The series is presented by the Anglican vicar, Pete Owen-Jones, who researches and attempts to practice a variety of the world's methods of enlightenment and spirituality, which he opines has been lost by those in the West.
The Shaolin Monastery, the ancestral home of all martial arts, and considered to be the most physically demanding phase of Peter's search as he looks into the teachings of the Indian Buddhist, Bodhidharma.
After becoming disenchanted with what he sees as a "branding" of life at the monastery and an inability to achieve the levels of meditation required, he travels to a mountain temple located in Sangwan.
[1] The second episode is located in Allahabad, India and follows Peter's time with the wandering Sadhu holy men who see themselves as mediums between the Gods and humanity.
Under the stewardship of an Australian Coptic hermit, Father Lazarus El Anthony, he is introduced into one of the caves and goes on to spend 21 days there in solitude.