VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 5, SECTION 10

VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 5, SECTION 10

Oversight, Putting That Thought Under the Sunlight, and to Save Him Is to Save Him from Going On Harming People Lawfully

The last section set up those four strengths, cannot, do not want to, need not, dare not. This section brings them down onto a solid method you can see, oversight, putting that thought in the hand, toward the dead letter and away from the intent, under the sunlight, so it 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, in his position, harming people lawfully? Let me say it dead, to save him is to save him from going on harming people lawfully, and absolutely not to shelter him in his position to go on harming people by the dead letter.

Let me point out first why that thought dares. The one illiterate in the law, holding the dead letter, harming people, why is he so unafraid, so at ease? Because his harm wears the full skin of the law, lawful, by the book, without a flaw, and no one watches whether, under that by-the-book skin, he read the intent or the dead letter. His ruling is closed, stamped, and no one asks whether at the end of it a living person was protected or driven to ruin. It is precisely because no one watches that reading of the intent or the dead letter that his one thought dares, at ease, to hold the dead letter and harm people.

Then this, how is it broken? The same as the fourth chapter, the cleanest way is one word, light. Take that thought in his hand, out from behind the by-the-book skin, and put it under the sunlight, and let everyone watch, not whether the procedure was walked, but whether the intent was kept, whether at the end of this ruling a person was protected or harmed. This is oversight.

What is oversight, here? It is putting every ruling, every stroke of the one who holds the law, under the yardstick of the intent, out in the open, for everyone to see. This ruling, did it protect the person or harm the person. This handling, did it keep the intent of protecting people, or hold the dead letter and drive a person to ruin. All of it plain, all for everyone to weigh by the intent. Once that thought is put under the light of the intent, what happens? He can no longer hide behind the by-the-book skin. Before, so long as the procedure was complete, he was without fault, and whether he harmed a person underneath, no one asked. Now, everyone weighs him by the intent, by whether the person was protected or harmed, and that by-the-book skin can cover him no longer. He harms a person by the dead letter, and under the light of the intent it shows, plain, that he harmed the person, and the by-the-book skin cannot save him. And so his one thought, of itself, dares no longer hold the dead letter and harm people, and turns, of itself, toward the intent.

This is that dare not, that cannot, from the last section, come down to the solid. Law lights the intent, hangs it high, and oversight puts every ruling under that lit intent, everyone watching, and the by-the-book skin loses its cover, and that thought in the hand dares no longer, and cannot, hide in the dead letter to harm people.

And let me have you tell one thing apart, the same as the fourth chapter. This oversight is sunlight, it is aimed at that thought, at the ruler in the hand, at whether the intent was kept. It is not calling on people to inform on one another, to lodge secret complaints against this judge or that clerk behind his back. One is putting the ruling out under the sun, weighed by the intent, upright and open. One is dragging people into the shadows to fix on one another. What is wanted is the former, oversight under the sunlight, letting every stroke of the one who holds the law be weighed, in the open, by the intent of protecting people. Do not confuse the two, history took its loss exactly in confusing them.

With oversight told, let me undo the knot in your heart, the biggest one. All this road, held back, not to strike, to save, and in your heart there is that line unspoken, to save him, is that to let him go on, in his position, holding that ruler, harming people by the dead letter? Is the saving spoken of here to hold your hand high over these illiterate-in-the-law, let them sit on, and let what they harmed people with in the past go without pursuit?

If it were that, then this saving, the first to not agree is the saving itself. Let me say it dead, to save him is to save him from going on harming people lawfully. It is absolutely not to shelter him in his position to go on harming people by the dead letter. These two are worlds apart.

Break it down. An illiterate-in-the-law, going on in his position holding the dead letter and harming people, to himself, what is it? It is going on, day by day, in the harming of people. Every day more he holds the dead letter and harms people is a day more his conscience is ground number by that chain, a day harder to turn back. It is like the fourth chapter's official going on being corrupt, every day one step deeper toward the doom past redemption. So to keep him in the position and let him go on harming people is not saving him, it is watching him, wide-eyed, grind himself number, harder to save, and giving him a shove besides. That is not saving, that is harming, wearing the skin of saving.

So the saving spoken of is to take him, out of that position where he holds the ruler and harms people by the dead letter every day, and pull him out. Look back, why can he not stop harming people? Because he sits in that position, forged onto that chain, pressed by the machine to close cases by the dead letter, and one day in that position is one day the chain draws him on to harm people. So to save him, the one and only way, is to take him out of that position, off that chain, and let him stop harming people.

How to pull him out? Swap him down, ask him to leave that position, and go back to that courtyard, the second chapter's school is a prison, to be reforged, to have that thought turned back from the dead letter to the living intent, to have that numb heart warmed back, to become, anew, a person who reads the intent and protects people. This is that strand of culture warming the heart from the last section, come down to here, going back to be reforged. You see, sheltering him in the position to go on harming people is keeping him on the chain, watching him harm people and grind himself down, and that is harming him. Swapping him down, sending him to be reforged, is pulling him off the chain, letting him stop harming people, and that is saving him.

So to save him and to swap him down are not 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 position where he harms people by the dead letter every day. One day in that position is one day of harming people. Swap him down, send him to be reforged, turn that thought back, and he no longer harms people, and this, this is truly saving.

This is again of one lineage with the whole book. Saving the slave was letting the locked out of the lock. Saving the laborer, the one on capital, the official, all pulled the person out of the lock, off the chain. Saving these illiterate-in-the-law is the same, pulling him off that chain that draws him to harm people, not keeping him on the chain to go on harming people. Then is that breath of yours half eased? So it turns out saving him is not holding your hand high and letting him harm people on, saving him is pulling him down off that harming position, turning his thought back, letting him stop harming people. Those who occupy positions and harm people by the dead letter, by this way of saving, one by one, are swapped down off those positions, asked back to be reforged. But that breath of yours has half left un-eased, swapped down, reforged, turned back, then what he harmed people with in the past, is it simply let go? Reforged, thought turned back, can he come back and go on holding that ruler? This half of the breath, the next section eases to the bottom, in the saving there is an iron, barred for life.

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