← The Dao De Jing
Chapter 3
The Vessel That Is Never Full
不盈之器
The Text
道冲而用之或不盈。渊乎似万物之宗。挫其锐，解其纷，和其光，同其尘。
The way is empty, yet use will not drain it. Deep, it is like the ancestor of the ten thousand things. It blunts the sharpness, unties the knots, dims the glare, settles the dust.
Reading it
The four verbs at the end are practical instructions, not poetry. Sharpness blunted, knots untied, glare dimmed, dust settled — a description of what a room feels like when a difficult meeting has actually ended.
末尾四个动词是实操，不是诗。锐者挫之，纷者解之，光者和之，尘者同之——一场难谈真正结束时，房间就是这个样子。
Practice for the week
Before a difficult conversation, ask which of the four the room needs.
难谈之前，先问一句：此刻需要的是这四样里的哪一样。