What Is the Role of Pilgrimage in Vajrayana Buddhism?
Episode 27 of Redesigning The Dharma by Sahaja Soma features a conversation with Dr. Ian Baker, an experienced scholar, explorer, and author specializing in Vajrayana Buddhism. They discuss Dr. Baker's transformative journey into pilgrimage, beginning with his initial exposure to Asian culture and Tibetan Buddhism during college. The conversation delves into the significance of pilgrimage in spiritual practice, including the concepts of outer, inner, and secret pilgrimage in the Tibetan tradition. Dr. Baker shares insights from his extensive experiences leading pilgrimages to sacred sites across the Himalayas, Bhutan, India, and beyond. They also explore contemporary pilgrimages, blending traditional practices with modern exploration, and the importance of cultivating a pilgrim’s mindset.
Episode Highlights:
00:00 Introduction to Dr. Ian Baker
05:43 The Hidden Lands and Spiritual Practices
08:48 Integrating Stillness and Movement
15:38 The Concept of Outer, Inner, and Secret Pilgrimage
26:50 Embracing Discomfort and Exploration
32:42 The Hero's Journey and Ego Death
34:14 Psychedelics, Religious Traditions, and Cultural Exchange On The Silk Road
47:53 Pilgrim's Mindset vs. Tourist Mindset
51:32 Mongolia vs Bhutan vs India & Upcoming Offerings
Guest Bio:
Designated by the National Geographic Society as one of 7 “Explorers for the Millennium,” Ian Baker is an anthropologist, historian and author of multiple books on Tibetan and Himalayan art, culture and environment including The Heart of the World: A Journey to the Last Secret Place, Celestial Gallery, The Tibetan of Art of Healing, and The Dalai Lama’s Secret Temple, a collaborative work with His Holiness The Dalai Lama that illuminates Tantric Buddhist meditation practices.
He completed graduate work at the University of Oxford and received his PhD after extensive fieldwork in Myanmar among contemporary practitioners of Buddhist alchemy. He subsequently worked with tantric Buddhist adepts in Bhutan, leading to his critically acclaimed book, Tibetan Yoga: Principles and Practices.
Ian is an executive board member of Himalayan Consensus Institute and serves internationally as a consultant and lecturer in environmental and cultural heritage conservation. From 2011 until 2016 he collaborated with London’s Wellcome Trust, curating an exhibition of Himalayan art entitled ‘Tibet’s Secret Temple: Body, Mind and Meditation in Tantric Buddhism’ to which he also contributed texts, photography, and film.
Ian leads pilgrimages and scheduled travel seminars in India, Tibet, and Bhutan with The Vajra Path, Caravanza, and on his own. He has also designed and conducted academic travel programs in Tibet, Bhutan, and Nepal for Smithsonian Institution, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and National Geographic Society. Through the Hidden Lands Trust, he works actively to preserve indigenous cultures and ecosystems in the eastern Himalayas, based on local models of environmental conservation that ensure sustained benefit to local communities.
EXPLORE INNER AND OUTER JOURNEYS WITH THE VAJRA PATH
Full Transcript:
Adrian: Welcome to Redesigning the Dharma, I'm your host Adrian Baker. Today I'm speaking with Dr. Ian Baker.
Ian is a scholar of Vajrayana Buddhism, a yogi, an explorer, and an author with more than 40 years experience studying and teaching Tibetan Buddhism. Ian is the author of seven critically acclaimed books on Himalayan and Tibetan cultural history, environment, art, and medicine, including The Heart of the World, A Journey to the Last Secret Place, The Tibetan Art of Healing, and The Dalai Lama's Last Secret Temple, a collaborative work with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama that illuminates Tantric Buddhist meditation practices.
Ian has also written for National Geographic magazine and has contributed to academic journals in the field of Tibetan yoga and Vajrayana Buddhism. And now much of Ian's work is leading pilgrimages to sacred sites in India, [00:01:00] Tibet, Bhutan, places in Europe, including Greece, along with another excellent teacher, Dr. Nida, and their organization is called The Vajra Path, which I encourage everyone to check out.
And as always, please if you have any questions, comments, feedback, things you'd like to see more of, please follow up and reach out either in the comments section on YouTube or Instagram, as well as just reaching out directly through email: SahajaSoma@pm.me.
And now for my conversation with Dr. Ian Baker.
Adrian Baker: Ian, thank you so much. It's wonderful to have you back on Redesigning the Dharma. It's always an adventure, a pilgrimage, speaking with you. So
Ian Baker: Well, it's a pleasure to be here always, and I think we're always in a world where we need to reevaluate, where we've come from where we're going, so Redesigning The Dharma is, if that's the natural path, then we have to make sure that we're aligned with it in every way. So I appreciate what you're doing.
Adrian Baker: Thank you. So Our conversation is going to be pilgrimage, which I've talked about with some other recent guests such as [00:02:00] Miles Neale and Tiffani Gyatso, and we talked about it in our first conversation a bit together, but I really want to dive deeper into it in this conversation with you.
And to kick things off, I'd like to, to share just a little bit about the essence of your background that got you into pilgrimage. For people who really want to do a deep dive, they can go back to that first conversation.
But I think so much of the time in Dharma communities we're used to thinking of practice as meditation and lots of meditation retreats, and after going through a period where sort of you were intensively practicing with your own guru , you sort of realized that pilgrimage is kind of your practice and your life path. And I'm, wondering if you could give people a brief introduction to that in terms of how this,
Ian Baker: Well, I think it ties into, that earlier conversation that we had, about pilgrimage and about, spiritual practice. And so when I was 18, I was in college in America, but there was this opportunity to travel to Kathmandu Nepal for a college semester abroad [00:03:00] program. And in a certain sense it was a pilgrimage for me.
I'd never been to Asia, I'd never been that far away from. Familiar terrain. And so at that time one of my great passions was rock climbing and mountaineering, and so the lure of the Himalayas was a large part of what drew me onto a program that nonetheless exposed me to so many things that were completely new in my life, one of those, of course, being esoteric tantric Tibetan Buddhism, which was, you know, had a lot of juice to it, a lot of power, the art, I mean, so much of what I was exposed to my very first day of arriving in Kathmandu in 1977 was like I said, wow, this is a place where, , I wanted to dive as deeply as I could.
And so I was very fortunate within the first couple weeks of being in Nepal be introduced to who became my, teacher, Chatral Rinpoche. Actually first introduced to Dudjom Jigdral Yeshe Dorje Rinpoche, the head of the Nyingma Lineage, who was quite old at that time and only lived for a few more years, but then right after that, the same person said now you have to meet Chatral Rinpoche.
And that was a real turning [00:04:00] point in my life at that time. You know, my inspiration to go to Nepal, apart from the college semester abroad program, that was also for me, I was an art major at the time, it was based on learning the fundamentals of, Tibetan Buddhist art. But meeting Chatral Rinpoche changed everything. Just his presence, his energy, as I think, as I might have mentioned before, it was like meeting Merlin. It was like meeting, um, somebody, you know, really, um, a wizard.
And I'd had exposure to Zen Buddhism before and then in that conversation there were only two of us there, besides me and Chatral Rinpoche. Then, the whole question came up about Zen, which of course, since we're talking about spiritual practice is the kind of the archetype of still meditation. And remaining in kind of an incubational state in which the mind, somehow moves beyond its customary parameters. And that breakthrough, the kensho and ultimately satori, the awakening experience arises from that.
So in that first conversation, 'cause I'd had that background and done Zen retreats and had very profound experiences with it, Chatral Rinpoche spoke about Zen, you know, [00:05:00] he says like, and he, took an egg, he said, it's a perfect, it's perfect in itself, but it doesn't have handles. And he put it on the, little table and between us, and he said, it rolls around. So tantra, vajrayana, in the sense is what stabilizes that realization that can arise through the pure meditative experience which is zen. Which of course is just the Japanese pronunciation of dyan. So it just meant this pure meditation was recognized as the method that it brought the Buddha to his own awakening experience.
But what was particularly exciting for me in that context because I wanted to experience this tradition, in the context of the nature in a sense of the Himalayas that had in a way inspired these traditions.
And, so one of the first thing when I sort of. I'd heard about this Tibetan tradition of Hidden Lands, Beyul, where the ripening of the mind in such places would be achieved at a much more accelerated level. and even according to the text, where one day of meditation was worth a year somewhere else, I mean, all kinds of exaggerated claims. But the idea was that these were [00:06:00] powerful, potent places that if one connected with them in a spirit of contemplation, then one would have very fast results.
So when I asked Chatral Rinpoche, 'cause I was 19 at the time, so I was very ready and ripe to go in deep into the mountains about the hidden lands, the Beyul, he just looked at me and he said, can you spend a month alone? And I had said, yeah, if there was a reason for that, of course. Then he said, okay, you come back when you have a month free, I'll send you to a hidden land and then you won't have to ask me what their qualities are. You'll know directly from experience.
So that was an incredible challenge to have been given and a wonderful opportunity. And so I went back and to make a long story short, because I chronicled that in my book, the Heart of the World, originally called Journey to The Last Secret Place, but ultimately a journey to Tibet's Lost Paradise, focusing on this tradition of beyul how they served as supports for spiritual practice and realization.
But in the case with Chatral Rinpoche, it was a direct, firsthand experience of traveling. He sent me to one of these places he had come back in a [00:07:00] month, and, so I did my practices, many, many kinds of experiences are what are called in Tibetan tradition, yam kind of, meditative experiences arose and then discussed those with him. And then that became the basis for my ongoing apprenticeship, if you want to call it that with Chatral Rinpoche.
He taught according to a tradition called nyamchi, which means according to experiences. And then his commentaries or his instructions based upon one's own personal experiences as opposed to following a kind of set by more monastic curriculum.
So that's what made my relationship with him for me, very special and in all cases with him, it was always pushing me further to go other hidden lands. He wrote them all out in beautiful calligraphy, now go to these places, stay. So it was always about how does the power place, being called Né, in Tibetan or the hidden land serve to accelerate spiritual practice?
And he always encouraged me to go beyond what I might have been accustomed to, might feel comfortable with and all of that. And I think he was amused by my readiness to go... the harder it was, the more [00:08:00] excited I got. And of course, that was prompted by my earlier background in mountaineering and rock climbing, where one seeks out, wild, dangerous ous, vertiginous terrain in order to confront the mind and move beyond one's current limits and limitations.
So that's why the High Mountain ideal of practice and pilgrimage was very natural for me, given the background I'd had in my even younger years as a teenager with the encounters with high mountain environments.
So that's what brought me to Nepal. It's what brought me into the whole world of Tibetan Buddhism and an ongoing relationship over decades with Chatral Rinpoche, where it was always about, encouraging me to go into these wild places, to meditate there for whatever periods of time, often it was a month, they just say, stay sometimes shorter, then come back, tell 'em my experience, and then he'd send me off to some other place.
So it was about what we see in the Tibetan tradition about integrating stillness and movement. So sometimes in dzogchen, for example, movement refers to the movement of thoughts and stillness is the thought free, pristine awareness that has, in a [00:09:00] way the source from which thoughts may arise.
But rather than seeing them as being in any way in conflict, it's about merging and integrating stillness and movement, stillness and movement, so that this is a fertile ground of awakening as opposed to seen as a conflict between awakening and mundane life in which thoughts are sometimes considered by some to be inhibitory or, or distracting.
But from dzogchen point of view, they're just integrated and therefore there is no ground for distraction.
Adrian Baker: There are opportunities for recognition as Urgyen Rinpoche got some really lovely quotes along those lines.
Ian Baker: Yeah. And that's the beauty of it. It's all the practice is about recognizing a n already existing state, it's about trying to cultivate it in some kind of way.
And this sometimes can be for some, a conflict. we have to cultivate these states. Well, on one level, yes, but on another level they're naturally there. But we do have to sometimes clear the ground polish the mirror to use the, you know, Zen analogy.
What brought me into the whole world of Tibetan Buddhism as a teenager essentially, and to a longstanding relationship with my teacher Chatral Rinpoche, who was very connected to [00:10:00] these power places, to ne and beyul, and the power that such places had in being able to, support and, in some ways even initiate certain kinds of experiences that might've been harder to have if you were just stuck in the city.
And so it really gave me an inspiration always, to go deeper into nature, deeper into these, whole complex of sacred places. And that meant not just the hidden lands and Nes of the Himalayas, but it also met power places in India, which Chatral Rinpoche was also very connected with and interested in.
So, yeah, and it remains for me, a continuing journey. cause I recognize every time that I move out of my settled environment and challenge my system on all levels to embrace the unknown and embrace the wild, that we develop a kind of inner resilience and insight and capacities that sometimes remains somewhat dormant if we just kind of keep to a more comfortable level of practice.
We might cultivate stillness, we might cultivate a sort of calm abiding. But as we know [00:11:00] in the Tibetan and Dzogchen tradition, as, uh, Tsoknyi Rinpoche and Mingyur Rinpoche both pointed out, for example, as their father Tulku Urgyen, pointed out, that kind of shamata that state have just kind of settled stillness can itself be one of the great sand traps as it were on the dharma field.
And it's more about that vibrant ever present awareness that comes sometimes by challenging ourselves rather than actually retreating into more comfortable, and what might be considered, in some respects, a safer space.
But as we know in Tantra, safety wasn't the point.
Adrian Baker: That's right.
Ian Baker: it was like Helen Keller said, safety.
Adrian Baker: What did she say? She's got some great quotes.
Ian Baker: got some great
Adrian Baker: She's a, she was a mystical woman.
Ian Baker: yeah, she was really, she said, um, security does not exist in nature. So something interesting like that. Yeah. And so she, it was not, it was about moving beyond that.
And we see that in Shakespeare's Macbeth, for example, when Macbeth goes to Hecate, and where she says something similar, she says, when he consults the Queen of the witches, where he's looking for some kind of, coordinates in which to more his life after basically [00:12:00] murdering the king of Scot And she said, security is mortals chiefest enemy.
So it's a kind of koanic statement, but what I think is implied by that, as soon as we've kind of become into a kind of complacency of any kind, then we've lost that friction with, life and reality that prevents a kind of more vital and sometimes volatile growth process.
Adrian Baker: I'm gonna seize on that word friction for a moment because so much of modern life and technology and I mean, for example, I'm into health and biohacking, so much of that is about making things frictionless. That's kind of the term out of Silicon Valley a lot.
That's the idea behind the design of apps and optimization and so many different things. But while efficiency is certainly a wonderful value, a lot of the growth in life, for example, like in relationships, does indeed come through friction.
And I've seen that in my own experience. It's wonderful to sort of optimize things and get into a routine, but then there's that balance between, it's good to be grounded, it's good to, have all the orderliness that a routine [00:13:00] can bring, but then also a certain point it can turn to complacency.
It can sort of sap some of that dynamism and vitality from life. It can sap that spontaneity as well.
Ian Baker: No, I think, I think very much as you say, you know, in the biohacking world, everything is about trying to optimize
Adrian Baker: Hmm.
Ian Baker: everything that we do. And yet sometimes that process, as we know in sports, in physical culture, we need to push beyond our comfort zone. I mean, that's what happens the gym.
We actually
actually push the body, we push the muscles, and then they need to rest, recuperate and then they grow. But that would never happen unless we pushed it to the limit, as it were pushing the boundaries of our own physiological, respiratorial, limits and by pushing the limits, holding our breath out, all of these things are having a reciprocal process, simply in the nervous system, you know, where we work with the sympathetic nervous system in order to have the corresponding parasympathetic, release and regenerative.
But it doesn't really happen effectively unless we really worked with it on a more dynamic level first. So I think all of [00:14:00] that is so much related to the idea, really, of pilgrimage, which as we see from those early mountain pilgrimages, which were always about pushing beyond the limit, you know, in the village, whatever it was, pushing beyond the limit, even ones on physical capacity as there were ancient pilgrimages, and also in Ireland, about climbing barefoot up, rocky mountains. And it was about, in a way, a cultivated discomfort,
Adrian Baker: Hmm.
Ian Baker: Which was really goes to the very meaning of, pilgrimage itself. You know, it wasn't always connected with the idea of travel to sacred places. Pilgrim was somebody who was foreign. Somebody who was outside. It was about going beyond the familiar terrain in order for something to change, to evolve. I think that's an important thing to recognize that in pilgrimage, it's about entering into a kind of liminal space, betwixt in between.
And we look at that in anthropological senses of what pilgrimage was really about. You know, what, van Gunner referred to as the rite of passage, where we actually remove ourself from the familiar tribal world, and we actually confront the unknown. [00:15:00] And by confronting that, we develop resiliences and capacities that are only possible when you kind of move beyond the familiar and the comfortable and then come back, and that leads to a higher integration, both in terms of the individual making the journey. But it also is, to use Miles Neale's term that you said you had your conversation with him, you're returning with the elixir.
You're returning with something that has a potency and benefit, not just for yourself, but for the community itself.
it's the hero's journey in, Joseph Campbell's Sense. You know, we make these necessary journeys that always involve hardship and challenge of every kind. but by embracing, those challenges, something, breaks through in a very positive and transformative way.
Adrian Baker: Perhaps this would be a good time to as we're starting to go deeper into pilgrimage, to give people the frame of outer inner and secret pilgrimage so that we might talk about that, what it means to return with that elixir and to go on the pilgrimage 'cause it could be working on a few different levels.
Ian Baker: Yeah. So, you know, in my experience with pilgrimage, which was really, you could say initially in the Himalayan [00:16:00] world, in the Tibetan Buddhist world, and the word that's used in, Tibetan for pilgrimage is Neykor. So ne, ne means a power place. It's a place in nature that has a particular potency, and that's either an innate potency by virtue of the elements that are there coming into some kind of natural resonance that makes practice in such a place, or just even being in such a place, transformative.
And it also has by tradition associated with great masters and siddhas and, like Padmasambhava or Yeshe Tsogyal, who may have practiced in such places and imbued them with the potency of their own spiritual capacities.
And so we have throughout the Himalayan world, for example, when we talk about outer pilgrimage, it's often to places that, let's say Padmasambhava or Yeshe Tsogyal Gil, who are really at the foundations of Tibetan tantric Buddhism, places that they practiced, which are invariably, wild nature, Cliffside caves, mountaintops, and whether it's in Bhutan, Nepal, Tibet, they're powerful places.
And by going to them is the [00:17:00] idea that you connect to the lineage and to everything that is represented by those kind of literally ancestral figures in the tradition. So, of course, the classic example, might be Tiger's Nest in Bhutan, which is a place where Padmasambhava, Yeshe Tsogyal, as well as, Tash Chidim his Bhutanese consort all practiced and, imbued the cliffs, the waterfalls, the caves in that place with a power and a potency that the contemporary temple built around that, of course, enshrines it.
And we have it in the form of their, statues and paintings and all of that. But it's actually the natural, the cave that underlies it all where everything in a way happened. And so the pilgrimage is about going to such a place. And even in its more contemporary iteration as a, monastic setting, you know, it's the power of the place that underlies it, that is the outer pilgrimage.
And so that may extend, for example, in India we have the 24 sacred places that are also described in the Buddhist tantras. Connected to on an [00:18:00] outer level with places where Vajrayana Buddhism had evolved. We have that in the Cakrasaṃvara Tantra, for example, the Hevajra Tantra.
And in the hidden land tradition that I was particularly engaged with, the outer hidden land, the beyul can be identified, geographically, so for example, Pemako, the one where I went repeatedly in the far, northeast. Corner of the Himalayas where the great Brahmaputra River, comes down in this great gorge from Tibet down into the Assamese plains ultimately, but in the jungles, ravines, all of that very, very difficult terrain to reach was the kind of geographical idea of the hidden land of Pemako, the hidden land of the lotus or the display of lotuses.
So, in an inner level, it's actually goes from the geographical to the anatomical and the lotus land, if we will, of Padmasambhava suddenly is referring to the lotus chakra system within our own energetic anatomy.
So the inner hidden land, this place that's so, you know, lauded an outer level as an ultimate sanctuary in the end times, is no longer being [00:19:00] referred to geographically, but it's being referred to as a place, as a space that we can, discover within our own embodied being through the practices of yoga and meditation.
So that's kind of the inner Hidden land And the outer elements that we see in the hidden land are also, you know, earth, water, fire, air, have their anatomical correspondences and the, flesh bones, blood and metabolic heat and breath of the body, so it's working with that non-dual relationship between the outer inner elements.
And then the secret hidden land or the secret idea of pilgrimage is where, as Chatral Rinpoche described it, where those two factors come together, where you're in that non-dual space between the outer and the inner are no longer in some kind of dynamic dialogue but actually are recognized as just this ever present, dynamic polarity that at the same time as a non-dual polarity, it's almost a paradoxical reality, but it's actually the way The way we experience reality.
We can understand the non-dual state, but only in the context of having on one relative level, a dualistic relationship, which is a dynamic [00:20:00] one, that's the whole Shiva Shakti. It's the whole idea of consciousness and nature.
So the secret pilgrimage, is one that is happening, no longer solely on a geographical level, no longer solely, you know, within our own esoteric physiology the chakra nadi system within our bodies, but, it's where we recognize that these are in dynamic relationship always.
And so, for example, one place that for me is very powerful in Bhutan that I always try to include in pilgrimages, that I lead in Bhutan is the Chumphu Ney. It's a valley connected to the body of Vajra Yogini. So Vajra Yogini, who is she? Vajravārāhī, she is the goddess of inner fire. So her outer iconography, surrounded by an aureal of fire, but she has fire herself.
And what does fire mean in this context? Is it's a transformative energy that is burning up our karmic self in order to reveal, our enlightened self. So people often ask, why do we need these anthropomorphic expressions of enlightened mind and Vajray ana? isn't that just distracting us from the fact that we are the deity ultimately?
And it's true you know, [00:21:00] as Trungpa Rinpoche famously said, when he found people were getting too attached to the deity practice. he said, when you are a deity yourself, two armed, why do you need to imagine one with six arms? But I think he was responding more to people who were becoming very literalistic about the practices and that is certainly recognized as a, stumbling block as it can be.
But when it's understood in a more dynamic way, it's a, form that I sometimes think of as it's like method acting. You know, when you become the deity, it's a provisional way in which we expand our imaginative processes in order to re-envision ourselves as something other than we conventionally would see ourselves as being.
So we see that in acting classes, and you take on the persona of a particular, you know, whether it's a, hitman, whether it's a benevolent philanthropist, whatever might be. It's an imaginative exercise where we work with the creative visualization in order to become that which we normally don't imagine ourselves to be and yet it has a transformative effect.
So in any case, because everything in Tibetan Buddhism is modeled in this outer inner secret and then innermost secret or Yang gsang [00:22:00] level, in the context of the hidden lands, you have the geographical, you could say the physiological, or psychophysiological, then you have the integration, the total integration of body mind, if you wanna call it that at the secret level, where there's no separation between the outer elements in nature and the inner elements as they are experienced in one's body mind, and a lot of visionary experiences result from that.
And then the innermost, the Yang gsang or the innermost secret level is really the awakened state in which the non-dual nature of form and emptiness and appearance and emptiness, everything is, experientially present within one's experience. And then the beyul, the hidden land is everywhere.
And we see that even in the language of Zen, for example, the idea of the Lotus land. The idea is that when awakening occurs, then you realize the lotus land is everywhere. It's not like you have to go anywhere to find it. It's like shambala. The same idea you know, it's not external to our innate nature.
It's actually just an expression of it. Whether it's geographical expression or a physiological expression.
Adrian Baker: But that's an interesting part of the paradox to hold because on the one hand, [00:23:00] especially in Buddhism, it's cultivating this equanimity where nirvana is, everywhere. It's a shift in perception, and it's, a sense of basic okayness wherever you are.
And yet, there are great teachers and great masters who still feel that call to go to sacred sites. So while on an absolute level, the former might be true on a relative level, there is something to the fact that there are particular sites that have a particular power to them. And that's why great teachers, great practitioners, continue to go to them.
Ian Baker: Yeah.
Adrian Baker: Yeah, and something that you pointed out at the beginning, when we were preparing for this is there's something deeply archetypal just in our nature about being nomadic. Human beings have been nomadic from the beginning of time. If we're talking about even India, the genesis of that great civilization is a marriage between the nomadic people's Aryans and what they brought down, and then the Dravidian people who were already there, you know, in the mixing of those two cultures.
And so there's something in our nature that is drawn to exploration, for a number of reasons, [00:24:00] as well as that desire to root and to ground. And of course, each of us individually might gravitate towards one or the other, but there's real value in pushing beyond our comfort zones. I like that term.
You used cultivated, what was it? Cultivated discomfort. Something along those lines?
Ian Baker: Well, yeah, something like cultivated discomfort because the idea is to enter into that liminal space, which is often described in anthropological terms as betwixt in between. You're not here, you're not there, you're in the state of liminality in which everything is possible and get, nothing is limited.
You know, it is in Tibetan Buddhist terms, kind of the bardo of our everyday lives in which it's a state of ever present possibility. But if we seek to grasp at it, then it can become something that just feels ungrounded but it actually is the natural state of being. And we experienced it in, you know, in nomadic cultures, it was about moving. Into unfamiliar terrain and actually the excitement I imagine that would've occurred, you know, you reach the next horizon and you have no idea, no one's ever gone there before. And then the new vistas, open herds of [00:25:00] buffalo, herds of wild gazelles, whatever it might have been, in that earlier Paleolithic period when it was clearly not just people finding the right cave, they wanted to settle in, but it was about movement.
It's why they crossed the Bering sea. It's why they built boats to travel down from Indonesia into Australia, there was always a sense of going beyond, beyond, beyond into the next crossing boundaries and exploring. And I think that sense of exploration, which is also a state of expansion, is so intrinsic to our nature.
And often people lament today, oh, there's nothing new under the sun. You know, there's no place we can go now that's unknown. Everything can be found through Google Earth, whatever it is. But the point is that it's an experiential rather than strictly geographical. So even going to places that just may be new for us or to experience the familiar in a new way, which is really often the key, is something where we do push beyond the boundaries. The curtains of complacency in a way that, often obscure that larger sense of the world.
And that's where I think pilgrimage as a model even today, is so [00:26:00] relevant in a time when so many people define themselves as digital nomads, where we have the freedom in order to work anywhere often, as long as we have wifi connection.
But that is also just an extension of the interconnectivity, which is life itself. So the wifi in a certain sense is not anything other than, just the pure dimension of interconnectivity that affects all of the laws of nature from gravity onward. But we're just tapping into it in practical terms.
But it also means that, you know, again, we have the opportunity to be seasonal nomads and, we may want to be up in northern Scandinavia in the summer, but not in the winter. And we may want to be in the tropics in the winter and not in the summer. You know, working with the rhythms of nature to see where we can best align when we have that freedom to not be, rooted in one place.
And even when we are, you know, we can see spiritual traditions that in a way enshrine the idea of moving beyond the comfort. Like in the zen monastic tradition, there was a tradition called, monk jumps over the wall, where often the Abbott, the roshi would tell Monk suddenly when they became so entrenched within their [00:27:00] zazen sitting practice, and he would throw them basically go, come back in a month.
And sometimes without any kind of, direction or guidance, they would just suddenly find themselves out in the world. And, the idea was to explore it, delve into it fully, whatever it might entail, and then come back to the monastery.
But it was after a refreshment, a reset. Sometimes it was just a confirmation that the outside world didn't really have anything that one needed, but one would experience that firsthand and therefore be even more ready to, submit, if we wanna call it that, to monastic discipline, which, in a sense with its own crucible of awakening, but I think a very skillful way of engaging with the world.
And I think we also see that same process in the Tibetan Buddhist world too. Many who stayed for long periods, both in monastic retreat or meditation, or even in cave retreats, would often get these messages.
Often it was described in archetypal forms as, you know, a dakini sky maiden whispering in their ear that it was time to make a journey somewhere in order [00:28:00] to advance their practice. Research I've been doing now on the whole Dudjom Lingpa Tradition, that's happening a lot, a lot, a lot of the practices where there're suddenly, as it were, you get a whisper in your ear, however, we wanna define that in the cultural terms that they had to go to Mount Kailash or they had to go to somewhere where they practice would be advanced. And a lot of that just simply meant getting out of the comfort zone that one had established for oneself and suddenly confronting the unknown.
And there's a wonderful term in the Tibetan language, Ci jung lam du khyer means whatever happens, you bring it to the path. And this an aphorism for pilgrimage. In other words, when you enter into pilgrimage, it's not like you have to try to make anything happen in a particular way. It's whatever arises, whatever challenges, whatever difficulties, you just integrate. You integrate it, and don't resist it.
So it's about, as we also see in the zen traditions not falling into, preferential consciousness, if we can call it that. This idea of like and dislike and, all of that can become, the famous Zazen lesson, the song of zazen, they [00:29:00] talk about that. You know, that's what divides heaven and earth is when we fall into preferential thinking where this is good, this is bad, this we want this, we don't want. All of that is to divide reality into an unnatural polarity as opposed to experiencing others totality.
Adrian Baker: How do you think about that distinction? Because of course, on a relative level, you have preferences, like you're preferring to lead trips to certain places, right? So someone might ask you, you know, Ian don't you have a preference for Bhutan because you keep going back there, someone like that.
So how would you reconcile or
Ian Baker: I think that's a very, very good question to ask because I think on an ultimate level. A lot of that is referring, let's say, in the zen tradition to actually meditative practice where, a lot of makyo, a lot of things can arise in practice and we fall into acceptance and rejection. This kind of polarized mindset, which can actually prevent that kind of breakthrough into the non-dual state that we otherwise, would be seeking.
And so it also is an existential stance in which. we might get caught in [00:30:00] traffic jams and be, irritated by it, but it's about, in a certain sense, embracing whatever arises without trying to wish it was otherwise. Because often that's what we spend our whole life doing, saying, oh, if it was, if it was this way, I'd be happy, if it was this way, everything would be better.
So I think a lot of it is on that level, but at the same time, none of that actually in any way, is contrary to the very fact that we have natural affinities in life. So we prefer certain colors, we might prefer certain settings. Relationships are all based upon laws of natural attraction that where we have preferences, we wouldn't be happy, being necessarily with somebody who we weren't attracted to.
So when we have natural affinities, natural attractions, we have innate preferences, and I think a lot of those are ones that are, obviously positive in the sense that they are, are karmic affinities. That in a way resonate with our own personal processes.
So I don't think it's in any way contradictory, but I, so I really do think this idea of not separating, of not falling into like and dislike, is more of a subtle, almost a [00:31:00] mystical proposition in that famous zazen, formulation of splitting heaven and earth apart by thinking that they're somehow separate.
And we can see in really mystical traditions how heaven and earth, if we want to take that as the idea of Samsara and Nirvana, and you can look at William Blake, the great poet. He, he talks about the marriage of heaven and hell, and actually how you have to bring the two together because one without the other is sort of anemic angels, who need that kind of the blood and the power and the duende as it were of the lower realms.
You know, so that's where I think it's a kind of very vivifying idea of joining heaven and hell not in terms of good and evil, but in terms of energy. That's what he writes in The Marriage Of Heaven and Hell. Everything that has energy issues from health. So he's talking about Shiva and Shakti. Pure awareness, consciousness and the energy that animates that consciousness that is Shiva Shakti.
But he writes about it in more poetic terms, like Lorca did the same with The Theory and Play of the Duende. The Duende is everything that has black sounds.
You know, in an essay he [00:32:00] wrote on that, he was asked, you know, how does define it? And he says, it's like birds sweeping the ground with wings of rusty knives. It's sort of a jarring idea that's both exciting and kind of tingling, scary, but also animating.
And I think this is where he writes about the duende, which had its most famous cultural expression in bull fights. Not that one wants to encourage anything remotely like that, but it was, again, something where there was all dread and wonder and power, because you're dancing on that edge of life and death.
And I think that's where, sometimes we find, and that's even in pilgrimage, the more dangerous it is. We've had an incredible transformative journey if we've survived it. but there's often,
Adrian Baker: A shadow there.
Ian Baker: There's a shadow where Yeah, yeah. Adventure. The greater, the adventure, the closer ones come in a certain sense to death sometimes. And that is, we see that in the hero's journey. We see that in all of these transformative journeys that we talk about.
And of course, ultimately that's referring in the context of these pilgrimage narratives to a kind of ego death. Now we have to go beyond what we thought we were [00:33:00] in order to come into our greater transpersonal being that the pilgrimage invites us to do, and of course, the ego is the ultimate expression of likes and dislikes and preferences, and I want this, I want that.
But if there's sort of a, proposition to make to oneself, just accept whatever happens and then integrate it and, it will all kind of make sense in the end, and we know that from pushing ourselves sometimes into dimensions that we aren't necessarily comfortable with at first, but it's complicated in today's world.
Adrian Baker: It is indeed. I, I love watching documentaries on big wave surfers and that is very much part of that, that shadow there and, finding that edge.
I wanted to ask you about some of these places you have affinities for at the moment. Sort of what is really speaking to you in terms of your interests at this period in time.
I know last time you were on the podcast we were talking about your interest in the silk roads and the connection between Buddhism and the Silk Roads. And I think that's when you were just starting to get more into it, leading more trips, and in Greece. You've now led one in [00:34:00] Turkey. And so I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit big picture about what's animating you in terms of where you wanting to lead pilgrimage, give us the overview and then perhaps we can get into individual trips to, to give people a sense of also how these trips can vary.
Ian Baker: Yep. Well, for me, in this idea of pilgrimage and the silk roads, for example, I mean the Silk Roads is such a iconic idea of the trade routes that connected, ancient cafe, which China was called before the Far East with the Mediterranean world. And we know that all these, iconic, trade centers like Bukhara, Samarkand, Tashkent, all these places that developed in Central Asia, along these caravan routes, were places for trade, not just in goods and materials, which of course they were, whether it was silk, whether it was musk, whether it was spices, and, all kinds of things were traded along the routes.
But there was also a lot of movement of religions along those same route. So there were often pilgrims and traders who'd be part of the same caravans. And those were also very interesting in some of those early accounts of the [00:35:00] caravanserai, which were really like, travelers hostels at the time, but very interesting, like you see in Shoser Tales, where pilgrims came together, there was often very fertile conversation and exchange of ideas and expansion of perspectives.
And so I've been fascinated by the idea of the caravanserais, which were these ancient places where pilgrims, traders, adventurers of all kinds, would come together necessarily, and then often travel together on the next sector of the great silk roads, which were otherwise dangerous 'cause they were often bandits and, other very specific dangers along the way.
So that's always fascinated me this link and also the ideas that traveled along. Like even when Alexander the Great, for example, traveled from, the Hellenic world all the way to the Northwest Frontiers of India, it was a pilgrimage for him as well. He was trying to connect to, you know, where did Dionisis, where did this incredible, powerful archetypal Greek god that he identified with, originate?
And of course some of the stories is that he originated in that Nysa, a place in was now [00:36:00] identified in the Swat Valley and what's now Pakistan. And we know from Alexander's journey, he would go way out of his way to visit some of these sacred shrines and sacred places, and the teachers and the yogis. The gymnosophists in India, for example, the naked philosophers and also Pyrrho, who was from the same period connecting with Buddhism and bringing in a way Buddhist thought back to Greece in the form of pyrrhonism, which had a very similar kind of analytical approach that early Buddhism had.
So. I'm fascinated by how these ideas circulate. So I'm very fortunate this last fall to be able to travel through five of the so-called Stans, from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan Turkmenistan, basically following core central section of the silk roads.
And it was an amazingly exciting opportunity to see, first of all, incredible, powerful mountains, which are always very resonant for me, The Tian Shan, Pamirs, and just how these corridors were opened, for camels or whatever other means of transportation there were at the time, in these [00:37:00] incredibly potent places where there were very rich, nomadic traditions and cultures.
And so traveling through those areas and seeing way that these different religious traditions had interacted like Zoroastrianism and its traditions of the fire worship and the traditions of the Homam, consumption, all the way along the clear trade that existed between India, let's say in parts of Turkmenistan.
For example, there was clear evidence of ancient ritual ingestion of potent psychoactive substances that were integrated within a literally pagan cultural context 'cause they actually already had adopted some of the Hellenic deities in that context. So to me, that exchange and integration of different traditions, how it actually expressed itself in art architecture, was very exciting and vivifying.
And to learn that places like Bukhara, which have now of course is all Islamic, in name only because these "stans" were under Soviet rule for a long period. So the kind of islam that we see is actually extremely moderate. And it was also areas where Sufism was [00:38:00] very rich, which of course already was to some degree a breaking away from the fundamentalism that otherwise did come to define some aspects of Islam.
But Bukhara, for example, is seen to be a derivation of the Buddhist vihara. It was a Buddhist monastic complex, and then gradually became a trade center. And so we see some of these places there that have become basically bazaars, trade bazaars, were actually monastic complexes in the past.
And there was a lot of evidence we saw along the way, for example, that Buddhisms movements along these routes, their interaction with Sufi traditions, yogic traditions of one kind another. So to me, that's this cross-fertilization of ideas, of practices, as we're all looking, to where you started out the conversation, we're all looking for not just the biohacking, but we're looking at trying to look at what is it that lies at the roots of culture and religion that really has a transformative effect that we can feel viscerally and profoundly, psychologically, and therefore spiritually.
But in a certain sense, it's all about finding that [00:39:00] natural affinity with the practices, the places, the art, the substances sometimes that are connected with
Adrian Baker: The food for many of us,
Ian Baker: Yeah, in that sense. So my affinity is the idea of the Silk Road connecting Mongolia to the Mediterranean.
And so on both ends of the Silk Road, I've done trips from Ephesus to Cappadocia, looking at the far western end of the Silk Road. And then this summer we have a trip to Karakorum in Mongolia looking at what was happening in a certain sense on the other end, ' cause certainly these Mongol traditions were seminal in, the expansion of these trade routes, through Central Asia connecting east and west.
And so looking at that as the outer analog of what's happening on an inner level as we're always seeking to integrate, and in a way to become more cosmopolitan beings in the sense of what that literally meant, which was not to be exclusively identified with one cultural complex, but actually in order to embrace and become, whether we call it citizens of the world, or as it was even on the trade routes [00:40:00] along the Silk Road, you know, we have Marco Polo and others, who were, continuously expanding their sense of who and what they were, what the world could be, and then bringing back that kind of expanded vision to their homeland.
Which we see in Venice, for example, just the incredible beauty and richness of tradition, a lot of which was inspired by what was discovered, in the East, and the use of materials such as silk, the use of spices, the use of particular design elements.
So I'm inspired by the idea of the caravan, as it were. And so, as you know, Tiffani Gyatso, who you interviewed already, you know, her platform now called Caravanza, which is working with this idea, the same idea of transformative journeys.
So we'll be working together. For example, we have a trip in Bhutan under her platform of Caravanza, and then other ones we've planned back in Anatolia in Turkey, in September, October, which are always gonna be for us journeys that expand our knowledge and appreciation for the arts, inner and outer and secret arts, if you will, in these places, how they connected and then inviting others to [00:41:00] join us on those journeys so that we're all in a way enriching ourselves, through those connections.
Adrian Baker: Yeah. And that one with Tiffany, for example, just to give people a different sense of the kind of trips you do, you know, some of them, I think the ones you lead, they're a lot more like hiking, and the ones with Tiffani, you're actually spending more time in particular artist studios or things learning the craft of of how to make Tonka and, and things like that.
Isn't that correct?
Ian Baker: That's very correct. Yes. So I think what we're, experimenting with on this trip to Bhutan in May is an integration of those two modalities.
We have the studio, which is the idea of art creation. and in this context, focusing on the iconography of the tantric Buddhist goddess of fire, Vajrayogini, which in Vajrayana Buddhism would be considered the creation phase, where you identify with a archetypal being, in this case, the holy fire as it were in an anthropomorphic form. Three eyes, all of the different intricate symbolism involved in Vajrayogini and her varying forms. In one way, [00:42:00] identifying with the energies that we all have within us. But by doing that through literally the creation of art.
And then looking at how in the tantric Buddhist tradition, that was a foundation for exploring, going from the iconography to the psycho and neuroanatomy, through the breathing practices, through the movements, and it could be through dance. It was done through breath work, and looking at how those dynamics fed each other.
And so how it was that by actually doing, let's say a very embodied practice of Vajrayogini, certain kind of visions would arise by which artists of the past, masters of the past, would actually envision and often create an artistic form, you know, their particular vision of Vajrayogini. For example, Naropa had a particular vision of Vajrayogini from the side in profile holding up her skull bowl, et cetera, rather than the more frontal view that had been common before that. And there were forms that were headless forms of Vajrayogini, some of the earliest were.
And this idea that it was a transcendent state in which the ego was severed. And that was symbolized by the whole process of beheading, [00:43:00] the sign of radical iconography, that had a very profound and symbolic meaning. And then we see that in Tibetan Buddhist practices of Tröma Nakmo for example, where you visualize having the top of your head chopped off and you invert it and hold it upside down and boom, you're free. And that's where you've gone beyond the usual. the hope and fear that often is invoked as the obstacles to deeper levels of intrinsic awareness.
So we'll be exploring all of that, and in the same time, by going to some of these sacred shrines and places, that do involve hiking and pushing the boundaries, but what we'll do on this trip, for example, is making it possible for anyone. We have somebody in their mid eighties who wants to join and so, she may not come to one of the temples that involves a, three hour hike.
Adrian Baker: Vajrayogini hike. Yeah.
Ian Baker: Yeah. but we'll have other activities involved.
And I think what's very exciting about this trip, as you know, I do many trips in Bhutan with Dr. Nida, who is incredibly accomplished, both as a traditional Tibetan sowic doctor and healer, but also of course, with the Yuthok Nyingthig, inner tantric tradition. But in this occasion, we'll be working with, [00:44:00] Tulku Tenzin Rabgye, who is a very accomplished sawlum tummo master in Bhutan, who will be, teaching and introducing practices at these particular places.
So tapping into the local resources, and I'll be working along with them to help frame and introduce the outer inner secret levels of Vajrayogini. So that's the trip in May.
Adrian Baker: Wonderful. And will you be doing one before in South America?
Ian Baker: No, the one we were gonna do in South America, we just had too many other things going on so we're postponing that probably till next year, in which case we will have a journey. I think it's gonna probably be next March or April in Brazil. And that is looking again at indigenous shamanic work with medicines, and its connection to Vajrayana Buddhist practices of dream yoga and bardo, this idea, again, of betwixt between, how it is that we navigate visionary phenomena and experiences in order to bring about that illuminated, condition that enriches our existence, and
Adrian Baker: Sound right at the heart of the bullseye, what we're interested in on Sahaja Soma.
Ian Baker: Yeah, [00:45:00] no, exactly. And I should mention in that context too about Sahaja Soma, that, uh, on the Silk Road, certainly I want to do a trip there. Probably Tiffani, we'll do something with caravans there because there was so much along the Silk Road that opened up for me about literally the Soma, the Haoma, as it was called Zoroastrian tradition.
There was peganum harmala, there was Syrian rue in all the marketplaces, and then obviously a lot of evidence in museums there. They had the ritons by which these concoctions were drunk, and the places in which it was drunk, and how that was integrated into the practices.
So, some of the connections I made there, how this was harvested, how it was used and integrated into traditional medicine. So I have connections there with traditional healers as well as some of the more mystically or inclined Sufi traditions. So we're, hoping to do a kind of magic and mystery on the Silk Road through Central Asia, next year.
Adrian Baker: That, that would be very cool. Also, since you go to Turkey, you're going there for the second time. I mean, there's a lot of peganum harmala and tradition of that in Turkey.
Ian Baker: That's very true. And in fact, we did find in [00:46:00] Conya where we went, where Rumi, of course, was very active, that in the Sufi tradition there, they made a drink from Syrian rue that they integrated in the Sama tradition.
Adrian Baker: Do you know what they were combining it with or
Ian Baker: that, that I
Adrian Baker: were they drinking it on its own?
Ian Baker: That as far as, I have to double check that. Because we didn't experience it firsthand. We were just told about it, but it was in the context of how these kind of substances can be integrated with practice in order to bring about the results that are sought. and that could be as subtle as Green Tea and Zen Buddhism, which has a long history to, paganam harmala in Zoroastrian ritual, and of course in the Soma tradition in the Kerala traditions of India, where it was about, a sense dissolving the boundaries between the divine and the human experience. You know, drinking Soma, we've become one with the gods.
So all of that, I think speaks to, again, today's situation where, there's so much, richness that can come when we are able to integrate traditional practices with looking at them in their larger connection. Which, all of these traditions [00:47:00] developed in dialogue with other traditions except we tend over time to forget where they originated from.
We think of Tibetan Buddhism as a preset model, but it integrated so much pre Buddhist bun tradition, mountain gods, and prayer flags and smoke offerings from a tradition that existed long before Buddhism ever appeared in the area.
Adrian Baker: Yeah.
Ian Baker: Yeah.
Adrian Baker: We see that with different forms of Buddhism, Chinese, Japanese... Japanese Buddhism, deeply syncretic...
Ian Baker: Yeah. So I think this idea, Soma syncretism is what we're interested in. and I think that's where pilgrimage comes in because then people experientially kind of go beyond the current horizons of their experience in order to uh, embrace and then experience different modes of practice, different modes of being in different settings that are just innately and inherently exciting, interesting, and vivifying.
So that's certainly what I hope to do with the kind of contemporary pilgrimages that we curate and invite people to join us on.
Adrian Baker: How do you prepare people? Miles talked about this, the difference between, um, pilgrim's mindset and a tourist?
Ian Baker: Mm-hmm.[00:48:00]
Adrian Baker: and they are not the same thing. we're, we're literally actively, willingly going into discomfort instead of having, paying a lot of money for a trip that's very well manicured and it's all supposed to go according to plan.
And, sort of, I think Miles was talking about communicating those expectations clearly so that you're attracting the right kind of people you know, and that expectations are adjusted accordingly.
And I'm wondering, one, how you think of that distinction, and two, how you communicate that?
Ian Baker: I think it's a, a critical point. And I think, for example, you know, all the trips to Pemako, which were extremely challenging. I spent more time trying to dissuade people who have expressed interest in coming from coming, because I recognized that if they had any hesitation, if they had any concern about, vertigo or on steep trail, it was just like it wasn't gonna happen.
They had to be so passionate about wanting to come that there was just no doubt. And that was for Pemako, 'cause those were extreme expeditions. Really extreme. I mean, I couldn't do half of the ones that I did back then. [00:49:00] Now I would say just because they really pushed the limits, extremely.
But the people who came on them were all aligned. And so anybody who does read my book, the heart of the world will see, you know, we had the three Gilland Water Brothers, we had, Christian Coopers, others, who, that was what they wanted. They wanted to be pushed beyond, not by me, but by the circumstances.
And they were ready to, dive in, in that level. But I have had notably, and I've, led like 10 trips to Mount Kailash, for example, in Tibet. But then we had one trip, where I wasn't able to go at the end. And that was difficult for people because they hadn't been, I'd say, properly oriented towards the idea that anything might happen.
A real pilgrimage is never gonna go as planned. And the idea is that it's not supposed to go as planned, because the idea is to drop the planning mind in order to embrace whatever arises. And so this is the pilgrim's mindset, which is to embrace infinite possibility rather than feeling concerned about whether your certain material comforts are gonna be [00:50:00] insured. If you're gonna be able to take a shower every three days, whatever it might be.
The real pilgrim's mindset is to go beyond what it is that we normally think is essential for us. You know, maybe you have to give up coffee. Maybe it's giving up a shower every day. There could be many different things. So for some I think very, very important to prepare people for that. but even a traveler and a tourist have big differences.
I think a tourist is somebody who wants to travel by taking all of their comforts from home, having those with them along the way. It's with the whole idea of a four or five star hotel is about, versus a traveler who is willing to forego those comforts in order to integrate with a different culture, a different way of being.
And then a next step would be really the pilgrim who is ready to step out of any expectation altogether, and that's of course where it's a more transformative experience. So it's something that we've learned to give more importance to in helping people to understand that anything might happen, but certain trips are gonna be more challenging, obviously, than others.
So we also try to accommodate people who [00:51:00] don't want to push to that level and always make provisions for them within the structure of the trip as a whole.
If they want for example, to forego a two or three day part of it that might just not be what they wanted, not may be what they needed, and that's often the case. So it's also honor. People should really honor what they want out of a trip and not feel that there's some essentiality to the itinerary.
And I think that's really important too. 'cause itineraries always have to be provisional and, we have to be adaptable and people themselves shouldn't feel that it's something that they have to conform to. So we always wanna
give
Adrian Baker: It's nice that you're offer that flexibility
Ian Baker: I think it's important.
Adrian Baker: attest to that as someone who's been on your pilgrimages. Yeah.
Ian Baker: And I think it was great. It was a really perfect decision that you made at that time. So, yeah.
And so that's it. Always having the freedom to change course when a trip may, no, just think, oh, there's another possibility here, and allowing for that. And that's really the individual journey that's should be p referenced rather than some kind of collective itinerary that's gonna [00:52:00] fit everybody.
So that I think the voice has to be individual flexibility.
Adrian Baker: And Bhutan's quite forgiving in many ways. I mean, it's quite the opposite end of the spectrum of going to India, it's really much easier in a lot of ways. Where would you place the Mongolia trip kind of on that
Ian Baker: Well, that's interesting. And a good question, Mongolia is, I'd say probably somewhere in between, only in the sense that Mongolia is a very sparsely populated step land but ranging from deserts to Taiga, meaning these kind of, forested areas up on the Siberian border. It can snow in the middle of July, so it can be... yeah, i've experienced that there in Mongolia.
But also on the trip that we're doing this gates of Shambhala, there will be a period where we go to the Altai Mountains, which is considered the inner gate into this sort of legendary kingdom of Shambhala, and there we'll be staying in Ger camps. So the gers is the local word for yurt.
And for example, there may be a couple of those places that have solar charged showers, but there may be a couple of them that don't have that. [00:53:00] So there will be some challenges on the trip in terms of comfort level.
You know, we'll be staying in four star hotels in Ulaanbaatar, et cetera, and wherever we go, we'll be staying in the best available accommodations, but that does mean in some cases, staying in yurts. And it may be challenging at times for vegetarians because in Mongolia
Adrian Baker: I can imagine.
Ian Baker: Yeah, it's like vegetables are pretty limited sometimes.
And, I mean the standard diet of kind of fermented mare's milk and air dried lamb. I mean, it's fantastically rich and vivifying food, but It's not a paradise for vegetarians, but of course we accommodate that and we make that happen.
Yeah, whereas in India, of course, one can get anything, one wants to eat and thrive as a vegetarian. So there will be, you know, some challenges like that. We have on the Vajra Path website, there's a link to the Mongolia trip, and that also includes a frequently asked questions, that people can read and they can sort of see, well, what's to be expected.
Now it might be a couple days, for example, where internet may be more difficult, but generally on that trip, we'll be encouraging [00:54:00] everybody to get a local sim card so that they will have connectivity wherever they go.
But that is trying to anticipate some of the challenges and, this is different from a trip in Bhutan, which as you said can accommodate our comfort levels to a better degree sometimes, certainly than India. But, and so there are advantages both ways to either way.
Adrian Baker: Well, it sounds like you got a lot of wonderful trips, and thank you so much for your time. And perhaps you can let people know where, aside from the Vajra Path website for the Mongolia trip, where else they can find info on some of these other trips.
Ian Baker: Yeah. I'd say right now, just in general, we have the Vajra Path website, which has the Mongolia trip, which is the only trip we're gonna do through Vajra Path this year. And then we have the Caravansa website, which has the trip this coming May. Second half of May, where Tiffani's sort of taken the lead, and that's the website that she's created. It's great. so I'm very happily working with that one at the moment.
And then individual, the other trips I'm doing this year tend to be more individual, private ones that I've been asked to organize. For example, be doing a a major trek in Bhutan in April up along the Tibetan border. Kind of a quite [00:55:00] challenging, but that's for, an individual group.
And then, probably a very special trek in the second half of November in Bhutan where we're following the route that Padmasambhava is said to have taken from India, from Assam, into central Tibet in the eighth century, the Lotus Trail.
So that one, because that's a very interesting trekking route, but it has never really been opened up to now. So that'll be kind of by invitation only, but if people are interested, welcome to contact me personally. I think that's probably the best way to organize that trip because we don't wanna really make it a commercially, publicized trip, cause we want to keep it small, but very special.
And then we'll probably do another trip, as I mentioned, in end of September to Anatolia in Turkey, and we may also publicize that on Caravansa, but we haven't decided yet. We have a few people individually who prefer small groups and a few of them already self-selected, so sometimes those are interesting trips to do rather than the somewhat larger ones that we would do through the Caravansa, a platform or certainly the [00:56:00] VajraPath platform.
Adrian Baker: Excellent. Well, we can include those links and contact info for you
Ian Baker: Okay. Sounds good.
Adrian Baker: Ian, thank you so much for your time. This was a lot of fun.
Ian Baker: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for initiating it. Okay.
Adrian Baker: Absolutely. All right. Take care.
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