EMPTINESS

Have you ever explored the concept of emptiness. It is an aspect of 'non-being' in the Taoist philosophy found in the Tao Te Ching, a wonderful little book written 2500 years ago in China. Please consider the following translation by Stephen Mitchell.11

We join spokes together in a wheel,

but it is the center hole

that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,

but it is the emptiness inside

that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,

but it is the inner space

that makes it livable.

We work with being,

but non-being is what we use.

Lao Tzu

Taoism became a religion, but it started out as advise for leadership and living a simple useful life. I enjoy comparing the 12 versions of the translations that I own. I also have The Tao of Pooh and the Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff which relate the simplicity of Pooh and innocents of Piglet to the same virtues in the Tao te Ching.

If you journal or set aside time to contemplate I hope you will consider the merits and usefulness of emptiness and non-being and let me know what you discover.

Slowly, gently and lightly

I have chosen to entitle my blog with a concept from the Tao te Ching. This ancient book of 81 quick chapters is a wonder to me and I have several translations. I compare the various renderings of each chapter and am fascinated by the different ways to read the original ideograms.
Tai Chi Master Chung-liang Huang at a workshop I attended explained that every time he reads passages from this wonderful book (in the Chinese language, of course) he found different ways of interpreting the ideograms and thus saw the messages in a new light. Thus the wonder and glory of the lessons taught by Lao Tsu.
Some of the main themes of the “The Way of Virtue Book” are the virtue of water, the efficiencies of non-doing (wu-wei) and the purity of an uncarved block. I will probably visit these ideas often as I explore how I have come to understand being and doing in this life.
As I learned in Tai Chi practice… slowly, gently and lightly go with the flow, simplify and laugh often.