Thirty spokes together
make a wheel for a cart.
It is the empty space in the center 
which enables it to be used.

Mold clay into a vessel;
it is the emptiness within
that creates the usefulness of the vessel.

Cut out doors and windows in a house;
it is the empty space inside
that creates the usefulness of the house.

Thus, what we have
may be something substantial,
but its usefulness lies in the unoccupied, empty space.
The substance of your body is enlivened 
by maintaining that part of you that is unoccupied.

Ripples…

Hsuan-Tsung: “Thirty spokes converging on a hub demonstrates that less is the ancestor of more.”

Louise Erdrich: “Her hands were filled because they grasped the meaning of empty.”

Huang Yuan-Chi: “What is beyond form is the Tao. What has form are tools. Without tools we have no means to apprehend the Tao. And without the Tao there is no place for tools.”

Ursula K. Le Guin: “So the profit in what is is in the use of what isn’t.”

“The emptier I become, the more room there is for the Subtle Energy of the Universe to make useful the vessel that I am. —Yamin