Clay is fashioned into vessels; but it is on their empty hollowness, that their use depends.

Excerpt

The thirty spokes unite in the one nave; but it is on the empty space (for the axle), that the use of the wheel depends. Clay is fashioned into vessels; but it is on their empty hollowness, that their use depends. The door and windows are cut out (from the walls) to form an apartment; but it is on the empty space (within), that its use depends. Therefore, what has a (positive) existence serves for profitable adaptation, and what has not that for (actual) usefulness.

Source Tao Te King, chapter 11 · 📖 Read the full passage

✨ To meditate on today

According to Lao Tzu, it is emptiness that makes the wheel, the vessel and the house useful: what is not gives its use to what is. Today, leave an empty space in your schedule or in a conversation, a silence, a pause, and see what can be born there.

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