VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 4, SECTION 10

VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 4, SECTION 10

Oversight, Putting That Hand Under the Sunlight, and to Save Him Is to Save Him from Going On Committing Crimes

The last section set up those four strengths, cannot, do not want to, need not, dare not. This section brings these four down onto a solid method you can see, can touch, and that eases that breath in you too. The first method, the simplest, and also the cleanest, the most useful, oversight, putting that hand under the sunlight, so that it dares no more, and can hide no more. And then it undoes the biggest knot in your heart, to save him, is that in the end to let him go on being corrupt in his position? Let me say it dead, to save him is to save him from going on committing crimes, and absolutely not to shelter him in his position to go on being corrupt.

Let me point out once more why that hand dares. Look back at the front, those who are corrupt, who collude, why do they dare put out that hand? Two things were said before. One of them is, he supposes heaven does not know, earth does not know. He supposes he is hidden in the dark, no one seeing, no one watching, undetected by god or ghost. It is precisely because he supposes no one sees that his hand dares to reach out.

Then this one thing, how is it broken? The cleanest way to break it is one word, light. Take that hand, out of the dark, and move it under the sunlight, and let everyone watch. This is oversight.

What is oversight? It is putting power, that hand, under the broad light of day, under everyone's eyes. What that hand is doing, where it reaches, whose money it took, whom it shielded, all plain, all for everyone to see. Once that hand is put under the light, what happens? It, of itself, goes straight. Think, he dared reach out in the first place leaning on no one seeing. Now his hand, twenty-four hours, is under everyone's eyes, and the moment he reaches, everyone sees it clear as day. Does he still dare reach? He dares not. It is not that someone holds his hand down and will not let him reach, it is that, of himself, under so many pairs of eyes, he cannot reach out. A thing that cannot bear the light, once put under the light, cannot be done.

Think over this reasoning, how simple, and how useful. A thief, why does he dare steal? Because he picks the place with no one, the time when no one watches, to make his move. Put him in broad daylight, on the main street, in a place where everyone is watching, and can he still steal? He cannot, his hand cannot reach out however he tries. It is not that someone is pressing his hand, it is that so many pairs of eyes, of themselves, nail his hand still. The hand that is corrupt is the same. It dares reach out entirely by hiding in the dark, supposing no one sees. Move it under the light, everyone watching, and those shady doings of his, not one of them can be done. This is the most wondrous thing about oversight, it takes not one soldier, not one horse, does not press anyone's hand down, and merely by showing that hand under the light, that hand, of itself, draws back.

You see, this is that dare not from the last section, come down to the solid. Law lays that line plain, so he dares not cross it, and resting on what does it make him truly not dare cross? Resting on oversight, on putting that hand under the light, everyone watching. The line set there, and everyone watching besides, and only then does he truly not dare cross.

And let me have you especially tell one thing apart. Oversight is not calling on people to file secret reports, to inform, to denounce. These two are far apart. Oversight is sunlight, is aboveboard. It puts power out onto the open, out before everyone, so that power can bear the light, can stand up to being seen. What it is aimed at is power, you who hold power have to use your power under the light, not reach out in the dark. It is upright and open, it neither steals nor hides.

Filing secret reports, informing, is dark, is hidden in the shadows. What it is aimed at is people, is fixing on some person behind his back, lodging a complaint against some person. What it breeds is that fear where everyone is on guard, everyone is in danger, everyone denounces the other. What is wanted here is the former, oversight under the sunlight, not the latter, informing in the dark. Oversight is letting that hand use power properly under the light, it is not rousing people to fix on, in the back, and harm, one another. One is putting power out under the sun, upright and open, one is dragging people into the shadows, on guard against one another. This book, from beginning to end, use the pen and not the knife, upright and open, wants, of course, that oversight under the sunlight, upright and open, not the other.

These two, on no account confuse them. History has taken a great loss, and the loss was taken exactly in confusing these two. Some places, shouting to cleanse corruption, ended up making it into rousing everyone to inform on, denounce, one another, you report me today, I report you tomorrow, everyone in danger, everyone on guard, until kin and friends dared not speak a true word. That is not oversight, that is dragging a whole world into a shadow where everyone is afraid. What oversight means to shine on is power, that hand, letting the one who holds power handle matters under the light. It was never rousing people to go fix, in the back, on some other person. One is inviting power out under the sun to be aired, so it comes clean. One is dragging the human heart down into the gutter, so it grows suspicious. What is wanted is the former, absolutely not the latter.

Then you will ask, oversight how? Who is to watch that hand? The most important thing is to have that hand be, in the first place, in a position where everyone can see it. What it took, what it did with its power, where that money went, all laid out on the open, so anyone can look it up, can see it. It is no longer in the dark, it is under the light. Just how to lay power out under the light, to let everyone see, that is a thing the ones who do the work have to make solid, one item at a time, and this book is only a lamp, shining out this road, and how to walk it is for the reader to walk.

Look back again at that front-line tormenter by habit, the people taking it lying down, those hands that torment you behind windows, why do they dare torment you by habit? It too is because no one watches, no one can manage him, you can do nothing to him. Then put this hand, too, under the light? The shape of him tormenting you, everyone can see it, and you have somewhere to reason it out, and does he still dare torment you by habit? He dares not. This one move of oversight manages not only the great collusions, it also manages those hands, one by one, that torment you behind windows leaning on no one watching. Put them all under the light, and let them, one by one, go straight.

With oversight told, let me undo the knot in your heart, the biggest one, pent up from the last section to now. All this road you have been held back, not to strike, to save. The line you did not speak, in your heart, you have probably held pent a long while, save him? To save him, is that to let him go on, in that position, being corrupt? Is the saving spoken of here to hold your hand high over those corrupt officials, coax them with good words, let them sit on in their positions, and let what they were corrupt in the past go without pursuit, this kind of saving?

If it were this kind of saving, then this saving, the first to not agree is this saving itself. Let me say it dead, to save him is to save him from going on committing crimes. It is absolutely not to shelter him in his position to go on being corrupt. These two are worlds apart.

Let me break it down for you. Think first, an official, going on in his position being corrupt, to himself, what is it? It is going on committing crimes. It is, day by day, taking one more step into that abyss of all-is-finished-if-it-comes-out. That calamity of all-is-finished-if-it-comes-out hangs over his head, and the more days it hangs, the more days he is on edge. That conscience of his, which could still have been saved, the more days it is ground by that lock, the harder by a bit it is to save back. Every day more he is corrupt in his position is a day more he walks toward death.

So if you save him, keep him in his position, and let him go on being corrupt, is this saving him? This is you watching him, wide-eyed, walk toward death, and giving him a shove besides. This is not called saving, this is called harming. It is called watching a person bound by a lock, walking toward a cliff, and not only not pulling him back, but saying let him be, do not touch him, and this is the fiercest harm, wearing the skin of saving.

Make a comparison and you understand. A person has caught the gambling sickness, soaking in the gambling house every day, losing until house and home are gone, debts piled to the sky, on the very edge of destroying himself. At this moment, the one who truly cherishes him, what does he do? He pulls him out of the gambling house, cuts off his gambling, helps him quit. And the one who lets him be, and hands him more money to go on gambling, looks as though he is going along with him, being good to him, and is in fact harming him, watching him walk to his death. To save an official bound by a lock is the same reasoning. Keep him in that position that lets him be corrupt every day, and let him go on being corrupt, and it looks as though you have not touched him, have let him off, and is in fact watching him walk, step by step, toward a doom past all redemption. To truly save him, you have to pull him out of that position, out of that lock.

So the saving spoken of here is not that at all. The saving spoken of is to take him, out of that position that lets him commit a crime every day, out of that lock that draws him into corruption every day, and pull him out. Look back, why can he not stop being corrupt? Because he sits in that position, bound by that lock, want to rise and you have to skim, do not skim and you are crowded out, pressed from above, wrapped in from around. One day he is in that position is one day that lock draws him into crime. So to save him, the one and only way, is to take him, out of that position, out of that lock, and let him stop committing crimes.

How to pull him out? Swap him down. Ask him to leave that position, go back to that courtyard, the second chapter's school is a prison, and patch his character anew, become a person anew, and that strand of culture warming the heart from the last section, come down to here, is going back to be reforged in character. You see, in the middle of this, the difference wide as heaven and earth, sheltering him in his position to go on being corrupt is keeping him in the lock, watching him go on committing crimes, walking to his death, and this is harming him. Swapping him down, sending him back to be reforged and become a person anew, is pulling him out of the lock, letting him stop committing crimes, pulling him back off the road to death, and this is saving him.

So to save him and to swap him down are not in the least at odds, they are the same one thing, swapping him down is exactly the means of saving him. It is not pulling him off the position to punish him, to shame him, it is pulling him out of that situation that lets him commit a crime every day. One day he is in that position is one day of committing crimes. Swap him down, send him to be reforged in character, and he no longer commits crimes, and this, this is truly saving.

Look back again, and this is of one lineage with the root of this book all along. Saving the slave was letting the locked person out of the lock. Saving the laborer was loosening the welded man. Saving the one who lives on capital was settling the frightened man. Which of them was keeping a person in the lock and letting him go on being trapped? None. Saving was always pulling a person out of the lock, out of the bind. Saving these corrupt officials is the same, it is pulling him out of that lock that draws him into crime, not keeping him in the lock and letting him go on being corrupt. Then is that breath of yours half eased? So it turns out saving him is not holding your hand high, letting him be corrupt, saving him is pulling him down off that criminal position, letting him stop committing crimes. Those who occupy positions and are corrupt, who torment you, by this way of saving, one by one, all have to be swapped down off those positions, asked back to be reforged. But that breath of yours has half left un-eased, swapped down, reforged, made a person anew, then what he was corrupt in the past, is it simply let go? Reforged, character patched, can he come back and go on being an official? This half of the breath, the next section eases to the bottom for you, in the saving there is an iron, hard, with not the least room for bargaining.

Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.