The Reality of the Tao

老子

五

~What does emptiness mean as an essence of Tao? Why does Lao Tzu consider this an essence of Tao?

~What does openness mean as an essence of Tao? Why does Lao Tzu consider this an essence of Tao?

~What metaphors do Lao Tzu [use?] to illustrate the essence of the Tao?

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Ragnarok, Byatt, 2011

Everything was pat of one world, and it would not hurt Baldur the Beautiful.

The story of creation in the Norse mythology very much reminded me about the Tao mainly because it does not forward that nothing breeds something but rather it clearly described that which was already there: between Niflheim, home of the mists, and Muspelheim, the hot place, was an empty gulf. And in that empty gulf, where the swirling chaos takes place Ymir was created. He, first of he godlike giants: he was vast, he was everything (Byatt, 2011). Just like the Tao, Ymir became the product of the opposites, coming from the energy of the fire and ice. When Ymir died he became something much more: the narrative began to speak about the creation of the world.

From the flesh of Ymir 

The earth was shaped.

From his bones, the mountains, 

The heaven from the skull

Of the giant cold as frost

And from his blood,

The sea. 

Instead of become useless Ymir became everything. Albeit dead and devoid of life, he became the source of life of the birds and the trees and the flowers and the deers. Similar in this sense, Taoism considers substance more important than function (Chan, 1963). More often than not, emptiness connotes a negative feeling. Whenever we feel empty we frown and try to look for ways to “get rid” of such feeling. We associate this emptiness inside us as something that is very uncomfortable and the only solution is to fill it. Lao Tzu, however, presented a positive kind of emptiness in this matter. I am reminded of a glass filled with water. From afar it looks empty. However, on closer inspection, it is full, filled to the brim with water. And then again I am reminded of a particular story of Krishna, the Hindu God. As a child, he was very playful and one day, he “decided” to eat clay. His mother, upon finding it out, pried his mouth open. Mother and son bickered until finally, Krishna open his mouth. Upon the sight, his mother gasped. Inside his mouth was the cosmos- timeless and swirling with stars and planets. She saw the mountains, the air, the fire, and the oceans. Inside her son lies the whole universe. 

And within this universe lies the Heaven and the Earth. Both working together in creation and completion: the tree ate and was eaten, fed and was fed on (on Yggdrasil; Byatt, 2011). This is how it works. This is how nature works. And nature works the ways it does, the rain and drought are but its ways. And in the middle of the raging sea, man should find the centre. 

It held the world together, in the air, in the earth, in the light, in the dark, in the mind.  

Great and the humblest of all. The Tao lies in the gaps between our fingers. It fills the empty void. The Tao fulfils its duty and seek for no reward. The Tao gives blessings yet it does not lord it over us. Since this is how the Tao is, the same should be with man. Empty words have no worth yet action generates a positive response. The Tao does not discriminate between the good and the bad just as Heaven and Earth plays no role in favouring man. And because the Tao plays no role between the good and the bad, it is the source of all that is natural. The Tao is Small and Great, the Tao is the mitochondria. The Tao is a room full of treasure and the many rivers that reach the sea. 

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