Courtesy of Rishabh Dharmani

David A. Tizzard

There are some things that our language simply cannot convey. Some things that are beyond the world of numbers and letter. Some things that just are. And, at the same time, are not. This is the world of the Tao, symbolized so perfectly in the Yin Yang. I will not even be able to explain it here in words. I can only point to it and hope that it appears.

The negation found within is often difficult for people to understand, particularly those raised on Aristotelian logic. In such a view, predominant in the west, you cannot be both in a room and not in a room at the same time. Barring the oft-discussed famed theoretical cat, something cannot be both positive and negative. It either is, or it isn’t. That’s why God is this and the devil is that. But this misunderstands the negative in a way that traditional Asian thought did not. They did not even have a personification of ultimate evil until it was introduced by the Christians.

Nevertheless, the Taoists knew something about the world. They had a profound insight into the manner of things. It wasn’t necessarily concerned with gods and creation, but rather the nature of life around us. And I fear that that once important wisdom has disappeared.

Thirty-six spokes meet in the middle of a circle but it is the hole in the center that holds them together to make a wheel. A bucket is useful for carrying water or holding fruit only if it has a hole in the middle. The value of a house is not its four solid walls, but rather the emptiness inside in which we can live. And if you suddenly shout a word, where does it come from? From you? No. It comes from the silence. Something comes from........

© The Korea Times