Tao Te Ching Cloud: None, the beginning of the famous heavens and the earth; yes, the mother of all things.
The understanding of "nothing" and "being" is an important thing. Because the Tao is elusive and formless, it can be expressed in many ways. But the understanding of "nothing" and "being" must be clear. Otherwise, it will be difficult to understand the true meaning of the Tao Te Ching.
Nothingness and existence are the two manifestations of the existence of all things in heaven and earth. Some masters simply explained it as "nothing is nothing", just think, what can be created from nothing? Even if scientists now conjecture infinitesimally small singularities, there is still a little bit of something, not "nothing.".
To put it simply: nothingness and existence are objective existences; if human beings can detect it as the standard, the existence that cannot be detected is "nothing"; the existence that can be detected is "being".
Let's start with the first transformation of nothingness and existence: for example, a glass of water in front of us, at this time the water exists in front of our eyes in the way of "being". After the sun, wind and other volatilization, this cup of water became water vapor and rose into the air. The water in this cup is a process of transformation from being to non-being.
Look at it backwards: the sky, which was originally clear, suddenly covered with clouds and then rained. This rain is a process from scratch.
The two reversible processes above go hand in hand, which is a statement that when we define water as being, water vapor exists in the air in the form of nothingness. This is a kind of physical level of nothingness and existence.
Let's talk about the second transformation of nothing and some: or the example of water use. Water is made from a combination of oxygen and hydrogen. The glass of water in front of us, we can be sure that this is a cup of oxygen, hydrogen compounds. Then, when water is presented to us in a certain way, oxygen and hydrogen exist in this cup of water in a non-existent way. We use positive and negative electrodes to decompose water, and water will decompose into oxygen and hydrogen.
In reverse, the oxygen and hydrogen in the air we live in flow around us in a way that exists, then water flows around us in a way that does not exist. This is the chemical level of nothingness and existence.
These two transformations of nothingness and existence, as people's understanding of heaven and earth continues to deepen, their connotations are constantly changing. This leads to the third transformation of nothingness and existence, that is, at the level of human cognition. Ancient people believed that everything that could be seen and felt was existence and air was nothing; later, when they realized that air existed, they called the outside of the earth a "vacuum" and nothingness. Later, it was discovered that the "vacuum" was not really empty. Until now, black holes have also been considered to be existential beings, but dark matter and dark energy are nothing. In this way, the cognition is deepened, and the scope of nothingness and existence is constantly transformed.
So, nothingness is not nothingness, it is a non-dominant existence. Yes, it is an explicit existence, which can be intuitively recognized. From this understanding, it can be clearly understood that nothingness is not the Tao. If nothingness is the Tao, because there is no mutual birth and mutual transformation, there is, and it should be the Tao. Then, the heavens and the earth are the heavens and the earth, which can only make people more confused.
For a better understanding, I'll use another analogy with the seed of a tree. We know that the seeds of trees contain the genetic code of DNA. When we get the seed, the seed exists before us in a way that exists. And the tree in the seed (the genetic code of DNA carried) exists in a way that doesn't exist. Similarly, when we hold a fertilized egg, the egg exists in the way it exists, and the chicken in the egg exists in the egg in the way that it does not exist. When seeds grow into trees and eggs grow into chickens, they are transformed from nothing.
How to understand the "beginning of the nameless world"? Or use this tree seed to illustrate. When the conditions are in place, the seed begins to germinate and begins to grow into a tree. The tree itself is a heaven and earth, and the tree itself has its own things. The heavens and the earth of trees begin with the state of "nothingness". We say that there is a tree in this seed, and that is the truth. From germination to growth, the internal performance of this seed is constantly expanding. Like our current universe. When scientists say that our current universe originated from an "infinitesimal singularity" that exploded into a big bang, this "infinitesimal singularity" is equivalent to a seed.
How to understand the "famous mother of all things"? The focus here is on the understanding of "mother". The overwhelming majority of people understand "mother" as the "mother" of cows giving birth to calves. This is one-sided. The word "mother" is used in many places in the Tao Te Ching, but the meaning is different (one word is more than one meaning). There are four understandings of "mother": the mother of birth, the mother of nurturing, the mother of enlightenment, and the mother of the world. Of the above four understandings, the mother is the accurate definition of "the mother of all things". This means that all things in heaven and earth exist in the way they exist, and they are called beings.
Therefore, the meaning of "the beginning of the nameless heaven and earth, the famous mother of all things" is: nothing, is to describe the state of heaven and earth at the beginning; yes, is to define the common state of all things in heaven and earth.
【To be continued】
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