The first Noble Truth

and cycling around Shangri-La

Originally published at maptia.com.

Back in December 2008, just before my daughter was born, I travelled to China and spent one week in Yunnan province going north from Dali to Shangri-la.

Shangri-La is the capital city of Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, in Yunnan province, China. The population consists of mostly ethnic minorities, about 1/3 are tibetans, then Lisu, Han, Naxi and other smaller ethnic groups.

Walking around the town I meet Joshua an american writer for the Lonely Planet. Because he flew in, he’s struggling with altitude sickness (Shangri-La is 3280m), so we agree to meet later.

I visit a nice small temple near the old town…

Later I meet Joshua again and he introduces me to Ian he’s english from London.

On the last day’s morning the three of us meet while the sun is still behind the mountains. Because it’s freezing we decide to have a drink before starting the day. We cycle into town and find a place where we can get some Yak butter tea. It tastes like salt and fat dissolved in hot water, but I like it.

We cycle whole day, enjoying the vastness of the surrounding mountains, exploring small villages with tibetan style houses, few hills, and we relax at a hot springs.

Before sunset we arrive close to a monastery and from afar we hear drumming and horn sounds.

There is a ritual going on — a fire, some monks nearer to it, one of them has a yellow hat and he’s ringing a bell, and shaking a like in a trans state. They are trying to get him closer to the fire — he’s carrying something like a kettle.

Everything happens very fast — he throws the kettle into the fire , there is a huge explosion — I feel the wave and my ears are blown away, I feel my eyes closed, and a thought: “am I dead?”.

I’m not dead, but for a moment I believed I am. I walk around and inside the monastery, looking at monks and people laughing & smiling and I realize that I am not happy.

The first Noble Truth teaches that there is suffering — Dukkha (but people don’t usually acknowledge it).