Lao Tzu for Everyone
Students, Scholars
& Seekers
Peter Gilboy, Ph.D.
Line 5 湛呵似或存
Line 6 吾不知亓誰之子也
Line 7 象帝之先
LESSON 4
What is
'emptiness'?
The first two characters of this chapter say it all: 道tào 沖chōng, “The Way is empty.” But we know that the world is not an empty place. It is abundant, even luxurious, filled with fields and forests and cities and people. So Lao Tzu must mean something else.
That there is a physical world at all implies that there is a source or a natural law which brings all the physical forms forth and then sustains their existence. But natural laws have no shape, no form, in themselves. For Lao Tzu, this is being “empty.”
There’s nothing mysterious about this. We cannot see eyesight. Hearing itself makes no sound. We could say the laws that govern these are “empty” because we do know that eyesight and hearing exist because our eyes do see and our ears can hear. It is all very reasonable. And by the way, we also cannot see reason, memory, or intentions, and yet we know they exist because of their outward effects.
It is the same with the Way. It is “empty” or “formless.” And yet it is there. We know it is there just by looking around and noting its countless outward expressions.
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for Chinese-English interlinear & commentary
1.
The Way is empty,
yet draw from it and
you will never run out.
A wellspring!
The Way seems
to be the
predecessor of everything.
The Way blunts
what is sharp
and unties
what is tangled.
It softens the glare
and unites the dust.
5.
Concealing itself!
The Way seems
hardly to exist.
I do not know
who's child it is.
The Way seems
to have existed
even before god.
. . . . . .
Tao
the Way