Ba Mao Qiong Zong

Deep in the no-man’s land of Qiangtang lies a sacred place called the “Gate to Heaven” — Ba Mao Qiong Zong.

Fewer than two hundred people in the world have ever reached it. At nearly five thousand meters above sea level, the air is so clear it seems scentless; the wilderness is boundless; the wind chants like a hymn on repeat. Everything here turns inward: colors are bleached by snow and salt into austere simplicity; sounds are stretched thin by cold and distance. You can’t help but slow your steps, as if entering a temple with no threshold.

People say that many wild animals, at the end of their lives, come here alone, lie down quietly, and wait to return to dust.

It’s as if they hear a certain call: at the seam between heaven and earth, they complete the oldest homecoming.

There is no cry, only the breathing that eases to a slower rhythm; no ritual, only snow grains and wind standing in silent witness. We often think farewells require words, yet at Ba Mao Qiong Zong, silence itself is the most solemn prayer. Life does not vanish; it is returned to the order from which the world began.

Standing upon this high, cold expanse, the heart grows soft and heavy at once. Heavy, because of powerlessness: you know you cannot save a feather as it falls, or pull back a tear that slips in time.

Soft, because of awe: you see how everything completes itself — the birth and melting of snow, the gathering and dispersing of clouds, the mountains keeping watch in the light without a sound. The gains and losses that entangle us in the mortal world are carried off by thin air, leaving only a simpler question: when the end arrives, in what posture do you wish to return yourself?

The wind goes on, as if chanting a slow sutra for all beings. The sun traces a low arc across the sky, edging the far salt lake with a trembling rim of silver. The yak’s hoofprints are frozen sharp, like time stamping a seal on white paper; the shadows of the antelope are so light that a single thread of light could bear them. Suddenly you understand: nature does not proclaim meaning by thunder. It writes the same lesson, again and again, in minimal lines — arising, abiding, changing, ceasing; gathering, scattering, and gathering once more. Every breath signs for this law, ancient and ever new.

If there is truly a “Gate to Heaven,” perhaps it leads not to a distant shore, but back to ourselves: to teach us, while life is still warm, to embrace calm — to learn that love and farewell are not at odds.

May we, before we leave, like the creatures of this plateau, find a quiet ground of our own and gently set body and mind upon it; and may we, when we reach the end, still keep a tenderness for the world, so that even the wind, passing by us, will wish to slow its steps.