VOLUME II, SEMESTER 1, CHAPTER 3, SECTION 3
Turning the Mirror Around, You Have Sat on Both Sides
The last two sections took the two halves of this heart, resenting those who have more and scorning those who have less. All the way through, it read as though every line were about someone else. The clerk behind the window. The one who resents. The one who scorns. This section does an uncomfortable thing. It turns the mirror around and holds it up to you. It is the most important lesson in the chapter, because only once you have seen yourself in it does everything the last two sections said finally come down and touch the ground.
First look, at your own hands. Have you ever held even a little power? Stop for three seconds and ask yourself honestly. Have you ever, in this life, sat in a position that carried even a scrap of it?
Were you ever a middle manager in a company, with a few people under you? Ever the lead on a project, with partners to answer to you? Ever a teacher, with a room of students? Ever a parent, with children? Ever the admin of a group chat, with a few hundred members? Ever on the board for a building, with a few dozen neighbors leaning on it?
Put plainly, if you have ever sat anywhere that others had to wait on your nod before they could go forward, then you have held a little power, and you have stood in the very place from which a person can torment.
Stop three more seconds, and ask finer. That one time, did you drag it out a day on purpose before you answered someone under you? That one time, did you go picking at the one small flaw in your child's homework that did not actually matter? That one time, did you leave a member's question sitting cold in the group on purpose, and let him hang half a day? That salesman you could have turned down in a single word, did you let him talk five minutes more? That coworker's proposal you could have signed off in a second, did you let it sit on your desk three days?
Call those back, just for a second. And something lands, quietly, in the chest. Ah. So. Me too.
Now look deeper, past the hands and into the heart. That day of resentment from the first section, whose day was it? The tap of approval that would not go down under the classmate's new house, whose thumb was that? The it was nothing special under the coworker's praise, whose line was that in the chest? The one who went quiet a long while after the relative's happy phone call, who was that? And that day of scorn from the second section, whose day was it? The watch where you are going at the street sweeper, who? The sigh down the bank line at the old man, was yours in it? The one star finger hovering three seconds at the driver with the accent, whose? The here he comes asking for money again in the family thread, in whose heart did that rise first?
Resenting those who have more, scorning those who have less, two whole sections of it, and it was never once about the stranger behind the window. It was about you. Both of these run in every heart. How many times in a life, only you know. The one and only thing that stands between you and the little clerk behind the window is this. Whether a position with a scrap of power ever came along to let you act it out. Without the position, it stays bottled in you. Let the position arrive, and it runs out through the same four gears.
And there is a second face to this mirror, and it has to be looked at too. You have not only resented others. You have been resented. That one time you rarely got to drive a nice car to an office and got checked over with unusual care, that was being resented. That one time you got the promotion and the smiles of a few old coworkers went suddenly thin, that too was being resented. You have not only scorned others. You have been scorned. That one time you were down on your luck and went to a relative's, and even the speed the tea got pushed across the table was not what it used to be, that was being scorned. That one time you turned up somewhere new, wrong accent, wrong clothes, and the words from behind the window came extra hard, that too was being scorned.
You have resented, and been resented. You have scorned, and been scorned. You have tormented, and been tormented. Both positions, your whole life long, you have sat in both.
This is the plainest proof there is of that word from the first chapter, the trade Confucius spoke of. That positions trade is not a moral demand laid on you. It is a plain fact about your life. Every actual person takes turns sitting at both ends. Today you are inside the window, tomorrow you are outside it. On this matter you resent, on that one you are resented. No one sits forever on top. No one sits forever at the bottom.
And now that line from the first chapter, Confucius and do not do to others what you would not want done to yourself, can come down and land in the most concrete place of all. You have been blocked, and you know how that tastes. So the next time you sit down behind the window, that second, only trade places, and you find you cannot bring the block down. You have been resented, and you know how cold that look is. So the next time you see someone doing better, that second, only trade places, and that resentment does not rise. You have been scorned, and you know how hard those words land. So the next time you see someone weaker, that second, only trade places, and that scorn does not come down.
Trading places takes no learning at all. You have sat at both ends your whole life. You have tasted all of it. You have every bit of the experience already. The only thing you are short of is that one second, to remember it.
That closes the third chapter. Pull together what it has set down. This chapter opened the heart hidden behind torment, the one that went three thousand years without being named straight out. Resent those who have more, scorn those who have less. The first section, the upper half, resenting those who have more, the resentment with no account, and Confucius setting a fork at the second of seeing someone worthier, reach for his level or breed resentment. The second section, the lower half, scorning those who have less, colder, with the footstool and the pushing away of fear inside it, and Confucius laying out both ends, poor without fawning and rich without arrogance, and Mencius setting a position for the scorned, poverty cannot move him. The third section turned the mirror around and found you in it. The little power, you have held it. The resentment and the scorn, they have run in your heart. Both positions, you have sat in your whole life. And Confucius, do not do to others what you would not want done to yourself, coming down to land in the most concrete place there is.
That is the third stake this chapter drives. Torment is work done by the hands. Resenting those who have more and scorning those who have less is the root of it in the heart. And which way the hands push their force is set by that heart.
By now the what of torment, the how of it, and the root of it in the heart have all been laid out. But one thing is still left. When torment reaches the hands, what exactly are the moves? Over a lifetime, which specific forms are the ones that surround a person and hem him in? The next chapter takes these things that get met every single day and were never once named, and gives each of them a name. See you in the next chapter.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.