Everest and “Earning the Right”: Buddhist Philosophical Wisdom on the World’s Highest Mountain

The view of Everest (center) from Kala Pattar.

Everest is not just a mountain. It’s a goddess. Chomolungma, the local name for the mountain, roughly translating to “Mother Goddess,” is home to the Tibetan Buddhist female deity, Miyolangsangma. As climbers trickle into base camp for the 2025 climbing season, they will perform puja ceremonies, or prayer rituals, dedicated to Miyolangsangma to seek safe passage. This is a local way of “earning the right” to the mountain. 

The phrase “earning the right” is used by Everest summiteer and reporter Alan Arnette. However, he uses it as a way to encourage others to gain the proper experience by climbing other “training peaks” before tackling the big one. In a recent conversation with Alan, he brought attention to the number of deaths correlated to inexperienced climbers on the mountain. This is a concerning issue and one that has caused Everest’s reputation to dwindle, relating to the idea that people can “pay their way to the summit.” While prayer rituals and mountaineering experience are necessities for “earning the right” to climb Everest, I argue that more is needed. Chomolungma, or Everest, is home to a treasure trove of Buddhist philosophical wisdom. The sacredness of the mountain requires meditation, contemplating one’s greater ambitions for climbing. 

My dream has always been to climb Everest. Strangely enough, it all started at Disney World in the line of the Himalayan-themed roller coaster “Expedition Everest,” which lit a spark inside of seven-year-old me. This dream ebbed and flowed throughout my childhood but resurfaced when I studied abroad in Kathmandu, Nepal, in the Spring of 2023. My days were spent learning Tibetan Buddhist philosophy at the Shedrub Monastery, home of Kathmandu University’s Rangjung Yeshe Institute for Buddhist Studies. Before coming to the monastery, I understood Everest as the ultimate human feat and something that was meant to be conquered. After studying, my preconceptions completely changed. 

Boudha Stupa is located just down the road from the Shedrub Monastery. It is the epicenter of Tibetan Buddhism in Nepal.

One of the classes I took focused on the seminal Buddhist text Bodhicharyavatara, or The Way of the Bodhisattva, which was taught by the monk Khenpo Karma Gyurmey. Khenpo, the term for a highly educated Buddhist monk, often referenced mountain climbers while explaining the text. However, he spoke of them in two different ways. On one hand, he used them as an example of faulty human ambition. He told stories of climbers, presumably Westerners, who came to his village in the Himalayas and how the locals were amused at their desire to climb. Rationally speaking, why would anyone experience so much exhaustion just to stand on top of a big pile of dirt and rocks? Khenpo, however, positively framed climbers, such that their aspiration to reach the summit is the same for Buddhist practitioners seeking enlightenment. Shantideva, the 8th-century Indian sage and author of the Bodhicharyavatara, writes:

Aspiration, so the sage asserted,

Is the root of every kind of virtue.

Aspiration’s root in turn

Is constant meditation on the fruits of action. 

The “fruits of action” can be understood as impermanence and non-attachment, two fundamental Buddhist ideologies. Climbers, without even realizing it, might already be pretty good at this. When climbing a mountain, rock, or artificial climbing wall, if one attaches to the pain and fatigue felt throughout their muscles, they will almost certainly give up. Climbers must learn to enter a flow state, which itself is a form of meditation, allowing one’s aspiration to take charge and visualizing one’s pain and fatigue as impermanent. Of course, one cannot simply run up Mount Everest knowing that the pain and fatigue are temporary. There is a balance one must find between aspiration and physical limits. However, learning and meditating on these “fruits of action” betters the mind and can be taken outside the context of climbing, which, in a world plagued by mental health issues, can free many of their suffering.

One must not see Everest, Chomolungma, or Miyolangsangma as something to be conquered. One must “earn the right” to reach its sacred summit by undergoing the necessary physical training and, more importantly, contemplating the fruits of action. Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to summit Everest alongside Tenzing Norgay, did exactly this as he famously proclaimed, “It’s not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.” 

*The specific source I used for The Way of the Bodhisattva was published by Shambhala Publications and was translated by the Padmakara Translation Group. The referenced quote is verse 40 from chapter 7.