The World Has a Beginning
The Text
天下有始，以为天下母。既得其母，以知其子；既知其子，复守其母，没身不殆。塞其兑，闭其门，终身不勤。开其兑，济其事，终身不救。见小曰明，守柔曰强。用其光，复归其明，无遗身殃。是为袭常。
The world has a beginning, which may be the mother of the world. Having found the mother, know her children; knowing the children, return to hold the mother — to the end of life, no danger. Block the openings, shut the doors, and to the end of life no toil. Open the openings, add to your affairs, and to the end of life no rescue. Seeing the small is called clear; keeping to the soft is called strong. Use the returning light; give its light back — no ill falls to one’s posterity. This is called practising the constant.
Reading it
Mother and children is a retrieval structure: particulars are legible only from their source, and the source is reachable from any particular. Block the openings is not retreat — it is the diet of attention that keeps the world’s noise from generating endless affairs needing endless rescue.
母与子是一个检索结构：只有回到源头才能读懂具体，而任何具体都能通回源头。「塞其兑」不是退隐——是给注意力限流，免得世界的噪音不断生出需要不断救援的事务。
Close one opening — a feed, a channel, a habit of checking — for a week. Count the rescues that never became necessary.
关掉一个入口——订阅、频道、刷新的习惯——一周。数一数那些没有变成必要的救援。