Tao Te Ching – Chapter Eleven
Written by Lao-tzu – From a translation by S. Mitchell
We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the centre hole
that makes the wagon move.
We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.
We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it liveable.
We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.
How I Read This Chapter
We build recovery with structure and tools,
meetings, steps, prayers, actions,
but it’s the space around those actions,
where healing takes root.
It’s the silence between words,
the stillness in surrender,
the pauses where grace breathes.
It’s not the form,
but the formless,
that makes our recovery real.
We work with what we can see,
but it's the unseen
that transforms us.
What This Means To Me
When I first came into recovery, I was desperate for something solid—rules, rituals, checklists, anything to make sense of the chaos I had lived in. The Just for today card and the 12 Steps gave me structure, and I clung to them like a life raft. But over time, I came to realise that the power of recovery doesn’t just lie in what we do—it lives in the space those actions create.
This chapter of the Tao reminds me that it’s not the spokes of the wheel that move the cart, but the empty hub in the centre. In the same way, my recovery depends on the quiet centre I return to between all the doing. It’s the silence after a meeting, the deep breath before sharing, the stillness of Step Eleven when I pause and listen—not just talk. That space is where transformation happens.
When I shaped my sobriety like clay, I thought it was about form—sponsorship, readings, routines. But like the pot in this verse, what holds my new life is the inner emptiness I once feared: the hollow I used to try to fill with alcohol. That emptiness has become my strength—not because it is filled, but because it makes room. Room for truth. Room for connection. Room for My God.
There’s a paradox here that I’m learning to embrace. Recovery is built with “being”—with actions, honesty, inventory, amends—but the real gift is in the “non-being”: the moments of surrender, the quiet humility, the soft spaces where I no longer have to strive. It’s not what I say, but what I listen to. Not what I hold, but what I release.
In early sobriety, silence was unbearable, my vicious inner dialogue would taunt me in those quiet moments. Now, it’s sacred. I used to dread the empty spaces because they reminded me of what I had lost, and fill my head with guilt, remorse, and ultimately, fear. Today, I see they are what allow something new to grow. The emptiness is no longer a void—it’s a vessel.
So I keep showing up, doing the work, building the structure. But I also honour the spaces in between. Because it’s there—in the stillness, in the surrender—that recovery becomes more than just sobriety. It becomes a life filled with presence, possibility, and peace.
