch with Karma through occasional emails and messages passed through trekking companies. He's still there in Pangboche, still teaching "mountain wisdom" to whoever needs it. His sister's teahouse has expanded, largely due to glowing reviews from trekkers who've experienced their hospitality.

Five years after our meeting, I returned to Nepal, this time leading a group of law students on an environmental justice project. We stopped in Pangboche, and I found Karma exactly where I had left him, sitting outside the monastery with his thermos of butter tea.

"Ah," he said when he saw me, that familiar laugh bubbling up. "Snow leopard has shown itself again!"

The mala beads he gave me still sit on my desk, a reminder of the day a chance encounter with a laughing monk on a mountain path helped me find my way back to myself. Sometimes, when I'm facing a difficult decision or feeling lost, I hold them and remember what Karma taught me about mountains and paths and snow leopards.

His wisdom wasn't complex – in fact, its simplicity was what made it so profound. He showed me that sometimes we have to get completely lost to find our way, that the hardest paths often lead to the best views, and that the most important teacher isn't success or failure, but the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other.

Most importantly, he taught me that life-changing moments rarely announce themselves as such. They often come disguised as ordinary encounters – a shared cup of tea, a walk along a mountain path, a simple question asked at exactly the right moment. The magic isn't in the moment itself, but in our willingness to remain open to what it might teach us.