On the way to the summit of Qing Cheng Shan, Daoist Mountain in Sichuan.
道 dao means “the Way”. A long time back, 老子 Laozi wrote in the 道德经 Dao De Jing that we couldn’t really understand the mysterious universe, so we can just call it 道 , or the Way.
The hiker, like myself, was setting out to climb 青城山 Qing Cheng Shan, the Green City Mountain, just outside Chengdu, as part of a Daoist conference held in Chengdu in 2004.
Four years later, this pristine, luscious mountain was to suffer in the Wenchuan earthquake. The rumblings from this disaster could be felt from Beijing to Guangzhou, a shock to all of China. The panda reserve at the bottom of the mountain was seriously impacted, and many Daoist temples were destroyed.
Sadly, there is scientific evidence out which shows that depletion of the water table may have contributed to the cause of this catastrophic quake, much like the recent one in Nepal. Meanwhile, companies like Nestle continue to drill underground, below the water table, to bottle water to sell to people who have no other water source, thus contributing even more to the global water shortage.
When the hiker and myself reached a mountaintop temple, it wasn’t the destination.
Like these fellows, we were just on the way to Dao
道可道，非常道。名可名，非常名。無名天地之始；有名萬物之母。故常無欲，以觀其妙；常有欲，以觀其徼。此兩者，同出而異名，同謂之玄。玄之又玄，衆妙之門
The Dao that can be named is not the eternal Dao
the nameless is the origin of heaven and earth
named, it is the mother of all things
道可道，非常道 dao ke dao fei chang dao –
The Dao that can be named is not the eternal Dao
On the Way to dao
as always, please respect these photos, taken in Qingchengshan, 2004. if you need to share, please credit this site. Thankyou.
