Friday, February 29, 2008

The use of nothingness

I do not know anything about Lao Tzu & I have not googled him in case my illusions are destroyed

I imagine him as a very elderly man with a twinkle in his eye. Reciting his poem to an audience of wide-eyed children

En-fellow thirty staves, you have a wheel:
But the worth of the wheel derives from the hole in its hub.

Take clay: a lump of muck until it’s moulded
To the hollow worth of a pot or a water tub

The walled space of a house gains yet more worth
When pierced with windows & an opening door:

Useful as are the things we know we use,
The use of nothingness is worth yet more


Lao Tzu (6th century BCE) translated by Graeme Wilson

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