Verse 11 - Living from the Void

[Eva Libre]

11th Verse

 

Thirty spokes converge upon a single hub;

it is on the hole in the center that

the use of the cart hinges.

 

Shape clay into a vessel;

it is the space within that makes it useful.

Carve fine doors and windows,

but the room is useful in its emptiness.

 

The usefulness of what is

depends on what is not.

 

 

Contemplation/Meditation Verse

The usefulness of what is

          depends on what is not.

Do The Tao Now

 

Spend at least 15 minutes today living in the void that is you.  Ignore your body and your surroundings; let go of your material identifications such as your name, age, ethnicity, job title, and so on; and just be in that space between -- that void which is absolutely crucial to your very existence.  Look out at your world from "what is not" and appreciate that your very usefulness as a material being is completely dependent upon this void.  Work today on befriending this "what is not" part of you.

 

Source - Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life (Living the Wisdom of the Tao)

by Dr Wayne W Dyer

[Eva Libre]

Advice from Dr Dyer -

 

Your imperceptible center 

is your vital essence. 

 

Take the time to shift your attention to the so-called nothingness that is your essence.  What does it beckon you toward ?  The space emanates from the invisibleness that's responsible for all of creation, and the thoughts that emerge from your inner self are pure love and kindness.

 

Your inner nonbeingness isn't a separate part of you, so seek that mysterious center and explore it.  Perhaps think of it as a space contained by your physical self, from which all of your thoughts and perceptions flow into the world.  Rather than trying to have positive, loving notions, simply be sensitive to the essence of your beingness.  The way of the Tao is to allow rather than to try.  Thus, allow that essential center of pure love to activate your unique usefulness.  Allow thoughts that emerge to enter your physical self and then leave.  Allow and let go, just like your breathing.  And vow to spend some time each day just being attentive to the awesome power of your imperceptible vital essence.

[Eva Libre]

Advice from Dr Dyer -

 

Practice the power of silence every day. 

 

There are many individual ways of doing this.  For example, meditation is a wonderful tool to help you feel the bliss that accompanies your connection to your inner void, that place where you experience the way of the Tao.  Vow to be more aware of the "placeless place" within you, where all of your thoughts flow outward.  find your way to enter the space within you that is clean, pure, and in harmony with love.

 

The difference between saints and the rest of us isn't that they have loving, pure beliefs and we don't; rather, they function solely from their essence, where the way of the Tao flows invisibly through their physical being.  This is the primary purpose of learning to meditate, or to be in the silence, inviting your essence to reveal itself and allowing you to live in the void.

[Eva Libre]

From Vimala McClure - The Tao of Motherhood

11

EMPTY SPACES

 

The empty spaces make

wholeness.  The emptiness in a

pot makes it valuable; you can

fill it with food or water.

 

Pay attention to what isn't.  Listen

for what your child does not say.

Observe what she does not do.

 

Similarly, know that your child

uses your empty spaces.  What

you do not say resounds.  What 

you do not do impresses.

 

[Eva Libre]

From Tao Te Ching - The Definitive Edition by Jonathan Star

 

Wu is nothingness, emptiness, non-existence

 

Thirty spokes of a wheel all join at a common hub

          yet only the hole at the center

          allows the wheel to spin

Clay is molded to form a cup

          yet only the space within

          allows the cup to hold water

Walls are joined to make a room

          yet only by cutting out a door and a window

          can one enter the room and live there

 

Thus, when a thing has existence alone

          it is mere dead weight

Only when it has wu, does it have life

[Eva Libre]

From Richard Grossman - The Tao of Emerson

From James Legge - The Texts of Taoism, 1891

 

The thirty spokes unite in the one nave;

          but it is on the empty space

          that the use of the wheel depends.

Clay is fashioned into vessels;

          but it is on their empty hollowness

          that their use depends

Doors and windows are cut out to form an apartment;

          but it is on the empty space within

          that its use depends.

Therefore, what has a positive existence serves

          for profitable adaptation.

And what has not that for actual usefulness.

 

From the Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson - "Compensation"

 

An inevitable dualism bisects nature;

If the south attracts, the north repels.

 

What we gain in power is lost in time.

If the good is there, so is the evil.

If the affinity, so the repulsion.

If the force, so the limitation.

All things are double, one against another.

 

Whilst the world is thus dual,

     so is every one of its parts.

The entire system of things

     gets represented in every particle.

[Eva Libre]

Tao Te Ching - The Classic Book of Integrity and The Way by Lao-Tzu

A New Translation by Victor H Mair
based on the recently discovered Ma-Wang-Tui Manuscripts

11
(55)

     Thirty spokes coverage on a single hub,

          but it is in the space where there is nothing

               that the usefulness of the cart lies.

     Clay is molded to make a pot,

          but it is in the space where there is nothing

               that the usefulness of the clay pot lies.

     Cut out doors and windows to make a room,

          but it is in the spaces where there is nothing

               that the usefulness of the room lies.

Therefore,

     Benefit may be derived from something,

          but it is in nothing that we find usefulness.

[Eva Libre]

Lynn's - Daode jing of Laozi

 

Thirty spokes share one hub.  It is exactly where there is nothing of it that the functionality of the wheel resides.

 

That the hub can unite and control the thirty spokes depends on the nothingness there.  Because it consists of nothingness, it can accommodate anything.  This is how the solitary[gua] can unite and control the many. (1)

 

Mix clay with water to make a vessel.  It is exactly where there is nothing of it that the functionality of the vessel resides.  Cut doors and windows to make a room.  It is exactly where there is nothing of it that the functionality of the room resides.  Therefore this is how what is there provides benefit and how what is not there provides functionality.

 

That wood, clay, and wall can form these three things [wheel, vessel, room] depends in each case on achieving functionality [yong] through nothingness [wu].  In other words, [as for nothingness,] (2) that what is there can be of benefit always depends on its achievement of functionality through what is not there.

 

 

Text, in Italics above, is Wang Bi's commentary.

The notes below, are from the translator, Richard John Lynn -

(deb's note - "section" is used for verse in these notes.)

 

(1)  Instead of gua (the solitary), the base text has shi, which could only make sense as a function word, "really/truly":  "This is how it can really [shi] unite and control the many."  Used as a substantive, "This is how the solid/substantial [shi] can unite and control the many", it would contradict both Wang's overall argument and the text of the Laozi.  Tao Hongqing suggests that shi is a scribal mistake for gua (the solitary), the graphs being similar.  See Tao's Du zhuzi zhaji (Reading notes on the philosophers), 6. Lou Yulie agrees with Tao and points out a similar passage in the Ming tuan (Clarifying the Judgments) section of Wang's Zhouyi lueli (General Remarks on the Changes of the Zhou), in theYijing (Classic of changes): "The many cannot govern the many: that which governs the many is the most solitary [gua], the One]" (Lynn, The Classic of Changes, 25; see Lou,Wang Bi ji jiaoshi, 27 n. 2 and 591).  It is significant that in section 11 Wang alludes to the ideal ruler in terms of the unity of the Dao: the ruler should act out of nothing-- as if he were not there -- thus unifying his people and providing functionality to the state in the same way that the empty hub unifies and provides functionality to the wheel.

(2)  It is likely that wuzhe (as for nothingness) is an interpolation.  See Lou, Wang Bi jijiaoshi, 27 n. 4.  

[Eva Libre]

From Stephen Mitchell - tao te ching - A New English Version

 

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.

From Byron Katie - A Thousand Names For Joy 

- Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are

 

 

We work with being

but non-being is what we use.

 

As the mind realizes itself, it stops identifying with its own thoughts.  This leaves a lot of open space.  A mature mind can entertain any idea; it is never threatened by opposition or conflict, because it knows that it can't be hindered.  When it has no position to defend or identity to protect, it can go anywhere.  There's never anything to lose, because there's no thing that exists in the first place.  Laughter pours out of it, and tears of gratitude, from the experience of its own nature.

Everything appears to come into me.  I watch and witness what comes out of me.  I'm the center of everything. I hear opinions and concepts, and because there's no I to identify as, I take it all in as being, and everything that comes out of the experience has been bathed in non-being, has been deleted and put out again.  It comes in, it synthesizes, it's deleted, and what goes out is non-being appearing as being.  When you realize that you're no one, you're comfortable with everyone, no matter how desperate or depraved they may seem.  There's no suffering I can't enter, knowing that it's already resolved, knowing that it's always myself I'm meeting.

As we question what we believe, we come to see that we're not who we thought we were.  The transformation comes out of the infinite polarity of mind, which we've rarely experience, because the I know mind has been so much in control.  And as we inquire, our world changes, because we're working with the projector -- mind -- and not with what is projected.  We lose our entire world, the world as we understood it.  And each time we inquire, reality becomes kinder.

The part that is doing the questioning is the the neutral part of the mind, the center, which can take one polarity of mind to the other.  This neutral part offers the confused, stuck, I-know polarity the option to open itself to the polarity of the mind that holds the sane, clear, loving answers that make sense to the I-know mind.  The neutral part doesn't have a motive or desire, a should or a shouldn't; it's a bridge for this polarity to cross over.  And as the I-know mind is educated, it dissolves into the polarity of wisdom.  What left is absolutely sane, undivided, and free.  Of course, all this is just a metaphor, since there is only one mind.  The bottom line is that when the mind is closed, the heart is closed; when the mind is open, the heart is open.  So if you want to open your heart, question your thinking.

Inquiry always leaves you with less of a story.  Who would you be without your story ?  You never know until you inquire.  There is no story that is you or that leads to you.  Every story leads away from you.  You are what exists before all stories.  You are what remains when the story is understood.

Life on the other side of inquiry is so simple and obvious that it can't be imagined beforehand.  Everything is seen to be perfect, just the way it is.  Hope and faith aren't needed in this place.  Earth turned out to be the heaven I was longing for.  There's such abundance here, now, always.  There's a table.  There's a floor.  There's a rug on the floor.  There's a window.  There's a sky.  A sky !  I could go on and on celebrating the world I live in.  It would take a lifetime to describe this moment, this now, which doesn't even exist except as my story.  And isn't it fine ?  The wonderful thing about knowing who you are is that you're always in a state of grace, a state of gratitude for the abundance of the apparent world.  I overflow with the splendor, the generosity of it all.  And I didn't do anything for it but notice.

The litmus test for self-realization is a constant state of gratitude.  This gratitude is not something you can look for or find.  It comes from another direction, and it takes you over completely.  It's so vast that it can't be dimmed or overlaid.  The short version would be "mind in love with itself".  It's the total acceptance and consumption of itself reflected back at the same moment in the central place that is like fusion.  When you live your life from that place of gratitude, you've come home.

 

[Eva Libre]

Dr Dyer's Essay on Verse 11 -

 

In this thought-provoking 11th verse of the Tao Te Ching, Lao-tzu cites the value of an emptiness that often goes unnoticed.  He explains this idea with images of the hole in the center of a hub, the space within a clay vessel, and the interior area of a room, concluding that "the usefulness of what is depends on what is not".  In other words, separated parts lack the usefulness that the center contributes.  This passage invites us to live from the invisible void that's at the core of our being; that is, to change how we think about it.

 

Consider the paradoxical term nonbeing as your ponder your own beingness.  You're comprised of bones, organs, and rivers of fluids that are encapsulated by a huge sheet of skin molded to hold you together.  There's definitely a distinctive quality of beingness that is "you" in this arrangement of bodily parts -- yet if it were possible to disassemble you and lay all of your still-functional physical components on a blanket, there would be no you.  Although all of the parts would be there, their usefulness depends on a nonbeingness, or in Lao-tzu's words, "what is not".

 

Imagine lining up the walls of the room you're presently in, with all of the elements present: Without the space of the center, it's no longer a room, even though everything else is the same.  A clay pot is not a pot without the emptiness that the clay encapsulates.  A house is not a house if there is no inner space for the exterior to enclose.

 

A composer once told me that the silence from which each note emerges is more important than the note itself.  He said that it's the empty space between the notes that literally allows the music to be music -- if there's no void, there's only continuous sound.  You can apply this subtle awareness to everything that you experience in your daily life.  Ask yourself what makes a tree, a tree.  The bark ?  The branches ?  The roots ?  The leaves ?  All of these things are what is.  And all of them do not constitute a tree.  What's needed to have a tree is what is not -- an imperceptible, invisible life force that eludes your five senses.  You can cut and carve and search the cells of a tree endlessly and you'll never capture it.

 

In the first line of this verse, that hole in the center that's necessary for the movement of the wheel can be likened to the void that's vital for you to move through in your life.  You have an inner state of nonbeing at your center, so take note of what is visible (your body) as well as the invisible essence that your existence depends upon . . . the Tao part of you.