← The Dao De Jing
Chapter 47
Without Going Out the Door
不出户
The Text
不出户，知天下；不窥牖，见天道。其出弥远，其知弥少。是以圣人不行而知，不见而明，不为而成。
Without going out the door, know the world. Without looking out the window, see the way of heaven. The further one goes, the less one knows. So the wise know without going, name without seeing, accomplish without doing.
Reading it
Not a boast about armchair knowledge. Pattern repeats: the far place teaches you less about the far place than attention teaches you about pattern. The one who has seen how things return here has seen the main thing there is to see anywhere.
不是自夸书斋全知。规律是重复的：远方教你的关于远方的东西，不如专注教你的关于规律的东西多。在这里见过万物如何归返的人，在哪里都见到了主要的东西。
Practice for the week
Study one square metre of your immediate surroundings for ten minutes. Note how much was always there, unseen.
研究你身边一平方米，十分钟。记下有多少一直在那里、却从未被看见。