Nobody Knew Him. Nobody had Heard of Him.

The Lama Ngawang Kalzang had been meditating for twelve years in various caves and retreats in the wilderness of the mountains of Southern Tibet. Nobody knew him, nobody had heard of him. He was one of many thousands of unknown monks who had received his higher education in one of the great monastic universities in the vicinity of Lhasa, and though he had acquired the title of Geshe (i.e., Doctor of Divinity), he had come to the conclusion that realization can only be found in the stillness and solitude of nature, as far away from the noisy crowds of marketplaces as from the monkish routine of big monasteries and the intellectual atmosphere of famous colleges.

 

The world had forgotten him, and he had forgotten the world. This was not the outcome of indifference on his part but, on the contrary, because he had ceased to make a distinction between himself and the world. What actually he had forgotten was not the world but his own self, because the “world” is something that exists only in contrast to one’s own ego.

 

Lama Anagarika Govinda

from The Way of the White Clouds; A Buddhist Pilgrim in Tibet