Valuable Because Empty-Free

The value of dishes, cups, pitchers, and ewers
is that they are empty, hollow, and enticing receptacles.
If there was no space, if fully solid throughout,
we’d have no idea how to make use of them.

A bottle must be empty for us to pour anything in;
if not vacant, what purpose would it have?
These facts are worth examining farsightedly:
how interesting that being vacant creates value?

It's the same with homes, because they are empty
we can enter, move about, and dwell within them.
If they were solid through without even a crack,
how ever could we get into our buildings?

Think about it, please, that things are valuable when "empty,"
but how silly that nobody appreciates such words?
Everyone abhors emptiness, refusing to contemplate it;
the essence is in the emptiness, but who cares?

* Tan Ajahn uses the Thai waang (free, empty, void) for sunya.