Commentary on the Tao Teh King–by Swami Nirmalananda Giri

Emptiness Speaking

“May not the space between heaven and earth be compared to a bellows? ’Tis emptied, yet it loses not its power; ’tis moved again, and sends forth air the more. Much speech to swift exhaustion leads, we see; your inner being guard, and keep it free.”1

Emptiness

Before we start looking at this passage, it is really necessary for us to consider the concept of Emptiness. Unfortunately we (naturally) impose the standard English meaning on this term, thinking that emptiness is both nothing and a state that abrogates “thingness.” To ascertain the correct meaning we can be greatly assisted by modern science. We now know that there is no such thing as gold, or wood, or water in themselves, but rather that they are simply differing arrangements of atomic particles forming gold, wood, and water molecules. The molecules can be broken down, the atomic particles rearranged and we have “something” utterly different. Therefore, at no time do gold, wood, or water really exist as self-existent, permanent “things.” There is only a great field of basic energy from which they emerge and into which they resolve. Therefore at all times they are “empty” of goldness, woodness, or waterness. That is, no “thing” is a permanent entity, “just itself” without mutability or dissolution. Rather, every “thing” is nothing but mutability moving toward inevitable dissolution. So nothing ever really “is”–it only appears to “be.” Thus all relative existence is Emptiness, a Thing that contains no “thing” whatsoever. The same understanding applies to the concept of Void (Shunya). It is No Thing, but it is not Nothing. It is actually the only Existent. All “things” draw their momentary existence from It. Emptiness is true Fulness (Purna) and the Source of All. It is also known as the Chidakasha, Conscious Space.

“Empty” Space

Space then, including “the space between heaven and earth,” is that from which all things arise and into which they subside. It possesses an infinite capacity for an infinite variety of manifestations. None of which are “things” in themselves, but all of which are The Thing essentially. Therefore “empty space” is creative fulness. Lao Tzu asks if we cannot think of it as a bellows. No matter how much streams forth from it, it draws it all back in and projects it, maintaining a perpetual cycle of projection and absorption. In the human being this is especially manifested in the lungs and the breath as the basis of “life.” Space (akasha) can never be exhausted, for it perpetually renews itself.

Speech

This is not true of ordinary human speech, however, which is a projection that does not renew or receive back into itself. The spoken word and the energy, physical and mental, that produced it, are lost to us forever when we speak. Speech, then, is seen to be a depletion. In the most ancient philosophical writings of India, sages are habitually referred to as “munis”–those who do not speak.2

In the Bhagavad Gita we find an interesting concept of action that is inaction. “The real nature of action is hard to understand,”3 Krishna tells us, then continues: “He who sees the inaction that is in action, and the action that is in inaction, is wise indeed. Even when he is engaged in action he remains poised in the tranquility of the Atman.”4 The wise know how to act–and yet not be acting.

In the same way the yogi knows how to speak without expending his internal energies. Lao Tzu is exhorting us to this when he concludes: “Your inner being guard, and keep it free.” That is, through keeping our awareness centered in our true Self we shall be free from the exhaustion or depletion of our subtle life forces that are usually lost through speaking. For this reason Sanderson Beck renders this phrase: “Much talk brings exhaustion. It is better to keep to the center.” And Lin Yutang: “By many words is wit exhausted.  Rather, therefore, hold to the  core.”

More Articles on the Tao Teh King:

1. The Ineffable Tao
2. The Dualities
3. Becoming Like the Tao
4. Dogs of Grass
5. Emptiness Speaking

2) “Muni” literally means “silent one.” [Go back]

3) Bhagavad Gita 4:17 [Go back]

4) Bhagavad Gita 4:18 [Go back]