How often do we think of nothing?
In the Tao Te Ching there is a chapter which has a simple, yet brilliant insight on the concept of nothing which we’ll summarize conceptually. A jar is useful, not simply because of its structure. It is useful because of the space, the nothingness, within the jar. Without nothingness the usefulness of the jar would not be able to emerge.
Our attention as human beings, particularly within the Western World, is mostly on the objects around us whether they be jars, cups, or people. Attention becomes focused on what objects are, and what they mean. We grasp for categorization to make the world knowable and manageable (Varela et al, 2016). This is both useful and necessary. However, it can be taken too far and disconnect us from the potential of the world and people around us.
As we have discussed recently, drawing on the work of Whitehead (1920), categorization can strip the novelty out of the world and universe around us. This partly occurs by over relying on a category when perceiving an object as opposed to realizing the potential of the object. This effects how we attend to the world (McGilchrist, 2018). If an object (and this includes people) loses its potential to become something more than a category and a conclusion, then the object has no capacity to change.
Change is a universal constant (Thompson, 2014, Whitehead, 1920). If we attend to the world through fixed categories, sooner or later our perception of the world will no longer fit. By contrast, if we are open to a world that emerges, and attend to categories as things which transform as we notice how objects disclose themselves to us in different way, then we will continually refit and participate in the world with better effect.
To put this another way, if we do not attend to the world as a continually emerging and transforming phenomena, the world, and everything in it, will become static and lifeless. We will ultimately lack empathy as we cannot move past initial categorizations. Embracing nothingness can help illustrate this.
The space between ourselves and other objects is where our perception grasps for categorization. We can project a category into an object and provide a certain amount of psychological security for ourselves. This object is known, we can move our attention to other things. However, if we appreciate the space and nothingness between us, we can examine what emerges and look upon the object as having potential.
For example, let us return to the jar. If we see the object and label it a jar, then that is all it is. However, what other things could a jar be used for? If we look beyond this category we can perhaps glimpse the potential of the jar to move beyond it’s simple designation. As a result, we have more empathy for the jar, we feel what it could be. The same attention could be applied to another human being, are we seeing the category or the are we seeing the potential?
To approach this type of attention we must become less concerned with something and more concerned with nothing. If we can consider nothing, then there is more potential for something to emerge. This approach, however, also removes security. If an object has its category removed, then what emerges needs renegotiating. This can be unsettling. We may have given the object more potential, but we also may need to re-feel if this object is a help or a hinderance. There is something more primitive about this level of thinking, attending to what emerges from nothing (Based on Varela et al, 2016, Nishitani,1982).
However, what this mode of attending does do, is allow us to see a universe full of change and provides familiar objects with the potential to transform beyond initial impressions and established habits. We naturally become more alert and notice more. Our empathy extends when we consider nothing, and see what emerges from the potential we have created.
Reading
Whitehead, A (1920) The Concept of Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
F. J. Varela, Thompson, E. Rosch, E (2016) The Embodied Mind Cognitive Science and Human Experience. MIT Press.
Thompson, E (2014) The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. MIT Press.
Nishitani Keiji. (1982) Religion and Nothingness. Berkeley: University of California Press
McGilchrist, I. (2018). Ways of attending: How our divided brain constructs the world. Oxon, UK: Routledge
