Emptiness

A few days ago I was driving alone to take some things to my mother at the state mental hospital; a two hour drive one-way, but the sky was so open and inviting. It was a good time to think.

I reflected on a passage I had recently read, that challenged my perception of the word "emptiness."

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

11.

Thirty spokes converge at the hub,
but emptiness completes the wheel.

Clay is shaped to make a pot,
and what's useful is its emptiness.

Carve fine doors and windows,
but the room is useful in its emptiness.

What is
is beneficial, while what is not
also proves useful.

- translated by Sam Hamill

I looked around at the brilliant blue sky and the open highway; both useful and beautiful in their emptiness. Before reading #11, the word "empty" had a largely negative connotation for me. You know the old litmus test for pessimism: "That glass is half empty." Or when we say someone has an empty head, well, that's not exactly a compliment.

Perhaps what I haven't seen is the possibility within the emptiness. Even its structural necessity, like in Lao Tzu's wheel. Perhaps we take it for granted. Perhaps I think it's not necessary.

Closer to the hospital, I turned my CDs on shuffle mode, and U2's song "Yahweh" began to play. "Take these hands/Teach them what to carry./Take these hands/Don't make a fist/No." The speaker is offering God each part of his body. The hands, I thought - to be useful, they have to be empty. There is value in leaving ample space in one's life for the Important. As a person. As a mother. As a Child.

When I arrived early in the hospital's waiting room, I made a list of things that are useful when empty:

An empty page
Empty hands
Empty time/schedule
Empty chalice
Empty highway
Empty sky
Empty mouth
"Empty" mind - clear, quiet, receptive

If only I could be empty of desire, I thought vaguely, watching the locked portal to the patient wards. Emptied of expectations, of hopes. Then, if she refuses to see me, I will not feel pain. I will be free, above it. Tao Te Ching #16: "Attain emptiness. Attain tranquility."

So much for that. I choked my way back to the car, wiping my eyes. I cannot empty myself of my humanity.

Maybe that is what I need to leave room for.