VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 4, SECTION 8

VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 4, SECTION 8

The First Step Is Not to Strike, but to Save, and to Save First the People Inside the Political System

The first three sections took you to see that lock through, inside and out, what it is, how big it is, what it has done for thousands of years, how mouthful by mouthful it bites you in the human world. Having seen it, that fire in your heart to bring down corrupt officials has probably burned to its peak. This section, for the first time, answers head-on the question pent up in your heart all along, then what, in the end, is to be done? And the first step it gives is not to strike, but to save. This is the first time in thousands of years that, facing corruption, someone does not go rooting out people, ruling people, striking people, but goes to undo the lock, to save people.

Having seen those sections through, that fire in your heart has probably burned to its peak. You have clenched your fist, waiting to say those two words, bring down. Take those corrupt officials, those colluders, those who torment you and work private coffers, drag them all out, bring them down, punish them, and vent your anger.

I understand this fire of yours. But the first thing is still to press this fire of yours down. Because the first step to take you on is not to strike, but to save. Do not rush to feel wronged. Let me give you two reasons, and hearing them through, that fire will, of itself, turn from striking to saving.

It is not to snuff out this fire of yours. This fire is a good thing, it is a warm heart that cannot bear to see the people bullied, cannot bear to see the world unjust, and this heart is more precious than anything. What is to be done here is not to douse it, but to point it a road on which it can truly get something done. A fire aimed at the wrong place burns a whole lifetime and burns out no result. Aimed at the right place, it can truly get the thing done. It is exactly to take this precious fire of yours off that road of striking people, which for thousands of years has never gone through, and lead it onto the road of undoing the lock and saving people, on which the thing can truly be done.

The first reason, look back at the front and you understand, striking is no use. The sections before, from a height, looked at that changing of dynasties, round after round. For thousands of years, how many, clutching a fire exactly like yours now, shouting to bring down the corrupt officials, to root out the treacherous, truly dragged out those corrupt officials of the dynasty's last days, brought them down, toppled it all and started over in a change of dynasty.

And the result? That lock, that mechanism, did not move an inch. The new dynasty founded, that chain, from a thin one, grew of itself again, ring by ring, and rolled again to the people having no way to live, and collapsed again. For thousands of years, people have all along been striking people, and that mechanism was never undone, and so that circle never once stopped. This fire of yours now, what it means to strike is exactly the thing that, for thousands of years, countless people struck, and never once struck to a stop. Bring down the corrupt official before you, and it is a moment's satisfaction, but that lock is still there, and into that position, that mechanism at once stuffs a new person, and he goes on colluding, goes on being corrupt. You strike, and you cannot finish striking, because what you strike is people, and the people are replaced batch after batch, and that lock does not stir.

Think what a disheartening thing this is. For thousands of years, how many men of blood, how many men of conscience, clutching a fire like yours, went, one after another falling and the next rising, to strike those corrupt officials, some even laying down their own lives and households. They brought down batch after batch, changed the dynasty round after round, and did corruption stop? It did not. The next dynasty, just the same, rolled from clear-and-clean to rot. This is not that those people were not brave enough, not fierce enough, it is that they struck the wrong place, they spent a lifetime's strength all on striking people, and that lock which truly harms people, they never once touched. Thousands of years have proven it, resting on striking people, the deadlock cannot be undone.

Then what does it rest on? This is the second reason, those people you hate, want to bring down, they too are people drawn into that lock. Look back at what the sections before said over and over, those who are corrupt, who collude, who torment you, who were assimilated into the army of corruption, they are not born demons. They are, among the hundred kinds one pot of rice raises, the ones drawn into that self-turning chain, bound by it, and their eyes blinded by it besides, ordinary people, one by one. That one who entered the gate a whole breast for the people and later skimmed, entering the gate his heart was true. That one who sits behind the window and torments you was raised crooked by that position of having power, you begging me, no one managing me.

They too are locked people. And to a locked person, the thing to do, what is it? It is to undo his lock, and let him out too. Look at this whole book, from the third chapter on, all along it has done this one thing. Saving the slave was letting the locked out. Saving the laborer was loosening the welded man. Saving the one who lives on capital was settling the frightened man. Even that hand at the very top of the third chapter, clutching the mountain of gold, locked the tightest, it was said, do not bring him down, undo his lock, save him.

Then come to these people inside the political system, and by what right change to another set of rules? By what right, the locked people before them, saved, let out, and at these, dragged, struck? No. They too are locked people. To save them is the same one thing as saving those before, to undo the lock that binds them, and let them, too, out, save them too. So this step is called saving, not striking.

This step is the first time, in thousands of years, that anyone has meant to do such a thing. For thousands of years, facing corruption, what everyone thought of was how to cure it, root it out, punish it, and the corrupt person was taken as an object to be rooted out, punished, brought down. This book, for the first time, thinks the other way, that the corrupt person is one drawn into the lock, his eyes blinded, the same as you and me, a person to be saved. So it does not go rooting him out, ruling him, striking him, it goes to undo his lock, to save him out. Do you hear the difference between these, wide as heaven and earth? Others, facing corruption, raise the knife to hack people, root out people, rule people. This book, facing corruption, takes up the pen to undo the lock, save people. This is the very root this book set up from its first page, use the pen, not the knife. Come to this chapter on politics, facing the corruption that most cries out to be avenged, it does not depart half a step from this root, do not strike, save.

With the fire turned to saving, then this first step of saving, whom does it save first? The ones it saves first are the people inside the political system. You hear this and are probably taken aback again, even a little unwilling, the people inside the political system? Are those not exactly the corrupt officials, the colluders, the ones who torment you and work private coffers? How is it that the first ones to be saved are them?

Let me ask you to see clearly first who these people inside the political system are. They are those civil servants, the ones sitting behind the windows handling matters, the ones on duty, the ones in office, layer upon layer, up to those officials drawn into the collusion of officials and business. This whole great ring of people is the people inside the political system. Then why are they the first to be saved?

Because they are exactly inside that machine, on that lock. Look back at the front, how did that lock bite you? It bit you through these people. The one who torments you at the front line is one of them. The one who turns administration into law enforcement and works a private coffer is one of them. The one assimilated by that chain into the army of corruption is one of them too. That lock does not bite you out of thin air, it binds this whole great ring of people, and then, through their hands, bites onto you.

So if you want to undo that lock, to bend that machine back to its true place, you cannot go around this whole great ring of people. They are exactly the place that lock binds the tightest, and also the key to whether that machine can be bent back. Save them, undo them from that lock, and the machine can be bent back. The machine bent back, and the people, following, are saved. To save them is the first pass in saving the people.

But that knot in your heart is not yet undone, they are corrupt officials, colluders, by what right save them? Let me nail that line again for you, they too are people drawn into that lock. Look back at the last section, that one who entered the gate a whole breast for the people and later skimmed, entering the gate his heart was true. It is that chain of if you want to rise you have to skim that forced him, drew him, assimilated him, a little at a time. They are not born demons. They are, among the hundred kinds one pot of rice raises, ordinary people, one by one, drawn into that self-turning lock, bound, their eyes blinded. Among them, how many, in their day, also carried a breast of a true heart to do the people some good, and tested in, and it was after getting in that they were, by that lock, slowly rolled into what they are today.

Think one layer deeper, and they too are people who are wronged. That lock bites you, and what it bites is your money, your home, your grievance at the window. But them? Bound by that lock, what is bitten away is their conscience, is that breast of a true heart they had in their day, is the road for them to be a clean person. They were drawn in, went corrupt, colluded, and do you suppose they are then at ease? Over their heads hangs that calamity of all-is-finished-if-it-comes-out, day and night, on edge. That self they had in their day, who wanted to do the people some good, has been worn away, a little at a time. What that lock has destroyed in them is them, the person. So they are the same as that hand of the third chapter, clutching the mountain of gold, locked the tightest, they are locked people, being destroyed, people to be saved.

Do not feel this is speaking up for corrupt officials, being soft-hearted. Here it is sorted out clear as day, that under their hands that lock bit the people, this account, not one cent of it will be let slide, and the next section, and the one after, have hard rules waiting. But what you are to see is that to take them for born demons and strike them and be done, you can then never see that lock clearly, and never save the people either. You have to see first that they too are people drawn in by the lock, being destroyed by the lock, and only then can you understand that the thing that truly ought to be dealt with is that lock which drew both the people and these officials in together, harmed them together. See this, and you can walk that road no one has walked in thousands of years, the road that can truly undo the deadlock.

To save them is to undo them from that lock that is destroying them, so that they need no longer be drawn along into corruption, forced into collusion, on edge with that calamity hanging over them, so that they can go back to being, as in their day, a clean person who wanted to do the people some good. To them, this is an enormous saving, pulling them out of the lock, off that road toward death. To the people, this too is an enormous saving, the machine bent back to protecting the people, the tax back in its place, the tormenting stopped, the private coffers gone. It kills two birds with one stone, saves them, the person, and saves all the people bitten by that lock under their hands. This is why the first to be saved are the people inside the political system. Not because they most deserve saving, most deserve sympathy, but because they are at the place the lock binds tightest, at the key of that machine. Undo this ring of them, and the whole machine can turn back to true, and the people, following, are saved. But in your heart there is probably still a last knot, pent up unspoken, to save them, is that not to let them go on being corrupt in their positions? To save them, is what they were corrupt in the past then simply let go? This knot, the most important one, the next section first tells what to save them with, the four systems saving together, and the section after that gives you, especially, the undoing of that iron you most crave.

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