Bahá’í Explorations

Lao Tzu’s passage from the Tao Te Ching highlights the profound concept of the value of emptiness and space. The metaphor of the wheel and the clay vessel illustrates how the utility of objects often lies in what is absent rather than what is present. In the case of the wheel, it is the empty space in the hub that allows it to function, just as the hollow interior of a clay vessel makes it useful for holding and storing. This idea extends beyond the physical to suggest that emptiness, silence, and space are essential in our lives—they offer potential, opportunity, and the capacity for growth and creativity. By embracing the concept of emptiness, we learn to appreciate the balance and harmony between form and void, presence and absence.

The thirty spokes unite in the one nave; but it is on the empty space (for the axle), that the use of the wheel depends. Clay is fashioned into vessels; but it is on their empty hollowness, that their use depends.
Lao-tzu, Tao Te Ching, 56
https://oceanlibrary.com/link/qDYSy/tao-te-ching_lao-tzu/

Let your vision be world-embracing…” — Bahá’u’lláh