VOLUME II, SEMESTER 2, CHAPTER 23, SECTION 3
The Way Stands by a Person
The last two sections set up the door of the license, and let that thing stand at the door. It cannot get in, because it has no body, and cannot bear. But if it cannot get in, is it then to be thrown away? This lesson speaks of the last layer. What it should do out beyond the door. And why the deepest thing inside the door, the Way, can be erected only by a person.
It cannot get in at the door. But out beyond the door is a wide field. A doctor can see, in a day, only so many patients, and no more. If behind him there is a thing that sorts out clean, for every patient, his test sheets and his past records and the drugs he has taken, and lays them out in a row before his eyes, then the doctor is spared a great deal of labor, and can put his eyes back where they belong, on the face of the patient. A lawyer has to find, in tens of thousands of pages of a file, the few lines that turn the case. If behind him there is a thing that turns all those tens of thousands of pages in a single night and marks them out, then he is spared a great deal of labor, and can go and think on the truly hard thing, which is, this man, how in truth is he to be saved. A teacher, with fifty children to a class, has fifty pieces of homework. If behind him there is a thing that picks out first the wrong characters and the miscounted steps, then he is spared a great deal of labor, and can look one more time at the child who kept his head down all through the lesson. See it clearly. Out beyond the door, it is not idle in the least. The things it can do are many, and weighty. It is the finest machine at the doctor's hand, the fastest helper at the lawyer's, the most tireless hand at the teacher's. The effort it puts out is real effort. The labor it spares is real labor. There is only one thing it does not do. It does not cross that door, and sign, for the real person, that name. It does the work up to the very threshold, and leaves the last stroke to a person.
And why must the last stroke be a person? Because the deepest thing inside the door is called the Way. And the Way can be erected only by a person. Take this to the bottom. The twentieth chapter said that the Way is what is above form, that it has no form, that it cannot be written into code, cannot be stored in a machine, and can only grow on a person. But this section has to go one layer deeper still. The Way not only can only grow on a person. It can only be erected anew, one time at a time, by a person. What does that mean? A doctor might have prescribed by the most convenient formula there is, and yet he asks one more question, and checks one more time, because he is not easy in his mind. This stroke is the Way. It is in no book of medicine. A lawyer might have advised his client to admit it and save himself the trouble, and yet he feels that this man has been wronged, and he sits up three nights running. This stroke is the Way. It is in no code of law. A teacher might have looked straight past the child with his head down, and yet he keeps him back after the lesson, and asks him one line, is something weighing on you these days. This stroke is the Way. It is in no lesson plan. These strokes are not set by any rule. A rule can set only the passing mark. The rule says, the doctor must ask after the history, the lawyer must do his duty, the teacher must grade the homework. But the rule cannot set, that you ask that one more question, that you sit up that one more night, that you keep that child back that one moment more. That extra stroke is a living person, in that moment, erecting it himself. The Way is this extra stroke. And this stroke, a machine cannot erect. Because a machine only carries out as far as the rule. Where the rule says stop, it does, and not a step more. It has not that not easy in his mind. It has not that feels the man was wronged. It has not that cannot let go of the child with his head down. Those grow up out of a body. And it has no body.
The ancestors said this most exactly. They do it and do not understand it, they practice it and do not examine it, they follow it their whole lives long and do not know its Way, and such are the most of people. At the first look, this seems to be calling people muddle-headed. But look deeper, and it says a thing of the first importance. The Way can be a thing followed without being known. A good doctor, in the moment he asks that one more question, is not, in his heart, likely thinking, I am now practising the Way. He only feels uneasy, and so he asks. He follows it, and does not know its Way. And it is exactly this stroke, that cannot be spoken and cannot be set out and yet was really and truly done, that is what the Way looks like when it is alive. And this, precisely, is the thing a machine can never learn. What a machine is best at is the understanding and the examining, the writing of every rule out plain, the reckoning of it all clear. But the Way lives exactly in the place that is not understood and not examined, in the stroke a person cannot himself set out and yet still did. What you can write out plain, a machine can learn. The stroke you cannot write out plain, that is the Way. It cannot be written plain, and so it cannot be handed to a machine. It can only be handed, from one living person, to another living person.
And here the bone of this whole chapter comes clear. That door was never there to keep the machine out. That door is there to keep the person in. Look back over the three chapters. The twenty first, the one who makes it, keeps his self-discipline, and that is a person. The twenty second, the one who places it, sets his four guards, and that is a person. And this chapter, the outermost door, recognizes the license, and whether one can bear it, and that is a person still. Three chapters through, and have you seen it? From the first to the last, the thing that truly holds is, every bit of it, people. However great the tool, it is always the object. And behind every door there has to stand a person who can bear it. That outermost door, bought with blood, raised railing by railing, is not there to block anyone out. It is there to guard that life. And the one who guards that life, in the end, is not the door. It is the person behind the door, the one who asks the one more question, who sits up the one more night, who keeps the child the one moment more. The door can set only the passing mark. The person erects that extra stroke. And that extra stroke is the Way.
So here is where this section leaves us, and the twenty third stake nailed shut. The outermost door is governing, and its core the license, bought with blood, blocking the touching of a life with no skill. That thing walks to the door and cannot get in, not for want of skill but for want of a body, unable to bear. But it is not thrown away, for out beyond the door is a wide field, where it is the doctor's finest machine and the lawyer's fastest helper, doing the work to the threshold and leaving the last stroke to a person. And why the last stroke must be a person, because the deepest thing inside is the Way, and the Way can be erected only by a person, the rule setting only the passing mark while the extra stroke, the one more question and the one more night and the one moment more for the child with his head down, is a living person erecting it. Mencius, they do it and do not understand it, and follow it and do not know its Way, the Way living in the stroke that cannot be spoken and yet was done, what you can write plain a machine can learn and the stroke you cannot write plain being the Way, handed only from one living person to another. Three chapters, and the door is not there to keep the machine out but to keep the person in, the tool always the object, behind every door a person who can bear it, the door setting the passing mark and the person erecting the extra stroke, and that stroke the Way. That is the twenty third stake this chapter drives. The door keeps the person in, and the tool is always the object, and behind every door stands a person who can bear it, and the door sets the passing mark while the person erects the extra stroke, and that stroke is the Way.
So, three doors are told. The self-discipline of the one who makes it, the guards of the one who places it, the license of the one who governs it. The people, square by square, are all set down. But there is one biggest question, and it has never once been met head on. Will that thing, one day, really become a person? Will it have a heart, and have feeling, and really come to understand love, and to understand pain? Today some say it already has, and some say it never will. The next chapter meets this most mystical question, and the one that most unsettles the heart, head on. See you in the next chapter.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
Chapter 24 Limit Is the Capital, and What Holds the World Up Is the One Who Stands as a Person