Coming Into Life, Entering Death
The Text
出生入死。生之徒，十有三；死之徒，十有三；人之生，动之于死地，亦十有三。夫何故？以其生生之厚。盖闻善摄生者，陆行不遇兕虎，入军不被甲兵。兕无所投其角，虎无所措其爪，兵无所容其刃。夫何故？以其无死地。
We come into life and enter death. The followers of life are three in ten; the followers of death are three in ten; and the three in ten who move toward death do so from over-living. Why? Because they live life too thickly. One who is good at nursing life walks the land without meeting rhino or tiger, enters battle without touching armor or blade — the rhino finds no place to horn, the tiger no place to claw, the sword no place to cut. Why? Because he has no death-ground in him.
Reading it
The statistics are grim and deliberate: most damage is self-inflicted by density of living — over-filling, over-securing, over-defending. The death-ground is the handle that death gets on you: appetites, exposures, the over-leveraged self. Leave no handle, and the world’s claws find nothing to close on.
统计很冷峻也很刻意：大部分伤害来自「生生之厚」——过度填满、过度设防、过度加杠杆的自我。「死地」是死亡抓在你身上的把手：嗜好、暴露、超支。不留把手，世界的爪就无处闭合。
Find the one place you are most over-exposed — the death-ground. Remove one of its supports this week.
找到你暴露最重的那一处——死地。这周拆掉它的一个支撑。