Returning to the Source
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天下有始，以為天下母。既知其母，復知其子；既知其子，復守其母，没身不殆。塞其兌，𨳲其門，終身不勤；開其兌，濟其事，終身不救。見小曰明，守柔日強。用其光，復歸其明，無遺身殃，是謂習常。
The world has a beginning; take it as the mother of the world. Once you know the mother, you also know the child; once you know the child, go back and hold to the mother, and to the end of your life you are in no danger. Block up the openings, shut the door, and all your life you will not toil; open the openings, add to your affairs, and all your life you will not be saved. Seeing the small is called clarity; keeping to the soft, you grow strong day by day. Use your light, then return to your brightness, and leave yourself no harm. This is called practicing the constant.
Knowing the source lets you use the world without being used up by it.
The mother is the Way, the source, and the child is everything it produces. Safety lies in holding to the source instead of chasing what comes out of it, and the openings to be blocked are the senses.
Two textual details stand out. Heshang Gong’s own print switches between 旣 and 既 for the same word “already” within one chapter (normalized here to the standard 既). And where Wang Bi’s text reads 曰強 “is called strength”, echoing 曰明 just before, Heshang Gong’s 日強 gives a slower, more physical sense: strength that grows day by day.
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