ahhhhh ... Shangri-La

In 1933, a time when people still read books, James Hilton's "Lost Horizon" captured a wide attention with its depiction of the mythical Shangri-La, a harmonious, Buddhist-tinged valley deep in the Himalayas. The book was powerful and popular enough so that even today "Shangri-La" remains a touchstone word -- an evocation of what life might be like if it were not so riven with strife and ego-tripping and ... well, all the shit that anyone might face when getting up in the morning.

It is interesting that the popularity of the book and the embracing of "Shangri-La" seemed unconcerned with any Buddhist trappings or overtones. Spiritual nit-pickers were left in the dust. Anyone could envision such a gem because they already had had such a vision, however wispy or wistful: Shangri-La was part and parcel of the human dream of getting-out-from-under or being-home-at-last. Buddhist, Christian, garbage-collector or school teacher ... Shangri-La went beyond all those piffling matters. Shangri-La was the ahhhhhh of things and who needs spiritual or monetary or any other sort of trappings in order to know an ahhhhhhh when it arrives?

A part of the mind rebels where Shangri-La enters: This is utopian, idealist, unrealistic childishness; I'm an adult, after all; I've been around the block enough times to know ... well, all the scarred and bruised and empirical stuff I know ... so don't run your fairy-dust bullshit on me! But of course the more the empirical, controlling and worldly-wise information asserts itself, the more Shangri-La whispers and beckons: It is as if knowing were the very soil from which the unknown sprang up ... the ahhhhh that anyone might know in a sneeze or kiss ... the place and time where, at last, a person might "lay my burden down" (and not drop dead in order to do it).

I think many people might view a mirage with some disdain. A mirage is the hallucinatory oasis in a hot desert, a vision of something that isn't there and yet is compelling in its unreal reality. A mirage is a fantasy and no one wants to lead this life based on a fantasy, right?

But I think disdain is not the right approach. To disdain something is to give it substance and credibility, so in order to disdain a fantasy, in order to bring Shangri-La to heel, you must, of necessity, accede to the Shangri-La you disdain. It's sort of like Buddhists who mistakenly run around trumpeting that "there is no ego." This really is the dog chasing its tail.

Better than disdain, I think, might be to imagine a Shangri-La as if it were a beloved pony. Give it a paddock to run around in. Give it breathing room. Let it gambol and frolic and eat from your hand. Watch and admire and love it. God, what a beautiful creature! The stately head, the muscled flanks ... God, what a wondrous creation! Let its warm and warming presence fill every corner, every cell of this being ... Shangri-La!

But watch this pony with all the gimlet attention a mother might bring to her babe. Watch and love and watch some more. No need to chase and plead ... just watch. What beautiful flanks, what wondrous speed, what astounding grandeur! What...a...fucking... miracle! Just watch. Be patient and watch.

And the strange fact is that in this watching, there is no need for hiding Shangri-La in the distant hills. There is no need to track this elusive ahhhhhh. No wily traps need to be set, nor tears shed, nor longings watered, nor bliss pacified with sacrifices.

In this watching, the Shangri-La anyone might desperately seek no longer requires hunting. The Shangri-La that was sought will simply come to you. Distances are unnecessary. Home comes home.

It's no big deal.

It's just ahhhhh.

And it's way warmer than the Himalayas.