Taoteching
Lao-tzu wrote*:
Thirty spokes converge on a hub
But it’s the emptiness
that makes a wheel work
pots are fashioned from clay
but it’s the hollow
that makes a pot work
windows and doors are carved for a house but it’s the spaces
that make a house work
existence makes a thing useful
but nonexistence makes it work
the student responds**:
Trade secret is the nothingness
The patent is the door
The description of what it does
is what we knock on
to open the imagination
*From Lao-tzu's Taoteching, translated by Red Pine (2009), and used by permission of www.coppercanyonpress.org.
** by Phyl Speser