The Tao te Ching – Verse 5
Translation used: Stephen Addiss and Stanley Lombardo
Tien ti pu jen
Heaven and Earth are not kind:
The ten thousand things are straw dogs to them.
Sages are not kind:
People are like straw dogs to them.
Yet Heaven and Earth
And all the space between
Are like bellows:
Empty but inexhaustible,
Always produce more.
Longwinded speech is exhausting.
Better to stay centred.
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I like the picture of Tao being like bellows…. that something that appears empty on first glance can create so much power! Something to give form to anything it fills… like the silence in the whispering of the ocean… the rustle of the wind… holding so much energy. And faith…
It’s bottomless emptiness… but at the same time no emptiness at all. But no words can express the depth of Tao… words cannot name the nameless… naming things labels them… fixes them in one body… makes them “the word”… and if they are the word they cannot grow to be something else… they are just “it”…. so the source has no name… only people trying to hold it will try to name it……
Better to focus on the NOW…. on what is real… right now…. in between the silence and the noise… where there is perfect peace.
It’s very interesting when compared to the Biblical idea of words. In Judeo-Christian tradition the word has the power because it is spoken by the Almighty. Therefore, the logic is good and valid, and the world should be interpreted by the logical means. But in Taoism and Mahayana Buddhism, words are sometimes regarded as empty, something devoid of essence. Insightful entry as always:)
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