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About the Inner Emptiness
A comparison between one of Jesus' sayings
and the first chapter of Lao-tzu's Tao-te ching
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Don't worry all the time about what you will wear and what you will eat. Your Heavenly Father gives you everything you need, just as He gives all their needs to plants and animals. This idea of not worrying about our day-to-day life was expounded by Jesus in the New Testament. Of course, except for the hermits, no one follows it. Even the most zealous worshippers
show no interest in indifference to daily living. On the contrary! And yet, we find elsewhere, in this case in the Taoist wisdom, a similar idea. The idea of inner emptiness, of emptying. To put it more simply, it is about getting rid of our desires in order to be in accord with the Tao and thus acquiring a complete harmony with everything. We find this idea explicitly in the first chapter of You must be without desire But if you do not give up the desire To be without desire means to give up all kinds of worries including what you will wear and eat, meaning the tomorrow needs. It means to make the most of the present moment. It is true that the saying of Jesus doesn't limit itself to the everyday worries but adds a statement about feeding on the Lord's words. This statement is missing in Taoism just because it has no god (I mean the Lao-tzu's Taoism).
But even the partial resemblance between the words of Jesus and Lao-tzu may intrigue us.
If you want to know the depth (of the Tao).
You will not go beyond its (Tao) appearance.
See also:
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Taoism and Christianity
Jesus and Tao-te ching
What it Means to be Initiated Taoism Practice
What is Tao-te ching What is Wu (emptiness)
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