The Tao of Kung Fu #28

I Strive for No Thing

This scene from "Kung Fu" is from the double final episode of the 1974 season. Called "The Cenotaph", this wacky story would not appear out of place amongst the writings of the ancient Taoist sage Chaung Tzu. In this scene we see Caine (David Carradine) attempting to explain Tao to the very eccentric Mr McBurney (Stefan Gierasch). Comprehending Tao, even to the most intuitive of us, is an extremely difficult task. These difficulties arise because we are trying to comprehend total cosmic unity, from our position in the illusion of separateness. We are fortunate that in this clip Caine gives us a major insight into Tao, when he said "I strive for no thing". You may believe this means nothing, but this would be a mistake. He said "no thing" meaning that he is striving for something that is non-material, beyond words and all descriptions. This "no thing" that Caine is striving for is also referred to as emptiness in the Taoist philosophy. You may recall in "The Tao of Kung Fu #20", Master Po explains the hidden value of emptiness. In my commentary I explained how science has found that at the deepest subatomic level material things are comprised of flashes of energy in vast emptiness. Theoretical physicists now believe these flashes of energy are vibrations on a membrane that encompasses the entire Universe. Everything in the cosmos is believed to be a vibration on this membrane. This model of the cosmos was developed from superstring theory and is commonly referred to as M theory. Physicists believed this membrane vibrates through 11 dimensions, 8 of which are unknown and undetectable to our sensory awareness. This may also explain why we can not see everything as one, as this unity occurs in dimensions beyond our regular perception. Amazingly M-theory has revealed everything comes out of emptiness as a pulsation of the same fundamental state. Our extremely limited sensory awareness also explains why we normally consider outer space as nothing but a vacuum. We know sunlight travels through this emptiness as waves, like ripples in a pond. Nevertheless, seldom does anyone offer an explanation to what it is that is actually rippling in this assumed nothingness. In all probability the medium is being provided by the membrane of M-theory, giving us a new appreciation for the mystery of the "no thing" that is space. Is M-theory an alternative name for what the ancients called the Tao? Not at all, it is just the tip of an immense iceberg when it comes to understanding the all encompassing totality that is The Way. However, to the pragmatist this is an excellent indication that there is a reality beyond our sensory awareness that is fundamental to all things, just as the ancient Taoists claimed. Tao is the intuitive wisdom that comes from an indefinable source from within. It is the organic wisdom that is inherent in Nature. Tao is that which enables animals to migrate hundreds of miles without losing their way; it is what synchronizes cooperation between species; and Tao is our innate altruistic behaviour, to name but a few examples. The Way of the Tao can not be experienced by the calculating mind. Nevertheless, many academics that did their thinking outside the box, such as Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, became very interested in Asian philosophy as a result of their studies. Bohr, one of the founding fathers of quantum physics, was so taken by the yin-yang and how it paralleled his findings, he used the motif on this coat-of-arms. He also included the words "Opposites are complementary". Now, where have you heard this before?