LAMA Yeshe Losal doesn't have the austere demeanour of one used to sensory deprivation. His skin has a coppery shine and when he smiles or laughs, which is often, his eyes dance with fun, animating his perfect, moon-shaped face. None the less, the charismatic abbot of Samye Ling Tibetan Buddhist Centre in Eskdalemuir in the Scottish Borders has experienced 12 years of solitary retreat with only the deep, often painful, recesses of his own mind for company.

As a monk this time included 49 days burrowed away hermit-like in silence and complete darkness in the Himalayas and five years living with nature alone in Woodstock, New York State. While others might have gone crazy, he held on to his sanity to tame many of his excesses and this asceticism has qualified him to teach the practice to more weak-willed westerners.

Thirty-three of his disciples have just returned from three years, three months, and three days away from the world in a similarly taxing retreat. Surrounded but not distracted by the panoramic splendour and raw beauty of the Dumfriesshire hills they refused to leave their separate hideouts, one for 21 men another for 12 women, during the gruelling duration. Turning their back on the rat-race, jobs, homes, families and emotional ties, they each followed a quest for inner peace for nearly 1200 days. The participants came from all walks of life. They included a painter and decorator, a musician, a model, a social worker, a landscape gardener, old, young, the healthy and the seriously ill, one man died during the retreat of a brain tumour. Others included former drug-addicts and drinkers and people tormented by news of sickness and death among relatives outside the retreat.

In this self-imposed exile they spent their days rising - after five hours asleep upright in wooden boxes - to the sound of a gong at just before 4am, and praying and exercising in their rooms before 6.30am. After this they would meet up and take vows together - not to kill, steal, lie, engage in sexual activity, or to eat after lunchtime. Breakfast ensued followed by hours on end of solitary meditation interrupted by the odd tea break and recreation.

This pattern characterised seven days a week so that the concept of time became blurry. For six months they kept a stalwart silence and for a similar period neither washed nor cut their hair or nails. Radio, television, newspapers and visitors were all banned to help them in their spiritual quest for true peace. Major world events - the IRA and Bosnian ceasefires, the royal divorce and closer to home, Dunblane - passed them by.

Lama Yeshe says: ''People get depressed, we suffer and get affected by what is happening around us, there is so much junk to deal with. Sometimes we get so caught up with mundane living, we never see the beautiful flowers that grow within all of us. The retreat tries to still the mind and bring calm and inner peace.'' He knows this to be true. After spending an idyllic childhood in Tibet he fled in the 1950s and took exile in India. When he made his way to the west he turned his back on Buddhism and dived headlong into hippie hedonism.

He said: ''My arrival in Britain coincided with the sixties hippie movement. I met a lot of young people who wore funny clothes, had long hair and took drugs. A lot of aristocrats, actors and pop stars visited Samye Ling. It was a time of total rebellion for me.

''I used to go down to London with my new friends, stay in their houses and go out socialising and partying. We went to parties and I sat smoking and drinking with everyone else. I had a Harley Davidson bike and a Datsun car. I wore all the latest gear - leather jacket, jeans.'' But he admits he wasn't satisfied with this lifestyle. He felt empty, unhappy. He noticed how the rich people he knew were in constant fear of losing their wealth and he began to identify with pain, suffering and poverty. His brother, Akong Tulku Rinpoche, thought to be a reincarnated lama, who runs Samye Ling, was also worried for his welfare. ''Knowing I could not help myself, my brother, or anyone else until I had established some clarity and stability of mind, I felt the best way to do this would be to rid myself of distractions by becoming a monk and going on a retreat,'' says Lama Yeshe. This may have brought

him closer to his own salvation but his culture taught him what to expect. Westerners, he concedes, find the practice much harder.

''In Tibet we go on retreats and even if there is a death in the family we cannot leave. Our families don't expect it or if they do they let us know. Tibetans are told that you have to go through death and sickness. But westerners find this hard. Here if family are sick they tend to come out.''

Of the 45 original entrants, 11 left because of health reasons, either their own, or family members and other problems. Lama Yeshe says: ''We would never intervene to stop someone leaving the retreat. One of my retreatants was the only daughter of a German family. Her father had had a stroke and her mother could not manage. She left and single-handedly looked after them both joyfully. She then came back and finished the end of the retreat.''

Ani Zangmo, a Danish nun on her third retreat at Samye Ling in 11 years, lost both her parents while she was away. She did not leave: ''If I had been the only child, I would have found it quite difficult. But the fact that I was in retreat when they both died quite suddenly, my mother last August, was helpful. The practice teaches you how to react with your emotions. You see thoughts as thoughts and feelings as feelings.'' Even husbands and wives who had separated for their own individual retreats admit the experience made them fresher and closer. Lama Yeshe says: ''We had four women and men couples. The only communication they had with each other was a card at Christmas time and a little present. The experience brings them closer.''

Some accuse retreatants of the ultimate in selfishness, of running away from life. Lama Yeshe disagrees: ''For me the practice of Buddhism is giving your life to help other human beings. But you cannot save people from drowning if you don't learn to swim. If you don't go through these emotional difficulties you may think someone else is imagining them or making them up. Everyone who ever comes out of retreat is stable and calmer. They have less need, less greediness in their own mind. Their jobs and relationships are more meaningful.''

Being alone with themselves means they cannot lean on other things like drugs or drink to mask their problems. They may have to redefine powerful emotions from their childhoods in a therapy process designed to encourage compassion. Lama Yeshe knows there will be some who are not strong enough to continue the retreat but they are not stigmatised or imprisoned.

Others like Rebecca Tisbury, a former model who was earning up to #1500 a day, saw it as their salvation. The young woman was just 22 when she went into retreat and had already had a past life of drugs, drink, and partying.

Now known as Ani Chotso, her Buddhist name, she says: ''When I came in here, I did not feel good inside, I was very depressed. But when I met Lama Yeshe, it was the first time I found that you can find peace in your heart, he is such an excellent teacher. More young people are turning up here all the time. Maybe they are wising up a little bit earlier and looking for something a little bit deeper. You cannot find happiness in an Ecstasy pill, it just affects your nervous system - I know from experience. I will stay a nun always and give myself to my teachers to tame my mind. I feel very happy to have done the retreat.''

Lama Yeshe is contemplating another retreat. For him they hold no fear. And the fact that even more traditionally lily-livered westerners seem to be getting the hang of them makes him chuckle.