The Rise Of the Tao

November 5, 2010

Author: Ian Johnson

Source: The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/magazine/07religion-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=general&src=me

Yin Xinhui reached the peak of Mount Yi and surveyed the chaos. The 47-year-old Taoist abbess was on a sacred mission: to consecrate a newly rebuilt temple to one of her religion’s most important deities, the Jade Emperor. But there were as yet no stairs, just a muddy path up to the pavilion, which sat on a rock outcropping 3,400 feet above a valley. A team of workers was busy laying stone steps, while others planted sod, trees and flowers. Inside the temple, a breeze blew through windows that were still without glass, while red paint flecked the stone floor.