Beyul Pemako

Today I realized that my diet consists almost entirely of oatmeal for breakfast, pizza for lunch, and red beans & rice for dinner (with a cigarette before and after each meal). For all you bums out there in New York City who beg for my change, I know every single one of you knows about Zatarans Red Beans & Rice. For $1.69 you can feed four normal people (assuming you can procure a pot in which to boil water on your hobofires.) That said, you people do not need my money. First of all, you're just going to buy cheap box wine with it and second of all, if you're not going to do that you don't need a handful of Washingtons to live on. You need two Washingtons to feed yourself four meals - you even get change back (upwards of a full quarter, depending on your area grocery store).

The above is entirely unrelated to the real subject matter of this post, but definitely something to take to heart if you ever find yourself short on cash and in need of food. I also hear there's some killer dumpster diving behind Dean & Deluca on Prince and Broadway - just so you know.

So it's late and I should go to bed soon, but I figure it would be inconsiderate of me to not relate the body of this posting to the title (it is neither avant-garde nor hip to fashion entirely unrelated titles for works of creativity - it's an irritating attempt to be artsy and obscure).

On to my main point - I am currently reading this book entitled The Heart of the World by Ian Baker. It's a factual account of Baker's National Geographic funded expedition to be the first to reach and explore the Beyul Pemako region of the Tsangpo River, which curls throughout some of the most torturous, dangerous, and mystic regions of Tibet. Pemako is said to be the origin of the Tibetan legend of Shangri-La, an earthly Buddhist paradise where one can easily achieve enlightenment. It is the most secret and sacred of all Beyul, or hidden-lands, and until recently had never been discovered (aside from Padmasambhava, a highly revered Buddhist monk who wrote of the region 1,000 years ago and left clues to its existence in remote caves throughout Tibet). Beyul Pemako roughly means "The Hidden Land Shaped Like a Lotus" and is said to be home to magical plants and dieties - a place of eternal bliss - paradise on Earth.

I've only read about a quarter of it so far and, needless to say, from page one I was and remain incredibly intrigued. Imagine venturing out to discover one of the last unexplored regions on the entire planet. Waterfalls, snakes, cliffs, mystical scrolls, flowers, legends, mountains, rivers, paradise. I feel immediately drawn to Tibet and have begun thinking of ways by which I could get there and when I could leave. I know it will be a while before I can actually make the journey, but there is something so deeply pure and wild about this place that I literally feel like I must go. I cannot leave this world without having experienced Beyul Pemako.