The word, Tao, means Path or Way.
A simple path through a garden,
Or the mysterious Way the Cosmos lives Itself into Being.
My own way has never been straight,
which is understandable for there are no straight lines in Tao.
My path has been winding, like a desert trail,
sometimes clear, sometimes swallowed in sand.
Over the years, I’ve worn many names:
I’ve been engineer, pastor, counselor, teacher, author.
I’ve wandered through Christian sanctuaries,
I’ve sat silent in Zen halls and moved with Taoist breezes.
I’ve lived in cities, hiked in deserts and mountains,
run marathons, sat in stillness, and moved for decades in Tai Chi and Qigong: arts of movement and energy that speak what all my words cannot.
And through all that time, a small and ancient poetic book called, The Tao Te Ching
has been my companion, my riddle-maker, and the non-answers to my questions.
Two and a half millennia ago, from within the Chinese mists where history meets legend, the enigmatic teacher, Lao-Tzu emerged and wrote, in his lifetime, only five thousand words.
Eighty-one short poems have become the most translated book in history, save the bible.
Its title means, “The Book of the Way of Natural Virtue.”
When I first encountered it more than forty years ago, I was confounded, confused, stimulated, and fascinated by the flow and wonder to which it pointed.
It spoke of the power of effortless doing;
it extolled softness over rigid thinking;
it knew the power of water’s flow;
it valued simple living over accumulation
it reconciled the seeming opposites of Yin and Yang;
it affirmed the natural power within all life,
including me and you.
and it knew the Still Point at the center of the turning world,
the formless place from which all form arises.
It has been my constant companion for most of my life while I have: struggled and clung. doubted and feared. laughed, surrendered, and at moments, known deep peace.
Looking back, I can see a shape emerging in the twists and curves;
a pattern that sometimes felt like failure now feels inevitable, the unfolding of something true and powerful.
But at the time, it felt like leaping into fog.
I was often accused of running away from life.
If my father were alive, he’d still be waiting for me to get a real job.
Now I see: I wasn’t running away. I was always walking toward what mattered.
There was a long inner battle—
between the young man who wanted approval, comfort, security, certainty, belonging…
and the inner monk who longed for stillness, simplicity, and the wild, unspeakable Mystery.
The monk didn’t win.
He just out waited the rest.
I’ve been formed as much by moments as by mentors.
A University church in Berkeley drew me into my first spiritual way station, showing me the wedding of social action and spirituality.
Being an engineer with the Navy was a discovery of what didn’t work for me.
A seminary honored questions more than answers—
and God was not a subject, but a silence.
But pastoral work didn’t fit –
like being a stray dog at a whistler’s convention.
So I became a counselor and teacher, sort of.
The Tao walked quietly beside me the whole time,
whispering truths the textbooks didn’t name.
My own writing of books on Taoist thought emerged from this path,
but these books were not my destination
and diverted me into the role of “expert author”
a role that didn’t fit.
Now I see these books as footprints I have left and now I no longer need to write the trail.
I want to simply follow it,
into the mystery I first glimpsed so long ago.
Some names shine in my memory:
There was Alan Watts – an outlaw rascal of a teacher with shining eyes and coyote smile who taught me how to dance the Tao –
and Chungliang Huang, Alan’s friend who wrote the final chapter of Alan’s last and best book: Tao, The Watercourse Way and who taught me dancing Tai Chi Chuan.
And there was Edward Abbey—the desert rat who spoke through cacti, dust, and rattlesnakes, buzzards and monkey wrenching rather than pulpits.
I live now with Nancy, my beloved, in the Sonoran Desert,
among the saguaros, wind and javelinas.
There is space here to forget the names of things.
To watch the moon rise without needing to describe it.
I read the poems of Stonehouse and Ryokan – more than enough words for me now.
I speak little, I write some poetry no one will read, and I dance a lot
and watch the nameless birds make nests in chollas.
William Martin 