Daoism Topic: Da or Vastness

If you have a large gourd what should you do with it? This is the question that brings up the concept of da in the Zhuangzi, saying that even if something is vast, da, that there can still be a possible use for it, in the case of the gourd it could perhaps become a boat. Da is a very good way to describe tian which gives us starting point at seeing how hard it is to form a method to return to tian, nature and live naturally, ziran, within it. If one can understand vastness then there is easily a transition to understanding yinyang which is also vast though this is the process of tian and is not as complicated in understanding. When vastness is looked upon, many process of nature will start to come together and will be understood as interacting with each other and the pattern of yinyang will come forth. This is all good to know but then the problem comes with the human understanding of the world. Are we capable of truly understanding this vastness and how the pieces of tian interact with each other?

I think we can understand vastness, in order to understand yinyang, through observations. We, as humans, can observe the natural world and we can learn about how all things interact and how differences about them cause them to be more beneficial in certain settings than in others, as with the large gourd being more appropriate for the use of a boat rather than a pot. We can comprehend all of the physical characteristics which allow all natural things to interact which allows us to see their yinyang interaction. I do not, however, think that we are capable of seeing the vastness of tian through this same process. The simple reasoning is that we, as humans, are not capable of distinguishing between the true nature of all things and how we see them live. For all we know fish are in the same battle to return to tian as we are, we just don’t see it because we are not fish and therefore cannot understand their true nature. The question then is, if we understand vastness past the point of understanding yinyang will we be capable of understanding the true nature of the fish? If we do not just look at the vastness of the objects themselves but look at the vastness of the in between spaces we are able to define much more about the fish. As with a wheel with spokes, it is not the wheel that gives it the strength but it is the empty spaces between the spokes which allow it to be lighter and stronger at the same time. In this way can we understand more about the fish and learn why it does not occupy all areas such as the land. From this and other empty spaces concerning the fish we may perhaps be able to look further into its true nature. Then we will not only see how the fish lives in the cycle of yinyang but also how it maintains living naturally in tian so that we may learn how to return to tian.