The Hole in the Wheel: Laozi on the Power of Emptiness

The argument of Chapter 11 is so clear that it could be taught to a child, and so deep that it reorganizes one's understanding of value, of creation, and of the self.

Three examples. First: a wheel. The thirty spokes converge at the hub — but it is the empty space at the center of the hub that allows the axle to pass through, that allows the wheel to rotate, that makes the wheel a wheel rather than a disk. Remove the emptiness and you have a solid object of no use to a cart.

Second: a clay vessel. The potter shapes the clay, raises the walls, curves them inward and outward to create form. The clay is present, visible, the thing that is "there." But it is the hollow space inside — the part that contains nothing — that makes the vessel capable of holding anything. Without the emptiness, you have a lump of clay.

Third: a room. The walls, the roof, the floor — all of these are the "something" of a room, the visible, tangible presence. But you live in the room because of the windows, the doors, the negative space that lets in light and air and allows entrance and exit. The presence makes the room solid. The absence makes it habitable.

Therefore profit comes from what is there; usefulness from what is not there.

The Chinese term is wu — nothingness, emptiness, absence. The Tao Te Ching elevates wu throughout — the Tao itself is described as empty, inexhaustible, like a bellows that blows the more you use it. But Chapter 11 makes the argument most concretely, most daily, most irrefutable. You cannot disagree with the hub of a wheel.

The application the text implies but does not state: what is this emptiness in the human being? What is the interior space that makes a person capable of being useful? The silence before the answer. The not-knowing that allows learning. The openness that allows relationship. The chapter is technically about physics and engineering. It is actually about the soul.