Testing the water at Lake Nam Tso (elevation 4700 m)

When I was 10, I read a book about Tibet that belonged to my father. He had been using meditation and yoga to try to prolong his life after he'd been given a prognosis of six months. He lived for 14 years.

Tibet and the meditation wisdom were strongly linked in my child's mind. In writing about finally going to Tibet this year, there are many levels of reality I could mention. There's the magical landscape, which has the power to radically alter consciousness.

There are the nechen or "power places" - holy temples, lakes with the power of prophecy, river gorges that conceal paradise and mountains that resonate like giant crystals. Then there is the reality of invasion by China in the 1950s and the destructive madness of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 70s. I could tell the ongoing story of suppression, visible to even the most casual tourist. I could report whispered tales of torture and the threat of long terms of imprisonment for owning a photograph of the Dalai Lama. But, there is also the level of meditation. Here is the story of one small but transformative moment. I went to the sacred Jokhang Temple in the heart of Lhasa with a rinpoche, returned from prison, then exile. He had not seen his beloved temple for two decades. The central chapel of Jowo Sakyamuni has a beautiful golden statue representing Buddha at the age of 12, studded with turquoise, coral and jade and draped in rich fabrics.

It gleamed in the flickering light of yak butter lamps, whose smoke mingled with the smell of incense. He showed me how to reverently place a white silk khata (prayer scarf) on the statue. Later, I gazed up at the light radiating from the chapel. In that moment I felt the powerful interconnection between Tibet and its people. The land, with its high-altitude energy holds and supports the people - and the people, who have walked the concentric khoras or prayer circuits, saying their mantras for centuries, support the land. My surroundings dissolved. There was nothing but an age-old vibration spiralling into that central point.

Suddenly, a Chinese tour guide with 15 group members close behind pushed her way into the chapel. They ignored the queue of devout Tibetans, some on once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimages to this holy place, which had been shuffling patiently forward for an hour or more. They blocked the entrance to the chapel as the guide delivered her commentary. During several hours in the temple, I saw many such groups. They seemed unaware or indifferent that this was a place of worship.

Conquering people probably have, even unconsciously, a sense of entitlement. I spun away from the sight. Behind me three monks were resting from managing vats of yak butter used in the thousands of lamps. They grinned broadly as though the whole event, including my look of dismay, was the funniest thing they had seen all day. I had to smile too. I turned back to the chapel. The light still shimmered, the tour group was descending, the queue of pilgrims had resumed inching forward, the murmur of mantras reached my ears once more and my distress that my personal experience had been interrupted, dissolved. I glimpsed the full strength of practices that unfold the miraculous power of choice - the choice not to be angry, the choice not to hate. My father was right. Meditation practices can help people to survive, as they did him.

In Tibet, they have enabled a race of people to survive prison, torture and slave labour. Over a million individuals did not survive, but many of those who did, emerged from their experiences emotionally and spiritually whole. Meditation practices, performed in secret, were often their only resource - the link with their dedication to Buddhism and their devotion to the Dalai Lama.

How frustrating it must have been for their captors! Here was something they could not destroy. I have returned from Tibet even clearer that meditation, far from being simply an antidote to stress, sustains us on deeper and more powerful levels, which most of us never suspect. I also hold the memory of the vortex of energy at the centre of the temple. A little bit of my soul remains there and it's smiling.

Louise Gilmore teaches the Meditation Facilitators Certificate at Sydney's Nature Care College.