11
early morning
the teacup waits for tea
full of empty
Lesson 11
Emptiness at the center
is useful.
The wheel circles
around its empty hub.
The cup encloses
an empty space for your tea.
The walls of a room
surround its inhabitants.
In touch with
our own empty center,
we can find our true use.
Number Eleven: Emptiness
What is the essential part of a wagon wheel
It is not the spokes or the rim
While the rim and the spokes are very important
the essential part
is the empty space in the middle of the hub
around which the wheel revolves
The essential part of the cup
is not the clay out of which it is molded
but the empty space in the middle that we fill with our drink
The essential part of a room
is not the floor or walls or ceiling
but the space within it that we inhabit
We build and mold and hew
but it is the empty space within that gives a thing its use
NUMBER ELEVEN
Thirty spokes surround one nave, the usefulness of the wheel is always in that empty innermost.
You fashion clay to make a bowl, the usefulness of the bowl is always in that empty innermost.
You cut outdoors and windows to make a house, their usefulness to a house is always in their empty space.
Therefore profit comes from external form, but usefulness comes from the empty innermost.
Isabella Mears, The Tao Teh King, A Tentative Translation from the Chinese, William McLellan, Glascow, 1916.
Number Eleven (commentary) What is the secret of emptiness?
Usually, we are concerned with all sorts of things: building things, using things, exploiting things.
We are thing-making animals.
Step away from all that for a moment. Instead, let us consider empty space.
The space that is in and around all those things.
The space that makes them work.
A wheel needs that space in the center, around which it can revolve.
A cup needs that space within it to hold our tea.
A room needs the space within its walls and ceiling to enclose us.
Seeing both the things and the spaces around and within them, you begin to understand their use and appreciate how things interact with and require emptiness more deeply.
Lao Tsu asks us to let our life revolve, like the spokes and the rim of a wheel, around the empty quiet space within us.
Tangent and Tool #11, Thoughts on stillness: A question and a reflection: “What do I know about my inner emptiness?” We think that to be alive means to fill the space around us with yourselves, our actions, our words, our movements. And the space inside of us, we fill that up too. We fill our mind with thoughts, we fill our heart with longings, we fill our bellies with too much nourishment. The long, slow process of emptying out all of that stuff is a tough one. We are so attached to the impact we make on the world that we think that our impact is who we are. We are so attached to listening to our thoughts, feelings and hungers, that we have lost the process of just being still. But, if we are to face the real future stresses that climate change and social disorder will bring us, we will need a time-out, a period without thoughts, feelings and hungers clamoring for our attention. Stillness and emptiness can replenish our soul.