Sunlight soft between her thighs.

Three moles like Orion’s Belt there.

How far distant then as now?

Snow flakes and I float down hill.

There was this lady in the airplane sitting in the window seat.  She had her knee up against the wall just when I looked out the window as the plane descended into the Munich airport.  But that’s not what I’m writing about today.  I’m writing about the Tao.

One of the most famous Tao masters is Zhuge Liang, 181-223 AD.  This was the time period in Chinese history of the Three Kingdoms, a time when one dynasty ended and wars were being fought as three contenders tried to establish the next dynasty.  One contender was Liu Bei whose chief political and military strategist was Zhuge Liang.  Zhuge Liang was supposed to be so adept in the ways of the Tao that he could read the stars, the winds, and the water and could understand their portent for the future.  Added to that was the fact that he was a brilliant tactician.  Little wonder that the conflicts in this time period became the stuff of story tellers in market places all over China.  Almost a thousand years later the stories were gathered together in the novel, the Three Kingdoms, and became a Chinese classic.  From the novel one might think that the Tao is more about fortune telling than anything else.

However, the Tao that I want to write about today is the Tao as harmonious flow in life.  You can picture me, a flat-lander from Illinois, slowly walking up the side of a mountain in the Alps.  I am trying to become one with the harmonious flow of breath into my lungs and the physical exertion of climbing.  One of our party, a nurse named Monika, has suggested to me that I should focus on the exhalation.  If I exhale fully, then that will rid my system of the toxins the exertions are building up.  Our guide, Friederich, sets a steady pace for these climbs.  Short steps in an unhurried meter.  But he is like a metronome and only stops when he discovers that virtually everyone else is lagging way behind.  So catching the Tao, catching the harmonious flow for me today is catching the rhythm of breathing and climbing up the incline behind our guide.  I am focused on the Tao.  Gradually I discover that although Friederich’s pace is steady, mine is not the same steady drum beat.  As the ground becomes steeper, my pace changes and the breathing shifts.  Thoughts arise.  I discover the intense desire to pause, to be done with incessant climb.  A blog entry begins to form – a distraction my mind seeks as my body rebels to the uphill walk.

Here’s a good distraction.  Zhuge Liang was so feared as a general that he scared an entire army away.  The story goes that Zhuge Liang was in a walled city but had few troops with him.  An enemy general arrived with his army and laid siege to the city.  The general had marshalled his troops to attack the main gate of the city.  Quickly Zhuge Liang ordered that his carriage be moved to that gate.  He got into the carriage and ordered the gates to be opened.  The enemy general saw the gates open, saw few defenders, but recognized the famous carriage and Zhuge Liang sitting quietly in his carriage.  The general was so convinced that it was a trick designed to pull him into a trap that he immediately ordered his troops to withdraw.  It makes for a great story, but one notices that for some reason, Zhuge Liang had missed reading the stars or the winds or the waters sufficiently well to know that he would be under attack.

My mind returns to the Tao of walking uphill.  Let the breath find itself. Let my foot steps adjust to the terrain – steeper or gentler rise, rocks in the mud to make the footing tricky, wind and snow in my face, road changing direction.  Let the body seek distracting thoughts about Zhuge Liang, the flow of the Tao, and being in harmony with the flow.  It is the natural cycle of a meditation: focus on the walk and breathing, become distracted, refocus, become distracted, refocus.

China, just like Europe, makes saints of its honoured historical figures.  Zhuge Liang has a temple dedicated to him in Chengdu.  Chengdu was the capitol city of Liu Bei’s kingdom.  So in the Wuhou Gardens there is a nested set of temples to Liu Bei, his brothers in arms, and at the back of the compound in a place of great honor, the temple to Zhuge Liang.  I have paid my respects there.  And do so again today.

The Tao that can be described is not the real Tao.  The observations recorded mentally while walking uphill are not the walking uphill itself.