Chapter 11

Quote

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. (Legge's version)

Commentary

Everything that has a palpable form originates in the formless of the emptiness. All that exists takes birth from what doesn't exist.

We find something similar in Buddhism where we read that the form is void and the void is form.

Perhaps this formula explains the meaning of the Taoist one. But it does so on a philosophical level.

Talking about form and/or void is useless because it is based on the thinking process which operates with ideas and images.

To escape from this trap, one must cease thinking.

When we cease thinking we meet the real, the suchness, in Buddhism.

Now let's read Legge's commentary on chapter 11.

"The Use of what has no Substantive Existence." The three illustrations serve to set forth the freedom of the Tao from all pre-occupation and purpose, and the use of what seems useless.

I add to Legge's commentary the one of Moss Roberts from Dao De Jing, The Book of the Way.

This stanza is built around the terms wu (n¢gation, what is not, void) and you (what is, becoming formed) in a spatial context, and like stanza 2, it illustrates the interdependence of wu and you.

Wu and you first appear as cosmic categories in stanza 1, where wu is the name for heaven and earth as yet unborn, and you the name for the mother of the ten thousand after their birth. In stanza 2 wu and you begin the list of opposites that define and depend on each other in the everyday world. In this stanza Laozi uses three commonplace items to make his point: one should heed the unseen, the negative aspect, of anything, for that is the secret of its usefulness. Dao itself is the negative as philosophical principle, the negation that precedes and follows all existence and the constant (chang) alternation of wu and you. (University of California Press, 2001.)

About Spoke and Wheels

I read recently that only the whole at the center is what allows the wheel to spin. I am not so sure. Spokes are also necessary for a wheel first to be a wheel, and secondly to spin.

Still, what is the meaning of the chapter commented and partially quoted here?

Spokes and wheel are what one sees with his sensory perception leading to his brain work. The hub is not seen. In this case, sensory perception is not involved and the brain takes a momentary pause.

When this happens one discovers the Real, the Buddhist suchness.

Also what is not seen, meaning the emptiness, is the very Root of what is seen.

--
Commentary by Jhian.

-> See also chapter 1, the Tao