Chapter 11 · The Use of Emptiness

Tao Te Ching (Legge, 1891) · chapter title added by Learn the Dao

Learn the Dao: a quiet practice for learning the thing that can’t be known.

The chapter’s first line

The thirty spokes unite in the one nave;

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This chapter in plain modern English — David Kooi’s rendering ↓

The thirty spokes unite in the one nave; but it is on the empty space (for the axle), that the use of the wheel depends. Clay is fashioned into vessels; but it is on their empty hollowness, that their use depends. The door and windows are cut out (from the walls) 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.

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Clay is — missed fashioned into vessels

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Chapter 11, in a second rendering

The Empty Hub

Dao De Kooi — an original rendering by David Kooi

Thirty spokes meet at the hub, but it's the empty hole in the middle that lets the wheel turn. You shape clay into a pot, but it's the hollow that makes it a pot. You cut doors and windows into a room, but it's the space you live in. So the stuff is what gives you something to work with. The emptiness is what makes it useful. Worth remembering next time you're tempted to fill every gap.

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