VOLUME III, SEMESTER 3, CHAPTER 39, SECTION 1
Nine kinds of living Lei Feng
This is the last chapter of this term. The chapters before spoke the by need through the whole way: how warm it is, how everywhere it is, that it has a bound, that it wants a check. But there is still the deepest step. This section first calls out a name every man has heard, Lei Feng. What it means to ask is: these three words, a living Lei Feng, what in the end do they mean, on what ground are they the look of distribution by need come alive.
One, a living Lei Feng, which word is it that lives
This name Lei Feng, you have heard from a child. Bring him up, and what leaps into your head is mostly the three words, doing good deeds. But this section fixes its eye not on the good deeds, on that word living. When men say some man is a living Lei Feng, the stress falls on living.
So, which word is it that lives. What lives is the giving. It is that heart of giving out for free, asking no return. Of those things Lei Feng did, not one was to trade for money, for name, for a word of thanks. He took what he had, drew it out, gave it to the man in need, gave and walked off, kept no account. Chapter thirty five spoke of it, in that bowl of rice a mother left, there is not one line of account. A living Lei Feng is taking this account keeping giving, from a mother to her own child, and pushing it onto stranger after stranger not known. This is the word a living Lei Feng lives: a giving that keeps no account even toward a stranger.
So a living Lei Feng is never the name of some one particular man. It is the name of a heart. Wherever a man, asking no return, gives out what he has, there is a living Lei Feng. It is not surnamed Lei, it can be surnamed any surname, it can be any man beside you, and it can be yourself. What this section means to speak is, this giving, what in the end can it give out. You will find the things that can be given are far more than you thought.
Two, the first three: time, energy, attention
Count out the things that can be given for free, one by one, count nine kinds. The first three are the most against the body, the most daily three: time, energy, attention.
The first, give time. Time is a man’s most solid thing, because it goes and does not return. You sit an afternoon with a lonely old man, you spend an evening hearing out a man who cannot think a thing through, and what you give out is this stretch of your life that never comes back. This giving is the heaviest, because it draws out that bit of the weight of your own being alive.
The second, give energy. You have busied a whole day, are tired, yet you rouse your spirits and go lend a man a hand, shoulder a thing for him. What you give out is that bit of force you could have used to catch a breath. The third, give attention. This one is the most easily made light of. But think a moment, a man willing to lay his whole heart on you, in earnest to look at you, hear you, hold you in mind, in today’s world, is how rare a thing. Every man is head down about his own busyness, and to have one man willing to give you his whole attention is a deep giving.
These first three, time, energy, attention, are the least conspicuous, and the truest three of a living Lei Feng. They ask not that you have money, ask not that you have skill. Even if you own nothing, you have time, have energy, have a share of attention to lay on another, to give. These three, every man can afford.
Three, the middle three: relationship, trust, health
The middle three go one layer deeper than the first three: relationship, trust, health. These three are handing out a more needful thing of your own.
The fourth, give relationship. You know a man who can help, and you draw this tie out, to link up another man in need. What you give out is the human web you yourself saved up. The fifth, give trust. This one is greatly heavy. You are willing to trust a man not yet proven, to hand a needful thing to him, and you in truth set yourself in a place that may be let down. Trust is to be risked, to give trust is to bear a share of the risk for the other. Many a man never got to stand up his whole life, only because there was never one man willing to trust him once. That first man willing to trust him gives out a weighty entrusting.
The sixth, give health. This one is the most heart aching. Some men, to care for a sick one, to shoulder a spread of things, burn their own bodies down. What they give out is their own soundness, is the very stake of their own life.
These middle three, relationship, trust, health, are no more things given at a hand’s turn. They ask you to hand out, to stake out, a deeper, more needful thing of your own. A man who gives to this layer has truly divided a part of himself to another.
Four, the last three: skill, reputation, feeling
The last three are the innermost three a living Lei Feng can give: skill, reputation, feeling.
The seventh, give skill. You have a craft, an ability, that you could take to trade for money. Yet you take no money, and teach it for free to a man in need, or do it for a man for free. What you give out is your keeping skill that you could have turned to cash. The eighth, give reputation. This one is greatly heavy, and few can bear to give it. You stand warrant for a man, you say I trust him, seek him out for a thing and you will not go wrong. This is to stake that weight you saved up a whole life, that others are willing to hear you speak, onto another man. Should he go wrong, your reputation is hurt with him. The man willing to give reputation is, with his own name, laying a road for another.
The ninth, and the deepest, give feeling. The first eight give things still outside the body, countable. But feeling is other. You truly hold a man dear, love a man, take a man of no blood kin into your heart to ache for, and what you give out is your heart itself. This is the innermost, and warmest, thing a living Lei Feng can give.
These nine kinds are counted. Time, energy, attention, relationship, trust, health, skill, reputation, feeling. From that bit of time at the very outside, all the way to that one heart at the very inside. You will find the things a man can give out for free are so many, and so deep. A living Lei Feng is giving out one, several, even all of these nine, asking no return.
Five, wishing to stand yourself, help others to stand
These nine kinds of giving, said to the root, are that one line of Confucius. This line, chapter twenty nine of the front half laid down, saying it was held for the back half. Now, it is come to the time to be set up in earnest. Wishing to stand yourself, help others to stand. Wishing to arrive yourself, help others to arrive. So runs the line in the Analects.
Put it plain. Wishing to stand yourself, help others to stand, you would stand firm yourself, so give another a hand too, let another stand firm too. Wishing to arrive yourself, help others to arrive, you would fare well, get through yourself, so help another too, let another fare well, get through too. Join this line to those nine kinds of giving. Give time, give energy, give trust, give reputation, one by one, all do one same thing: help others to stand, help others to arrive. It is, at the same time you stand yourself, reaching a hand to pull another up too.
Taste closely the measure in this line of Confucius. It does not ask you to cast yourself away. It does not say, ruin yourself, break yourself, to fulfill another. It says wishing to stand yourself, help others to stand: you too are to stand, you too are to arrive, only in this course, at hand, and with heart, take another along too. This is the healthiest, longest lasting look of a living Lei Feng. It is no tragic tale of a man burning himself to ash to light another alone. It is a man standing firm and steady, with force to spare, dividing this spare force, one by one, to those in need beside him. The healthy giving flows out of fullness, not squeezed out of a deficit. This line of Confucius set for the living Lei Feng a floor both warm, and not tragic.
Six, what this section set, crossing to the next
Good. This section called out the living Lei Feng, and saw clear the word it lives is giving.
It saw clear a living Lei Feng is never some one particular man, it is a heart of giving that asks no return and keeps no account even toward a stranger, it can be any man, and it can be yourself. It counted the things that can be given into nine kinds: time, energy, attention, relationship, trust, health, skill, reputation, feeling, from that bit of time at the outside, all the way to that one heart at the inside. Through Confucius, wishing to stand yourself, help others to stand, it set the floor for these nine kinds: the healthy giving is helping others to stand while you stand, flowing out of fullness, not burning yourself to ash, not squeezed out of a deficit.
The position this section set is: the living Lei Feng is the look of distribution by need come alive, its substance is that giving that keeps no account, and what can be given is nine kinds, from time all the way to feeling.
So, spoken to here, one most root question there is no going around. These nine kinds of giving, this whole set of the by need, on what can it truly be carried out. Before, we spoke of so many workings, rules, checks, all dead things. But what makes them come alive, in the end, is it these workings themselves. Or something else, deeper. The next section digs all the way to that deepest place.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.