emptiness and the tao

Until very recently the far Eastern cultures have prized a radical emptying of one's self as the means to achieve higher meaning.

Usually this is associated with the Tao, but you can get to Asian emptiness from a variety of paths.

For example, Confucian teaching can also get you there. While the Taoists taught spontaneous emptying, the Confucianists favored cultivation of social behavior (they call it Li, a word also used for "manners"). But the whole point of Li is to achieve one-ness with the patterns of nature, which is to say, to achieve a loss of one's own identity. To be nothing is something of a virtue in these cultures.

Emptying.

But there is nothing in these systems that tell you what you'll find once you get to emptiness.

That is because, well, then the emptiness would not be empty.

This is not deep calling unto deep.

This is deep calling unto nothing.

This is not the emptiness of which I speak.

Logos2Go

John 3.30 He must become greater; I must become less.

Psalms 42.7 Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.