Another five characters that deliver the key message of this scripture are, In-Jung-Chun-Ji-Il. This is translated literally as “human-inside-heaven-earth-one,” which means “Human has heaven and earth as one.” These characters tell us that inside the human, the three elements of heaven, earth, and human exist as a unity. In the traditional understanding of Korean Taoism, Heaven represents the laws of the universe, Earth represents substance, and Human represents possibilities of creation, life force, or conscious mind.
So the whole 81 characters can be summarized into 14 characters: Il-Shi-Mu-Shi, Il-Jong-Mu-Jong-Il, In-Jung-Chun-Ji-Il. These 14 characters can be recapitulated into three characters: Chun-Ji-In, “Heaven-Earth-Human.” Finally these three characters can be condensed into one character, which is Il, “One,” which is the ultimate reality.
If we were asked to visualize this One, we would probably imagine one object positioned on a plain background, like a circle on a white board. This is because we, being so accustomed to living among objects in a material world, are too attached to things or beings. However, this is not the true One yet. Because of the distinction of inside and outside, there’s already duality involved.
What Are We Really?
Then, what do you need to do to attain one? Good guess! You have to remove the line of the circle. Then there’s no “object.” And because there’s no object, there’s now no “background.” It is Nothing. That is the true One. Therefore, in the context of this scripture, One and Nothing are identical.
Because of its own infinite nature, Nothing has no beginning or end. Because it doesn’t have size, it is bigger than the biggest thing, and smaller than the smallest. Nothing cannot be reached by looking into deep space or traveling to the ends of the known universe. Nothing is behind, around, and within all that exists. To make a distinction between Nothing, which is not visible but has all power to create everything, and a mere absence of things, we also call Nothing the “True Void.”
According to the discoveries of modern cosmology, we cannot explain the movement of a galaxy by the total mass of all the observed matter in it. The observed matter is simply not enough. Mathematically, there should be more matter, but we haven’t located it yet. Because it is not visible, scientists call this unobserved matter “dark matter.”
There’s more. Scientists figured out how to calculate the energy and matter of the entire universe, but the total energy and matter, observable whether directly or indirectly, cannot explain the way the universe looks. For the universe to look the way it does, there should be more energy in the space between galaxies, which looks completely empty. More energy is there but we cannot see it. Because it is not observed yet, it is called “dark energy.”
All observable energy and matter is calculated to constitute only 5 percent of the total energy and matter of the universe. Ninety-five percent of the universe is not observable. The search for dark matter and dark energy is one of the hottest pursuits in modern science.
Why am I telling you this? Because, as a way to explain this “darkness,” or invisibility, of the universe, Nothing, or the potential of empty space, has been strongly suggested. And this is not merely a fanciful idea. As it turns out, empty space has been discovered to be a very different kind of Nothing than anyone expected. It is “no thing,” but it is fluctuating with enormous potential energy from which it is able to generate particles; that is, “something.” Or, more truly, “everything.” In this way, physics has drawn ever closer to the insights of ancient seers who saw the great Void, the Nothing, the One, in their deep meditations.
In modern physics, Nothing, with its inherent quantum fluctuation, is suggested as one of the most likely candidates that can explain the beginning of the universe and the existence of something rather than nothing.
From the standpoint of physics, 1) Nothing contains, and is, the infinite creative potential of the energy-matter of the entire universe; 2) inherent within this unbounded, unmanifested reality, are all the possibilities for all the objects and all their possible interactions throughout the universe; and 3) The universal laws that all these possibilities will follow in order to manifest as phenomena.
Do you see how these three correspond to the three fundamentals of Tao: heaven (laws), earth (substance) and human (life as creative force)? These also can be explained as the Three Virtues of Tao: “Possibilities as Great Compassion” in the sense that it allows and supports all life-forms and all beings to be what they choose to be without judgment; “Laws as Great Wisdom” in the sense that it knows how everything works; and “Nothing as Great Power” in the sense that it has the capacity to generate all the energy and matter of the entire universe.
These three are one in Tao, which by its own nature is timeless. For some reason that we don’t know, the Possibilities began to manifest by using the resources of Nothing, according to the Laws. That was the beginning of our time.
Nothing is the universe’s great storehouse and power plant. Laws give the universe order and stability, while possibilities give the universe dynamic creativity and change. Through the balance of these, the universe maintains its eternal dynamic harmony that provides all beings with the environment in which they can realize their potential value. This is the picture of the world that Tao presents to us.
This article is excerpted from Ilchi Lee’s book “Change: Realizing Your Greatest Potential.”
