Chapter 52

天下有始，以为天下母。既得其母，以知其子，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。
Translation
At the beginning, there is a Mother (creator) of the world. The son found his mother, the mother knows the sons, the son returns to the Mother and he can be in no danger.
Close his mouth, shut his door, he will not labor all his life; Open his mouth, strive for his affairs, his whole life will have no salvation.
To know the small is called enlightened, to abide by the soft is called the mighty. Note, the rest of the chapter is too difficult to understand

Notes
This chapter is ambiguous even by Lao Tzu’s standard. I find it impossible to translate word for word in this chapter. There is only one thing I need to reflect upon. 济其事，终身不救. To manage and strive for one’s own affairs is the opposite of Wu Wei. It is however not possible to do nothing. One needs to do things, for survival and all the other reasons. The question here is the attitude in the doing. Let’s say that you want to do certain things at work and in doing so your job is a better job. However, some colleagues do not have the same idea. This happened serval times. Now you have a choice. You can feel very frustrating, and wonder why is it that the colleague is against you, or you can be indifferent. After all, it is only work. When you feel frustrating, you are caught and this is the origin of all unhappiness and sufferings. If you can take it easy, you are on top of yourself.
If you amplify this, you would find that the problems of this world is no longer problematic, not even interesting. The result? 塞其兑，闭其门. You close the door and you meditate.
The Taoism developed by later people who want to live forever is a far cry from what Lao Tzu had prescribed. These 道士, or Taoist parishioners (they are not monks, although they live in temple like residences), focus on the preservation of this mortal body. For two thousand years, none had succeeded, apparently.