The Purpose of Darkness

 

The Master keeps her mind always at one with the Tao;
that is what gives her her radiance.
The Tao is ungraspable.
How can her mind be at one with it?
Because she doesn’t cling to ideas.
The Tao is dark and unfathomable.
How can it make her radiant?
Because she lets it.
— Tao Te Ching

What is the purpose of darkness?

Radiance doesn’t come from control or clarity, but from allowing what is dark, ungraspable, and unknowable to shape us. In darkness objects loosen their grip and reality becomes more fluid. Darkness dissolves our identity in deep sleep, only to re-form us in the returning light.

I can’t accept “darkness for the purpose of light” as a complete answer. Some darkness is too raw, too devastating: ecological unraveling, social fragmentation, personal grief. These defy easy meaning. Instinctively, I want to push them away, disown the dark, deny it. Yet some darkness must be held, endured, and accounted for — not explained away.

And then there is another kind of darkness: the vast, silent depth that underlies everything. The womb of pure potential. To enter this darkness is not to be lost. It is to consent to its fertile mystery, a depth that refuses all labels and holds us in silence.

Perhaps one purpose of darkness is to dissolve certainty and deepen our trust in the unseen, so we can reweave something more honest and more whole.

What has darkness taught you?
What radiance have you rewoven from it?
How does it shape your sense of belonging, healing, or wholeness?

from KosmosJournal.org, Volume 25, Issue 4