MEDITATIONS: TAO TE CHING CHAPTER ELEVEN

here is a lesson for you

imagine thirty separate pieces of stick all cut to a uniform length

visualize the single sticks
and look at the two ends that are a part of each and every one of them

end middle end

these thirty wooden sticks all have the power to unite to form the hub of a
great wheel

in the process of this uniting
they give birth to the center of the hub

by sacrificing their individuality they magically create
the utility of the wheel

take a lump of clay and expand the enclosed center within
and a vessel is created

it is this expanded enclosure that makes the vessel useful

likewise a structure does not make a space and shape for living
space and shape are necessary for living

all of this is called creation through not-being

not-being creates the intangible

the intangible creates utility of the tangible

—Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching; An authentic Taoist translation. translated by John Bright-Fey

Humans are social beings. It is not wrong to say that other people make up much of our natural environment. In this way, societies are not so different from nature. To some degree, an individual can bend nature to his will, although that degree is ultimately determined by his own nature and the objective nature he interacts with. In the same way, an individual can influence society, but only insofar as his nature and the natures of others allow him. Even the tyrant cannot overcome this limitation, no matter how powerful he is and no matter what threats he imposes on others. It is as Epictetus demonstrates in his Discourses:

‘Tell us your secrets.’
‘I refuse, as this is up to me.’
‘I will put you in chains.’
‘What’s that you say, friend? It’s only my leg you will chain, not even God can conquer my will.’
‘I will throw you in prison.’
‘Correction—it is my body you will throw there.’
‘I will behead you.’
‘Well, when did I ever claim that mine was the only neck that couldn’t be severed?’ (Epictetus)

As our Stoic philosopher shows, while the body can be fettered, bent, and broken, the will remains something in sole possession of the individual. One’s will is his own, and to him another’s will is an objective phenomenon. This is why society is really a part of Nature herself, because one has a choice as how to orient himself in the world. He can bring his will in line with it and follow the Tao (the way) which runs in accord with the way things really are; or he can turn against society just as the vengeful turns against the world. Though in the latter choice, one might retain his original, individual shape, that form he keeps will necessarily be ill-shaped for the time and place in which he finds himself—and ill-formed for other people as well.

If, however, one chooses to sacrifice his notions of perfect Freedom of the Will—read as: freedom of the will from the limitations of transcendent, objective reality—he can become part of the world and a part of the society in which he lives. Then, like a newly constructed wheel, he becomes useful to himself and others. Before, he was like formless clay; but upon finding his place, upon voluntarily placing himself in the confines of expectation, be initiates Zarathustra’s first metamorphosis. He becomes a camel, a beast of burden who, through his labors, gathers great strength. He becomes potential-contained and utility-captured—like an empty vessel fashioned out of our aforementioned lump of clay. One may draw the same analogy with a house: the structural elements do not constitute the ultimate utility or purpose of the empty space within, nor does the empty space serve the same utility until it is contained.

“Creation through not being” is the name Lao Tzu gives to the following truth: for potential to manifest, it must sacrifice all that it might be for what it will in reality become. It is through this process of exclusion that borders of self, of potential, and even of concepts existence—and it is the ability to discriminate, to categorize one thing as different from another, which allows intangible, third-order abstractions to become of practical significance. Exclusion is necessary. It is how philosophy touches the world and creates—as opposed to philosophy-as-solvent used to deconstruct and destroy.

Epictetus. Discourses and Selected Writings. translated and edited by Robert Dobbin, Penguin Books, 2008.

Lao-tzu. “Chapter Eleven”. Tao Te Ching; An Authentic Taoist Translation, translated by John Bright-Fey, Sweetwater Press, 2014. p.20