The Short of It:
Cultivate your internal mind over the external world.
12. Restraining the passions.
The five colours will make a [person’s] eyes blind. The five sounds will make a [person’s] ears deaf. The five tastes will spoil a [person’s] mouth. Riding and hunting will drive a [person] mad. Things hard to procure will make a [person] run into harms. Therefore the sage makes provision for the inner [person], and not for the eyes. [They put] aside the one, that [they] may take the other in hand.
12. ‘the repression of the desires.’
12.1 Colour’s five hues from th’ eyes their sight will take; Music’s five notes the ears as deaf can make; The flavours five deprive the mouth of taste; The chariot course, and the wild hunting waste Make made the mind; and objects rare and strange, Sought for, [people's] conduct will to evil change.
12.2. Therefore, the sage seeks to satisfy (the craving of) the belly, and not the (insatiable longing of the) eyes. [They put] from [them] the latter, and [prefer] to seek the former.
12. abstaining from desire.
12.1 “The five colors [combined] the human eye will blind; The five notes [in one sound] the human ear confound; The five tastes [when they blend] the human mouth offend.” 12.2 “Racing and hunting will human hearts turn mad, Treasures high-prized make human conduct bad.”
12.3 Therefore
The holy [person] attends to the inner and not to the outer. [They abandon] the latter and [choose] the former.
The Long of It:
Absorbing the external world is an endless, impossible task. It will suck you dry if you let it. Instead, cultivate your internal mind by monitoring what you watch, listen to, eat, strive for, and collect. Because any one of them has the power to pull you down the rabbit hole.
-TB
