I have just completed a trekking in Himalayas and am spending a couple of weeks in Leh, an ancient Buddhist town of India. 

There was something about my Himalayan experience that corresponded to the samurai training I did in Japan half a year ago.

Both - the samurai training and the Himalayas trekking - have challenged my body and mind in ways that I hadn’t experienced before.

'You must understand that there is more than one path to the top of the mountain,' writes one of the most revered samurai, Miyamoto Musashi, in the Book of 5 Rings.

When climbing a Himalayan peak or hours on end practising foundational sword moves in Japanese mountains, my mind had given up on trying to rationalise the unfamiliar experience and ceased its tireless stream of thinking.

And in that moment of no thought, there was a space for 'nothingness' to arise, or as Musashi calls it, the Void - the 5th element in the Book of 5 Rings.

That very state had become an opportunity to rise above...