The Way Gives Birth to One
The Text
道生一，一生二，二生三，三生万物。万物负阴而抱阳，冲气以为和。人之所恶，唯孤、寡、不谷，而王公以为称。故物或损之而益，或益之而损。人之所教，我亦教之：强梁者不得其死。吾将以为教父。
The way gives birth to one; one gives birth to two; two give birth to three; three give birth to the ten thousand things. The ten thousand things carry yin and embrace yang, and the blended breath makes the harmony. People hate orphan, needy, unworthy — yet lords and kings take them as names. Things lose and thereby gain; gain and thereby lose. What others teach, I teach too: the violent do not die their own death. I take this as the father of my teaching.
Reading it
Generation by division, then harmony by blending — the tens of thousands of things all run on the yin-yang mix rather than on one pure pole. The second half loops back to ch. 39: the hated low names are chosen deliberately, because loss is how gaining actually works.
分裂式的生成，然后以冲和收束——万物靠的是阴阳之混，不是任何单极。后半绕回第 39 章：被厌弃的低位之名是故意取的，因为「损之而益」正是获得的真实机制。
Where something was lost this year, write down what arrived in its place. Check the exchange rate honestly.
列出今年失去的一样东西，写下它换来的位置。诚实地核算那个汇率。