INSIDE OUT
Emptiness fills the space within.
Life and living fill the space without.If the void is radiant and welcoming,
life eagerly accepts the invitation.But if dull and distant,
then living seems dreary and trivial.
Enliven the spirit within,
to fulfil the life without.
Hard labour?
Sweet work!
Within Taoism 'emptiness'
has several connotations, and is here depicted as a vital
'creative space' or
'womb', which may be personal or cultural.
Interplay, or even interplayfulness, that maintains balance
between inner and outer 'realms of reality', is regarded as
fundamentally important.
Thus Taoism endorses a
free and healthy exchange or dialogue between imagination and
reason, compassion and justice, creativity and order.
If such communication becomes blocked, suppressed, or
impoverished, life can seem to become banal, meaningless, and
unsatisfying.
This is a more familiar version of emptiness, comparable to a
sullen 'writer's block' rather than a hospitable blank page.
On a cultural scale,
materialist political systems such as communism, have
inflicted much damage and suffering
by their suppression or perversion of religion, folk
traditions, art and individual creativity of many kinds.
Conversely,
domination by religious or superstitious ideas has
stifled, tortured and destroyed many lives.
