ZERO points to and extends across diverse disciplines and fields; from physics and mathematics to religious practices such as Buddhism and Zen, as well as to art and music. ZERO as emptiness, absence, nothing, silence and void traverses from the abstract to the physical and spiritual world. Centuries of theologians, philosophers and mathematicians from both East and West have struggled with the concept of ZERO in order to reconcile its ambivalent presence and at times, terrifying significance within their respective field of inquiry.
ZERO as an empty site is viewed as a loss in income for the private owner or the government if the land was not developed. Multiple empty sites, on the other hand, are regarded as urban blights in the city. Beyond the urban scale, physical emptiness can happen at different durations within a room or a building, while the psychological feeling of emptiness experienced by a person conjures up a loss of purpose and meaning of existence. Physical emptiness can also have considerable influence on one’s state of mind. It can bring about a depressing feeling as illustrated in the passage below from John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath,
“I-I wonder if I kin go along with you folks. Simepin’s happening. I went an’ I looked, an’ the houses is all empty an’ the lan’ is empty, an’ this whole country is empty. I can’t stay here no more.”(1)
Kathryn Milun’s book, Pathologies of Modern Space: Empty Space, Urban Anxiety and the Recovery of the Public Self describes the consequences of empty space in contemporary American cities on the psychological and mental state of the urban dweller.(2) Spaces such as the vast, empty no-man’s land of highways and the alienating qualities of shopping malls, which lack considerations for an active public life have given rise to a state of anxiety and fear among urban dwellers in the form of a disorder called agoraphobia. Horror Vaccui or the fear of the void, such as the continuing emptying out of Detroit due to decades of economic decline, racial tension, uncontrolled crimes and the lack a of political will and leadership for change is not unlike the fear that emptiness has evoked in Steinbeck’s well known novel. When my students visited the city as part of a interdisciplinary studio project, they described a feeling of uneasy silence and perception of fear lurking amidst miles of decayed, boarded up buildings and empty plots of land.
On the contrary, for devotees of Mahayana Buddhism, Śūnyatā or emptiness suggests a state of awareness of the absence of any intrinsic identity, essence or permanence in our encounters with the world since everything is in a continuous state of flux, cessation and interdependence. The state of emptiness, unlike perceived in the West, is not the absence of spiritual grounding. On the contrary, it enables emptying out one’s prejudices and attachment to earthly desires, which are seen as the root causes of unhappiness.
“A goal stood before Siddhartha, a single goal: to become empty, empty of this, empty of wishing, empty of dreams, empty of joy and sorrow. Dead to himself, not to be self anymore, to find tranquility with an empty head, to be open to miracles, in unselfish thoughts, that was his goal.”(3)
In the Chinese language, the word empty, 空, is made up of two characters; 穴 (xuè), which means cave and 工 (gōng) which refers to work. As cave, empty references back to the nature while as work, empty is not an absence or nothing but an energetic activity. The famous paradoxical Taoist proverb reminded us on the importance of emptiness,
“Thirty spokes unite in one nave; the utility of the cart depends on the hollow center in which the axle turns. Clay is molded into a vessel; the utility of the vessel depends on its hollow interior. Doors and windows are cut out in order to make a house; the utility of the house depends on the empty spaces.”(4)
1. Galati, Frank. (1998). John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath: Playscript. New York, N.Y.: Dramatists Play Service.
2. Milun, Kathryn. (2006). Pathologies of Modern Space: Empty Space, Urban Anxiety and the Recovery of the Public Self. New York: Routledge
3. Herman Hesse. (2007). Siddharta. Winnetka, California: Norliana Books.
4. LaoTze. Daodejing. (Chapter11). UCLA Center for East Asian Studies. Retrieved 2010, Jan 6 from http://www.international.ucla.edu/eas/documents/DaoDeJingP1.htm
ZERO as an empty site is viewed as a loss in income for the private owner or the government if the land was not developed. Multiple empty sites, on the other hand, are regarded as urban blights in the city. Beyond the urban scale, physical emptiness can happen at different durations within a room or a building, while the psychological feeling of emptiness experienced by a person conjures up a loss of purpose and meaning of existence. Physical emptiness can also have considerable influence on one’s state of mind. It can bring about a depressing feeling as illustrated in the passage below from John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath,
“I-I wonder if I kin go along with you folks. Simepin’s happening. I went an’ I looked, an’ the houses is all empty an’ the lan’ is empty, an’ this whole country is empty. I can’t stay here no more.”(1)
Kathryn Milun’s book, Pathologies of Modern Space: Empty Space, Urban Anxiety and the Recovery of the Public Self describes the consequences of empty space in contemporary American cities on the psychological and mental state of the urban dweller.(2) Spaces such as the vast, empty no-man’s land of highways and the alienating qualities of shopping malls, which lack considerations for an active public life have given rise to a state of anxiety and fear among urban dwellers in the form of a disorder called agoraphobia. Horror Vaccui or the fear of the void, such as the continuing emptying out of Detroit due to decades of economic decline, racial tension, uncontrolled crimes and the lack a of political will and leadership for change is not unlike the fear that emptiness has evoked in Steinbeck’s well known novel. When my students visited the city as part of a interdisciplinary studio project, they described a feeling of uneasy silence and perception of fear lurking amidst miles of decayed, boarded up buildings and empty plots of land.
On the contrary, for devotees of Mahayana Buddhism, Śūnyatā or emptiness suggests a state of awareness of the absence of any intrinsic identity, essence or permanence in our encounters with the world since everything is in a continuous state of flux, cessation and interdependence. The state of emptiness, unlike perceived in the West, is not the absence of spiritual grounding. On the contrary, it enables emptying out one’s prejudices and attachment to earthly desires, which are seen as the root causes of unhappiness.
“A goal stood before Siddhartha, a single goal: to become empty, empty of this, empty of wishing, empty of dreams, empty of joy and sorrow. Dead to himself, not to be self anymore, to find tranquility with an empty head, to be open to miracles, in unselfish thoughts, that was his goal.”(3)
In the Chinese language, the word empty, 空, is made up of two characters; 穴 (xuè), which means cave and 工 (gōng) which refers to work. As cave, empty references back to the nature while as work, empty is not an absence or nothing but an energetic activity. The famous paradoxical Taoist proverb reminded us on the importance of emptiness,
“Thirty spokes unite in one nave; the utility of the cart depends on the hollow center in which the axle turns. Clay is molded into a vessel; the utility of the vessel depends on its hollow interior. Doors and windows are cut out in order to make a house; the utility of the house depends on the empty spaces.”(4)
1. Galati, Frank. (1998). John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath: Playscript. New York, N.Y.: Dramatists Play Service.
2. Milun, Kathryn. (2006). Pathologies of Modern Space: Empty Space, Urban Anxiety and the Recovery of the Public Self. New York: Routledge
3. Herman Hesse. (2007). Siddharta. Winnetka, California: Norliana Books.
4. LaoTze. Daodejing. (Chapter11). UCLA Center for East Asian Studies. Retrieved 2010, Jan 6 from http://www.international.ucla.edu/eas/documents/DaoDeJingP1.htm