White is one color, but from white, space is created, and many colors. From this you can see the huge scale of the world. (from Breeze in the sumi painting in Returning to Silence by Dainin Katagiri)
Without the emptiness of white space, the wind in the pines cannot be captured, cannot blow cool and gentle across the sky in the paper.
Emptiness is form; form is contained by emptiness.
My favourite verse in the Tao te Ching is verse #11 (from the Feng & English translation):
thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub;
it is the center hole that makes it useful.
shape clay into a vessel;
it is the space within that makes it useful.
cut doors and windows for a room;
it is the holes which make it useful.
What space fills your heart?
Thank you for practising,
Genju
Image: Kanji character for kaze / wind
Sadly, there are days, too many of them, when the heart seems to have no space within, when it cannot hold even the simplest expression. (Gloomier than usual today . . .)
then, dear heart, I am touched that you chose to share in this space, this breath, this moment with these words.
from Rumi:
this being human is a guest house
every morning a new arrival!