VOLUME II, SEMESTER 2, CHAPTER 26, SECTION 3
Originally Not a Single Thing, a Great Love Left in the Human World
The last two sections drew the nine things in onto one word, portion, and drew portion in onto one half second. This lesson is the last section of this section, of this chapter, and of this whole volume, the Cultural Institution. Having come so far, having said so much, at the very last there ought to be a place for it all to land. And that landing is eight characters. Originally not a single thing, a great love left in the human world.
Take the first four characters first. Originally not a single thing. They are borrowed. In the Chan school there is a most famous line. Originally there was not a single thing, so where would the dust alight? What it speaks of is a plain thing. A person comes bare, and goes bare. When you came, you brought not a thing with you. When you go, you can carry not a thing away. The money you saved a whole life, you cannot carry away. The name you fought for a whole life, you cannot carry away. That house of yours, that car, that title, not one of them can you carry away. Originally not a single thing. Think this layer through, and it feels a little cold, and it feels a little loosed. The cold is this. Busy a whole life, clutching a whole life, and at the end two empty hands. The loosed is this. Since nothing at all can be carried away, then this one life of yours, spent for dear life clutching at the things that cannot be carried away, what was it for? Those things that had you up at night, that had you reckoning, that had you wear your body down and wear the people at your side away, the name, the gain, that one breath of pride, at the very end not one of them is yours. Originally not a single thing. The twenty fourth chapter said that a person is limited, that he will come to an end. And originally not a single thing carries that limit to its very end. Not only is this person of yours limited, but everything you clutched, at the last, comes to nothing as well. This is the coldest, and the most clear-eyed, of the bottom lines of this whole volume.
Then does this say a person lives one journey for nothing, leaves nothing behind at all? No. And here the second four characters have to be said. A great love left in the human world. There is one thing that you can leave. Not money, not name, not any thing. It is the true feeling you spent on the people of this world, the good deeds you did, the warmth you gave out. In one word, it is love. Look at a few of the most ordinary scenes. A teacher, gone many years now. And that line he said back then to a child who had been wronged, I know it was not you, that child kept a whole life long, and is using the same words still, to shield some other person's child. The teacher himself, originally not a single thing, carried nothing away. And the warmth in that one line stayed in the human world, and is passing down still. A mother, gone. And the way she was, back then, at the stove, the way she bore a thing in silence, the way she set the last piece of meat to this one and not that, all grew onto the body of her child, and will pass on again to the child of her child. She, originally not a single thing. And the way this person loved has stayed in the human world. See it clearly. What cannot be carried away is the thing. What can be left is the love. The one thing a person's one life can truly set against that originally not a single thing is only this, how he once loved the people of this world. The thing comes to nothing. The love does not. Love goes down along that three-thousand-year chain, ring by ring, and passes on and on.
Do not take these eight characters for two cut pieces. Originally not a single thing, and a great love left in the human world, are not a cold one spoken first and a warm one spoken after. They are one line, the inside and the outside of one single thing. It is precisely because of the originally not a single thing that the great love left in the human world is so dear. Think of it. If a person could carry everything away, if the money could be carried away and the name carried away and the life could go on and never end, then love too would be nothing rare, for everything alike could be kept. But it is precisely because nothing else at all can be kept, and love alone can be kept, that love becomes the one thing in this world that can stand against the coming-to-nothing. It is that nothing that sets off love's something. It is that cold of what cannot be carried away that sets off the warmth of what can be left. And this too is the stance of this whole set of books, from the head to the tail. It spoke of so much torment, so much cold, so much limit, so much that cannot be carried away, and it spoke of these never to have you lose heart. On the contrary. It was so that, having seen all of this clear, you would still be willing to love, still be willing, in that half second, to lean toward the side of the good. To have seen the originally not a single thing, and still be willing at the great love left in the human world, this is the kind of person this set of books truly means to raise you into.
The ancestors said this thing most plainly, and most heavily. Confucius had the learning of a whole life, and a disciple asked him whether it could be summed in a single word. And Confucius gave one word. Reciprocity, perhaps. What you do not want for yourself, do not do to others. See it. Round two volumes of books, hundreds of thousands of words, and it circles back to this one line. This line you have been hearing from the first chapter of the first semester to this last chapter. It is the plainest form of that great love left in the human world. Reciprocity is not some earth-shaking great love. Reciprocity is only this. You yourself do not want to be blocked, so do not block another. You yourself do not want to be trodden on, so do not tread on another. You yourself hope to be well treated, so treat another well first. It is so small that it comes down into every half second. And it is precisely these reciprocities in one half second after another, saved up, that are the great love a person leaves in the human world across his one life. Confucius drew the learning of a whole life in onto this one word, reciprocity. And this book too draws the words of two volumes in onto this one word. You can carry nothing away. And if you have practiced this reciprocity your whole life through, you have left the very best of all things in the human world.
So here is where this section leaves us, and the twenty sixth stake nailed shut, and it is the last layer of this whole volume too. How to live alongside the nine things comes down onto one word, portion, portioning the limited capital out to the living people and matters that are worth it. Where does the portioning happen, down onto one half second, for what a person truly decides is one half second after another, and in it he leans on the raised body, the last person that no tool can touch. And this one journey of a person, what is it for and what does it leave, comes down onto eight characters. Originally not a single thing, a great love left in the human world. What cannot be carried away is the thing, and what can be left is the love, and it is precisely because of the originally not a single thing that the great love that can be left is so dear. Confucius drew the learning of a whole life in onto one word, reciprocity, what you do not want for yourself do not do to others, and it comes down into every half second. The three sections together drive the twenty sixth stake, and it is the last nail of this whole volume. A person's one life is his taking of the limited nine things, and in one half second after another, choosing to love. The thing comes to nothing. The love stays in the human world, and goes down along that three-thousand-year chain, on and on.
And here this whole volume, the Cultural Institution, is told through. The first semester spoke of the root, of that bedrock of culture hard past all seeing, of how torment grows up out of that bedrock, and of how, on one concrete person after another, it is handed down. The second semester spoke of the use. The stretch on education, of how the good things in that bedrock are handed down one generation to the next, by teaching, by steeping, by a person who can stand serving as that dye vat. The stretch on tools, of how, in the face of that new thing, a person is to be held, of how it is an implement and an object, of how what holds is always the person, and of how a person's last and hardest piece of ground is that half second. The two volumes together say, in truth, one same thing. Culture grows on the person. It is handed down by people, and it is held by people. However great the tool, however the age changes, the one that holds, the one that decides, the one that leaves love behind, is always a person, one after another, limited, able to hurt and to tire and to come to an end, and yet still willing, in that half second, to lean toward the good.
The credit goes to the ancestors. In these two volumes, every line that stands is a thing the ancestors long ago set out there, and this book has only brought them out again, and wiped them clean, and set them before you. The mistakes go to Tiger Lyon. Wherever a thing is said wrong, said off, said not far enough, it is that I learned it not well enough, and handed it on not well, and it has nothing to do with the ancestors.
May you carry the words of these two volumes back into your own days. Back into those half seconds of yours. And in that half second, may you always be able to lean toward the side of the good.
This lesson, the Cultural Institution, comes here to its end. The next lesson speaks of the Economic Institution.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.