Probably he will vanish like a mirage, with his caparisoned little steed and his party of followers, dressed in all the colours of the rainbow. He is… - Alexandra David-Néel

I go to Korea. Panya-an; the "monastery of wisdom" concealed in the heart of the forest opens its door to me. When I went there to beg temporary admittance, heavy rains had washed the path away. I found the Panya-an monks busy repairing it. The novice sent by his abbot to introduce me stopped before one of the workers as muddy as his companions, bowed respectfully and said a few words to him. The digger, leaning on his spade, looked at me intently for a while, then nodded his consent and began to work again, without taking any more notice of me. He is the head of the hermitage, my guide told me. He is willing to give you a room.

I, one day, asked him: What is the Supreme Deliverance? He answered: It is the absence of all views and all imagination, the cessation of that mental activity which creates illusions. Another day, he said: You should go to Tibet and be initiated by a master of the 'Short Path.' ...I foresee that you would be capable of grasping the secret teaching.

There are a larger number than one would suppose who, when raising a small lamp in the gesture of an offering before the Buddha's image, ask for no more than spiritual insight. Though they may make but little practical effort to reach it, the mystic ideal of salvation through enlightenment remains alive amongst Tibetans.