An excellent training ground for the heart!“The Silk Road Journey” brings serenity and reveals stunning landscapes.

▲ The climate on the Pamir Plateau is extremely harsh; one moment it’s sunny and calm, the next it’s a sandstorm. Navigating the winding, rugged mountain roads is an excellent training ground for the “heart.”

Text and photos / Excerpted from *The Uneasy Silk Road, The Original Silk Road*, written by Chen Zhengru, published by Dayan Culture

Learning from unease

I spent nearly a week lingering in Kashgar before finally heading to the Pamir Plateau. The reason I paused for so long wasn’t because ascending the plateau was particularly difficult or required extensive preparation, but simply because the very name of the place filled me—someone without gear or experience—with immense pressure just hearing it.

After this period, my heart became more attuned. I realized that pressure is also like a snake—but fear of nature isn’t easy to adjust to. All I could do was give myself more time.

Pamir, in the Tajik language, means “Roof of the World.” Of course, this is a judgment from the local perspective. Even if it’s not the actual highest point on Earth, it remains the homeland of countless mountains. Some of the world’s highest and most treacherous mountain ranges all extend from here: including the Himalayas, Karakoram Range, Kunlun Mountains, Tianshan Mountains, and Hindu Kush—all five major mountain chains.

Moreover, it remains the center of global glacial movement to this day. In other words, whether underground or above, this elevated land is one of the most geologically active surfaces on Earth, with an average altitude of four to seven thousand meters. For those of us accustomed to the flatlands and comfort, the cold and altitude sickness pose a challenge. It’s already early autumn, snow could fall at any time, and many areas are covered by glaciers that never melt year-round.

On his journey to retrieve Buddhist scriptures, Xuanzang passed through the Pamirs twice. Whether he went empty-handed or returned laden with treasures, the region was an unavoidable natural barrier. Compared to the life-threatening deserts, Xuanzang described this stretch as: “Among the snowy mountains, the path is far more perilous than traversing gravel fields.”

Different from dangers encountered in the desert, by this point Xuanzang was already surrounded and protected by the escort team dispatched by the King of Gaochang. Even so, when he finally crossed the ice-covered mountain range, he still lost most of his horses and men. No wonder he lamented: “Ah, if it were not for seeking the supreme Dharma for all sentient beings, why would I, bearing the body bestowed by my parents, venture forth?”

These facts made me keep postponing my climb. Just like before setting off from the Central Plains, I felt I needed to prepare more, and then even more. It turns out that we fear not only strangers, but our fear of nature is something we’ve simply forgotten after living too long in the city.

I watched my own inner anxiety, yet had no way to deal with it. After doing all the preparations I possibly could, I still set off with unease. Unexpectedly, this very unease turned out to be a teacher—as long as you’re aware of it.

Calm the mind, dispel delusions

From Kashgar to the largest county on the Pamir Plateau—Tashkurgan, abbreviated as Taxkorgan or “Tax County”—there is an asphalt road leading directly there. The 400-kilometer journey isn’t difficult for modern people. Just gather four people and you can charter a vehicle, arriving in about half a day.

Carrying a vague worry about altitude sickness, I packed extra medication and brought more cash, in case I couldn’t acclimate and couldn’t find travel companions—so I could hire a car down the mountain alone. What I never expected was that instead of battling altitude sickness upon arrival, I was knocked out by motion sickness before even encountering it.

I shared a ride in a small passenger-cargo truck suited to the local road conditions. Since the driver had to complete the round trip of 800 kilometers within one day, he sped along the rugged, winding mountain roads. During the six-hour drive, I was constantly dizzy, busy dealing with motion sickness. Only for a few seconds did I catch glimpses of the towering mountains and rushing waters outside, and a few snow-capped peaks close at hand. Bumping along, before I knew it, we had arrived at the county town elevated 3,000 meters above sea level. When the driver announced, “We’re here!” everyone breathed a sigh of relief and just wanted to find a bed to lie down on.

Just as I was almost forgetting about altitude sickness from being so dizzy, that imagined terror actually arrived. The moment I got out of the car, I felt gripped by a sense of powerlessness. My luggage suddenly felt a thousand times heavier. I struggled to climb up to the guesthouse, which was only two stories high, gasping for breath with every step—no, several gasps for each step. I had to take multiple inhalations just to climb one stair. My body simply wouldn’t obey, and I was instantly so frightened I forgot all about the motion sickness. I thought in panic, “Altitude sickness has hit!”

Almost surrendering, I slowly lay down, bracing for the horror to come. The feeling was probably no different from lying on an operating table.

Strangely enough, after I gave up resisting and lay there for a while, I checked myself and realized nothing had happened. No headache, my breathing had returned to normal, and the previous motion sickness symptoms had completely vanished. Overjoyed, I tried to sit up in super slow motion—and what greeted me was a beautiful landscape painting.

It turned out the guesthouse and the county itself are surrounded by the plateau, so every window became a painting. The mountain scenery here is quite different from the jagged, intense Tianshan Mountains we had passed. It’s relatively open and gentle. Covered and nourished by snow, the mountains themselves look cooler and more approachable. There’s also richer greenery at the foot of the mountains. The sun is dazzling, but the temperature is moderate. In such a pleasant environment, all fears were forgotten—until my phone rang and I had to speak, reminding me again of the thin air here.

Then I understood: the best way to adapt to altitude sickness is to do and think nothing—not even speak, because opening your mouth means not having enough oxygen. The air here is so thin it’s only enough for you to sit quietly or move in slow-motion like a spacewalk.

In other words, for newcomers, this place is truly a natural Zen meditation retreat. The thin air forces you to slow down and relax. Any movement or haste will immediately leave you breathless—but sitting quietly brings perfect peace and comfort. Now this is interesting. Within this unavoidable “stillness” and “slowness,” I had the first opportunity to truly observe my own body and mind.

Have you ever carefully observed your own breathing? What kinds of feelings do its speed, slowness, depth, and shallowness bring you? Conversely, when you have certain feelings, observe how your breathing changes in speed, slowness, depth, and shallowness. We’ll quickly find that feelings and breathing are entirely aligned. When you feel anxious or angry, your expression might be disguised, but your breathing won’t lie—it will definitely become short and shallow. And vice versa.

That’s exactly why the creators of Chinese characters represented breathing with the ideogram “息” (xī). “息” means breath—and it is the heart/mind itself. When our body and our heart are together, that is the source of life—“息” (breath); if we keep chasing and constantly kindling fires in our hearts, that is the beginning of destruction—“熄” (extinguish), burning the heart itself.

Because they understood this principle, the ancients taught us to use breath observation to regulate the mind. Often, it’s not easy to notice our own minds, but we can observe our breathing. By understanding its speed, slowness, depth, and shallowness, we learn what state or frequency the mind is in. Once we clearly understand, we can then further adjust the breath to bring the mind into a balanced state.

When the mind is balanced, the breath is balanced, and we become part of nature. Our body and mind have the ability to reach equilibrium with our environment—we don’t need to worry needlessly. Nature has its own rules. As long as we recognize that our body and mind are part of nature, and as long as we align with natural laws, both body and mind will naturally be at ease, and breathing will flow smoothly. The body and mind have their own wisdom—we just need to give them time.

Having understood this, I quietly examined my own unease from the past week. Once my mind settled, worries instantly transformed into enlightenment. Let’s observe how I dealt with unease over the past week:

1. Constantly postponing: avoidance;
2. Asking around everywhere: using others’ experiences to shift anxiety;
III. Constantly Stockpiling Supplies: Trying to Alleviate Inner Anxiety Through External Preparations.

After reviewing everything, I realized that in the face of anxiety, I had done everything possible to seek external solutions—yet I never once thought to trust my own body, nor did I accept my anxiety. See? Fear and distrust go hand in hand. It turned out that I not only didn’t trust others—I fundamentally didn’t trust myself.

In the end, none of those external preparations were of any use. The only thing that actually worked was completely letting go of the anxiety. And what’s the prerequisite for letting go? Acceptance. Surrender. That’s the only thing we can truly do when facing nature. When I lay down, resigned, and mentally prepared to endure all the pain, the pain suddenly had no ground to stand on.

▲ The Pamir Plateau in late summer and early autumn is a world composed of vast stretches of white and yellow. The white comes from the ancient glaciers atop distant peaks and the clouds so close they almost feel within reach; the yellow comes from the grass in the valleys beginning to turn golden, as well as the yellow earth at the foot of the glaciers.

The Root of the Snake

At this point, I finally understood: the origin of the snake isn’t that we’ve misinterpreted the world—it’s that we’ve fundamentally misinterpreted ourselves. We deeply believe we are unsafe, so the moment we open our eyes to the world each day, we scramble to do something to distract ourselves from this anxiety. We believe the key to relieving anxiety lies outside, not inside—and so, how can we ever sit still?

We set a “safe” standard for ourselves and then chase after it day and night, moment by moment. From this perspective, all those things we think of as striving, life goals, and so on—are, at their root, driven by fear.

The terrifying part is that this pursuit is endless. Because no matter what we attain, we keep chasing harder out of fear of losing it.

The end is the beginning. As long as our starting point is “deeply believing we are unsafe,” we will inevitably head toward anxiety—no matter how much effort we put into avoiding it.

We unconsciously chase outward, and our life goals ultimately boil down to bringing ourselves and our loved ones to the “safe zone” we’ve set for ourselves. If we fail to reach it, it means our lives are still failing, and we need to double down on self-training in survival skills. In the end, life itself becomes a battle—we’re exhausted, yet we don’t know why.

Precisely because of this combative mindset, we position ourselves in opposition to our environment, turning it into an imaginary enemy. We believe the environment is constantly threatening the “safety” standards we’ve set, so the environment becomes the snake. The person walking at night with a lantern mistakes a rope for a snake because they don’t trust their own safety. The Han and Uyghur communities see each other’s existence as venomous snakes because they don’t trust their own safety. I saw altitude sickness as the enemy because I didn’t trust my own safety. Due to our inner fears, we step by step turn imaginary enemies into real adversaries—and then complain about why there’s so much conflict in the world.

But the truth is, though we are fragile, we have each other. When I choose to become part of nature, nature accepts me and nourishes me. This acceptance awakens the instincts I need to adapt to the environment, making me realize that our minds and bodies are inherently wise and powerful—not nearly as weak as I once thought. And when I learn to accept anxiety instead of trying to change it, the anxiety simply disappears. When I learn to see the countless “Maimitis” along the way with genuine equality, they all become the little girl and her mother on the train who carried me all the way here.

So, the more one chants about fighting, the more their heart trembles; the more one goes with the flow of the environment, the more at ease their heart becomes. Who do we choose to be?

“Are you China’s dog, or Pakistan’s?”

Having experienced this suffocating sense of powerlessness, I finally understood just how precious the treasures Xuanzang sought through untold hardships really are. No wonder every time he found scrolls or manuscripts lost along the journey, he would rather have the entire expedition halt than press on—sending people back to copy and recover them before continuing. He was determined to bring back to the Han lands the complete methods for understanding the world—that is, the Buddha’s precious teachings on recognizing the rise and fall of the snake.

According to research, when Xuanzang returned via the Pamirs and entered the plateau, he followed the ancient Wakhan Corridor eastward before reaching Taxkorgan, which now belongs to China. Today, the Wakhan Corridor has been almost forgotten, while just a few kilometers away, the Khunjerab Pass on the China-Pakistan border is bustling with activity. After finally acclimating to the high-altitude environment, I decided to hitch another ride there—the closest I could get, with my limited abilities, to the starting point of Xuanzang’s eastward return.

The Pamir Plateau in late summer and early autumn is a world composed of vast stretches of white and yellow. The white comes from the ancient glaciers atop distant peaks and the clouds so close they almost feel within reach; the yellow comes from the grass in the valleys beginning to turn golden, as well as the yellow earth at the foot of the glaciers. If anything is moving within it, it must be livestock. In this vast expanse, humans are almost negligible—yet also the most artificial and out-of-place beings.

The county town is two hundred kilometers from the Khunjerab Pass. Though the distance isn’t long, the elevation rises sharply by another two thousand meters within that short span, entering the snowline zone. Not long after setting off, we officially entered a world of ice and snow. When we left the county town, the temperature was still around ten degrees—but here, it’s near freezing. In the desolate, uninhabited plateau, the majestic “national gate” stands towering among the glaciers, the most prominent human-made mark on the plateau.

For humans, survival here is nearly impossible, hence the local saying: “No birds fly in the sky, no grass grows on the ground, the wind blows stones around, and there’s never enough oxygen.” The moment I stepped out of the car, I shivered from the cold. I wondered—if this glacier looked the same as the one Xuanzang saw back then? Xuanzang said, if it weren’t for the pursuit of the Dharma, who would come here? He never dreamed that in this era, so many people would actually want to.

Tourists, of course, don’t come here for the Dharma—they come to satisfy the vanity of being able to boast to friends and family about having “been there, done that” at the southwestern edge of the nation. So the moment they step out, everyone rushes to take photos with the “national gate” and the Pakistani soldiers on the other side. Perhaps because they’re too excited, some soon feel nauseous or get headaches and head back to the car to rest early.

I quietly watched the exhilarated crowd—then struck down by altitude sickness—and suddenly felt a wave of absurdity toward the majestic “national gate” standing in the icy wilderness. Despite the harsh conditions, people stubbornly cling to it as a symbol of safety, and they insist on distinguishing between “yours” and “mine.” The red five-star flag flutters fiercely in the wind, silently declaring something. The border markers and barbed wire further warn: this is the dividing line. What’s the difference between a national border and the way schoolchildren love to draw lines between themselves and the kid next to them? Like children, we rush to guard against each other, forgetting that we’re all sharing the same table. If the table could speak, it would surely find us laughably foolish.

Just as I was chuckling to myself, a small stray dog somehow squeezed through the barbed wire and came up to me. It didn’t bring anything nice—so I gave it the dry rations I had, and it happily nibbled away. In a place like this, even dogs must struggle to survive. I patted it gently with a heavy heart and asked softly, “Are you China’s dog, or Pakistan’s?”