The Tao of Kung Fu #20

Be Nothing and Become Everything

Learn more about this philosophy here..... This short video is from the 1970's TV series "Kung Fu". It tells the adventures of a fictional Shaolin priest who wanders the American Wild West. The teachings of the Shaolin were meticulously researched for this series, making it one of the most authentic interpretations of the Taoist philosophy in popular culture. This is another clip from "The Hoots" episode. Here we see Caine (David Carradine) recalling Master Po's (Keye Luke) rendition of chapter 11 of the Tao Te Ching. This sacred Taoist text reminds us that a cup would have no purpose if it did not have space within itself in which liquid could be contained. A wheel would be useless without the emptiness at its centre in which an axel can be inserted. A room would be unusable without the space created in the walls for a doorway and window. All these features can be thought of as emptiness; yet it is this very space or nothingness that makes the material aspects of these objects useful. Emptiness is one of the most intriguing concepts in Taoist philosophy and it parallels many of the discoveries made by modern physics. Most of us wouldn't ordinarily give emptiness a second thought, dismissing it as irrelevant and serving no purpose. We generally believe only material things have value. We see space, nothing, silence, non-material, inaction and subtleness as useless. Therefore we live in a world where everything is pushed to capacity, filled beyond what is required and forced until destroyed. Chapter 11 concludes by telling us to be useful by becoming empty. In common vernacular this simply means not being "full of yourself". It is only when we are free of self-interest that we are truly able to offer an impartial and sympathetic ear. All too often what is past off as benevolence is merely an ego imposing its own arbitrary standards onto others. Genuine compassion can only be achieved by a self empty of ego. On another level, emptiness is the fundamental ground state of all physical things. We usually assume everything is made of smaller things of ever decreasing size. Our bodies are constructed of cells; the cells are constructed from DNA; the DNA is constructed from molecules; and molecules are constructed from atoms. Atoms are usually thought of as solid spheres; but this is not the case. Atoms are essentially an empty vacuum containing a massive amount of pulsating energy. Consequently for the most part we are emptiness, as are all material things. This is only difficult to imagine because we are so convincingly deceived by our sensory awareness. If we were able to experience this underlying reality first hand, we would know emptiness unites us all. Naturally this is the purpose of meditation; to see through the illusion of one's sensory awareness and have a firsthand account of emptiness. Nevertheless we are all able to look out into the night sky on a cloudless evening and see the vast emptiness of space. From this it seems evident that emptiness is the Universe's most dominant feature; yet the significance of this escapes us. .