Theme 1.4
This large earth
(from Chapter 26)
Master Hui says to Master Chuang:
Your words are useless.
Master Chuang says:
Only when a person knows the useless can you begin to talk with him about uses.
The earth isn’t bounded. It’s large.
But the amount of it a person uses is only the bit beneath his feet.
Given this, if we took the surrounding ground and removed it, all the way down to the Yellow Springs, would he still have something useful?
Master Hui says:
It would be useless.
Master Chuang says:
Well then, that the useless is useful is clear.
* * * * *
This story complements the stories in Chapter 1 where Master Hui compares Master Chuang’s philosophy to a large, useless gourd (Chapter 1.7), and a large, useless tree (Chapter 1.8).
In worldly terms, Chuang Tzu’s philosophy is useless. Imagine saying to your boss, or your client, that you’re aware of awareness. Now imagine saying to your boss, or your client, that you can do the thing they want done.
So, we go about doing things. Like the bit of ground beneath your feet, knowing how to do things is very useful.
But to what end are we engaged in all this doing? For what purpose? Is it not just one thing after another? A moment of pleasure and contentment now and then; and then we’re at it again: lamenting the presence of this and that annoyance; anxiously striving to get hold of now this thing, now that. Always one thing after another, with no larger context in which to make sense of all this striving and doing.
But once we awake to awareness—the ever-present that in which things exist (like vast, ever-present earth, in which the bit of ground on which you now happen to stand exists)—we’re free to sit back and enjoy, and to lean into and engage with, the ceaseless flow of things changing. We’re now free to chariot on the world (Chapter 1.3), to float about on the rivers and lakes (Chapter 1.7).
This is the usefulness of the useless, the usefulness of being aware of awareness, the usefulness of Chuang Tzu’s philosophy. Prior to being aware of awareness we’re marooned on a tiny piece of land in a vast, hostile, meaningless world of things. But when we’re aware of awareness all the world is ours to enjoy.