Tao Te Ching
Emptiness
Emptiness became a foundational concept explicitly in Buddhism and Taoism, implicitly in the mystical traditions of the other religious and philosophical traditions. It also seems to increasingly penetrate scientific understanding. The basic idea of emptiness points toward our direct experience undiluted by cultural, political, religious, and personal filters. The field of evolutionary psychology provides fascinating insights into the degree self-deception constantly colors our world-views trapping us into dogmatic certainties, rigid and unrealistic ethical standards, and polemical political and social norms. Understanding the sense instead of believing in the words epitomizes a consequence of experiencing emptiness.
Quotes (98)
“Only by holding on to the formless and substance-less energy at the root of creation can one attain the Tao.”
“When the great river quits flowing, waves no longer stir. When conceptual consciousness ceases, forms do not arise.”
“Existence arises from nonexistence, and the Full emerges from the Empty. . . . The Way is the oneness from which all beings arise.”
“To die is only not to be
Fallen from peace. All that men praise us for...
The thoughts of mine own heart, I craved no more.”
“What doesn’t exist’ refers to the Tao. The Tao has no form or substance… We don’t see it do anything,and yet the ten thousand things are transformed and completed.”
“Balance is the beginning of the Way. Emptiness is the heart of the way.”
“Sages do not need authority to be noble, do not need wealth to be rich, and do not need power to be strong. Peaceful and empty, they are not subject to outside influences; they fly freely with evolution.”
“Unless you become like little children, you cannot know the meaning of Life, for your minds must be cleared of the falsehoods of this realm if you are to be taught Eternal Truth.”
“Whoever sees the nature of one thing sees the nature of everything because the emptiness of one thing is the emptiness of everything.”
“Everything in the world comes from being, and being comes from nonbeing If you would reach perfect being, you have to go back to nonbeing.”
“Those who seek the Tao seek to return to emptiness and nothingness. When something is done, something is left out. When nothing is done, nothing is not done.”
“You must be emptied of that with which you are full, so you may be filled with that whereof you are empty.”
“When the mind is always empty, you journey from place to place in the country of the Buddhas. When the mind is always moving, you travel from one hell to the next hell.”
“There’s never been a single thing;
Then where’s defiling dust to cling?
If you can reach the heart of this.
Why talk of transcendental bliss?”
“When shall I reveal this truth of emptiness to those who go to ruin through a belief in real existence?”
“Form not separate from me, nor yet a part of me; the phenomenal appearance of empty space.”
“Loosed, and it flows through the galaxies
A fountain of light, into the very mind –
Not a thing, and yet it appears before me.”
“Every fleeting experience of phenomena has blended into the continuum of emptiness.”
“‘If I haven’t anything in my mind what shall I do?’ Joshu replied: ‘Throw it out.’ ‘But if I haven’t anything, how can I throw it out?’ continued the questioner. ‘Well,’ said Joshu, ‘then carry it out.’”
“There is no buddha, no dharma, no training and no realization - what are you so hotly chasing?”
“At the moment of my realization, my mind basked in the radiance of its own emptiness. Even Buddha became a meaningless label.”
“Dwelling upon nothing means that the mind is not fixed upon good or evil, concentration or distraction, inside or outside… original mind, a bright mirror, utter stillness, Buddha-Mind!”
“Every phenomenon that exists is a creation of thought; therefore I need but empty my mind to disover that all of them are void… all the Buddhas of the whole universe do not in fact possess the smallest perceptible attribute.”
“The Bodhisattva’s mind is like the void, for he relinquishes everything… all action is dictated purely by place and circumstance, subjectivity and objectivity are forgotten... no hope of reward is entertained.”
“The ultimate principle of emptiness arises spontaneously with every movement of the mind.”
“With wisdom as needle and compassion as thread, sew together the complete realization of emptiness.”
“The innate nature of mind is primordially empty. Like smashing things with a hammer, it liberates through seeing, touching, and thinking.”
“The unsurpassable protection of emptiness is to see the manisfestations of bewilderment as the four kayas.”
“Emptiness has no form. It takes on the form of the ten thousand things. If emptiness had its own form, it could not form anything else. Thus sages have no mind of their own. They take on the minds of the people and treat everyone the same.”
“One moment in annihilation's waste,
One moment of the Well of Life to taste—
Starts for the dawn of Nothing—Oh, make haste!”
“Discover the source of all duality; nondual space is without substance.”
“In the end, you should know that there is nothing else to do like a shepherd whose flocks have been driven off by his enemies.”
“Empty, cold and thin, simple and genuine.. when you turn within and drop off everything completely, realization occurs… Every detail clearly appears before you. Sound and form, echo and shadow, happen instantly without leaving traces.”
“In the interlaced net of principle and phenomena, true emptiness appears. Shining to obliterate the fundamental delusion.”
48. Unlearning
59. The Gardening of Spirit
4. The Father of All Things
“‘Like this cup,’ Nan-in said, ‘you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?’”
“‘Empty’ means ‘empty like a bowl.’ The Tao is essentially empty and people who use it should be empty too. To be full is contrary to the Tao. ‘Deep’ means ‘what cannot be measured.’”
“In simply arising, forms are by nature empty. From what is unborn there manifests what seems to be born, but even as it manifests, nothing whatsoever has been born... These are illusory expressions of emptiness. Even with abiding there is nothing that abides.”
“The most marvelous teaching is just that whatever depends on causes and conditions is empty of intrinsic reality.”
“There is no air or water, no creation or creator, no earth, air or space, no guru or disciple, no easy or difficult path.”
“People only know the work of working. They don’t know that the work of not working is the greatest work of all… If they knew that something came from nothing, they would no longer enslave themselves to things.”
“All phenomena—from form through omniscience—are not established whatsoever as any extreme elaboration such as existent, nonexistent, arisen, ceased, permanent, impermanent, empty, not empty, true, or false. Although conventional terms such as 'emptiness' and 'suchness' are given, it is nothing more than looking at the essence of thoughts.”
“True emptiness is like the inner openness of a bell or a drum; when a bell is struck it rings, when a drum is beaten it resounds. It is because they have nothing inside that they are able to ring and resound. ineffable existence is like the sounding of a bell or a drum when struck... empty yet not empty, not empty yet empty, aware and efficient, lively and active, refining everything in the great furnace of Creation”
“The rainbow mirrors human aims and action. Life is but light in many-hued reflection.”
“Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, then reached the caverns measureless to man”
“From the beginning, mind is emptiness without concrete existence and—like ice melting and becoming water—all of the external world and all sentient being mingle inseparably with this same emptiness.”
“I had a dream, which was not all a dream...
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon, their mistress, had expired before;
Darkness had no need of air from them --- She was the Universe.”
“This grave contains all that was mortal of a young English poet, who, on his deathbed, in the bitterness of his heart at the malicious power of his enemies, desired these words to be graven on his tombstone, 'Here lies one whose name was writ in water.'”
“All ethics, politics and philosophies are pure assumptions, built upon assumptions. They rest on no sure basis. They are but shadowy castles-in-the-air erected by day-dreamers, or by rogues, upon nursery fables”
“In order to understand fully the inner worldly order, one must imagine it as transparent, so that the primordial order is seen through it.”
“It is important to have a secret, a premonition of things unknown... A man must sense that he lives in a world which in some respects is mysterious... Only then is life whole. For me, the world has from the beginning been infinite and ungraspable.”
“And still higher up, on the highest level of all, our cloud boat scattered, our silken threads dissolved. The world's apparitions vanished, and nothing remained on this highest level but a mute, blind, stationary sun, blacker than blackness.”
“I believe in a world which does not exist, but by believing in it, I create it. We call 'nonexistent' whatever we have not desired with sufficient strength.”
“We have to believe in something that has no form and no color – something that exists before all forms and colors appear… By enlightenment I mean believing in nothing.”
14. Finding and Following the Formless Form
11. Appreciating Emptiness
“From emptiness, everything comes out. One whole body of water, or one whole mind, is emptiness. When we reach this understanding we find true meaning to our life.”
“Because emptiness has no limit and no beginning, we can believe in it… If you really understand this, tears will flow.”
“Emptiness is the garden where you can't see anything. It is the mother of all.”
“Moment after moment, everyone comes out from nothingness. This is the true joy of life… activity which is based on nothingness… Without nothingness, there is no naturalness – no true being.”
“Mind in its natural state is radiantly void. The sense of a permanent ego dims this inner light.”
“the first principle of my system of thought is that we do not understand; it is not possible to know and understand”
“There is a reality that has no form, much less a name. Beautiful and also true. We are nothing but the second-by-second manifestation of that reality.”
“Whenever we stay in the extreme of nihilism or in the extreme of eternalism, we divide phenomena from emptiness, and because of our division habit, we cannot go beyond in the pure light secret essence of the elements.”
“if we cannot tell a story about what happened to us, nothing has happened to us.”
“We cut our ground and have a frightening – terrifying – sudden glimpse of groundlessness… no one is standing on any ground, so communication can take place quite freely”
“Good and bad, happy and sad, all thoughts vanish into emptiness like the imprint of a bird in the sky”
“Form is empty of our preconceptions, empty of our judgements… Form is empty if we see it in the absence of our own personal interpretations of it.”
“Every month the moon effortlessly shows us that something comes from nothing.”
“Gazing intently at a pure white canvas… Nothing is painted there yet, but it’s more than a simple blank space… various possibilities congeal into a perfect clue.. The moment when existence and nonexistence coalesce.”
“The blackness (emptiness) between the senses - an eternity that never changes but contains the seeds of all change...”
“By understanding emptiness, you lose interest in all the trappings and beliefs that society builds up and tears down—political systems, science and technology, global economy... you become like an adult who is not so interested in children's games anymore.”
“There is no emptiness without appearance, and there is no appearance without emptiness. That is what we call the interdependent nature.”
“emptiness is an open-ended potential for any and all sorts of experience to appear or disappear—the way a crystal ball is capable of reflecting all sorts of colors because it is, in itself, free from any color.”
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