The Use of Emptiness
Read the full text in our reader
三十輻共一轂，當其無，有車之用。埏埴以為器，當其無，有器之用。鑿戶牖以為室，當其無，有室之用。故有之以為利，無之以為用。
Thirty spokes share one hub; where it is empty, there is the cart’s use. Knead clay to make a vessel; where it is empty, there is the vessel’s use. Cut doors and windows to make a room; where it is empty, there is the room’s use. So what is there serves as benefit; what is not there serves as use.
A short chapter of concrete images (wheel, vessel, room) used to argue that emptiness itself does the work.
Usefulness lives in the hollow. The hub's empty center is what lets the wheel turn, and the space inside the pot is what holds the food; the solid parts only give the empty part its shape.
Heshang Gong reads the chapter on a second level too: the room and the vessel are figures for the practitioner's own body, emptied of passion and desire so the spirit can return and dwell there, the way use dwells in an empty space.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Tao Te Ching 11 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
You are reading a page of the Tao Te Ching — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Tao Te Ching 11 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/tao/11/