VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 5, SECTION 13
How the Harmed Are Saved, Give Back, Clear the Name, Raise a Stone, Heal the Heart, and Not One Left Out
The sections before set down, in full, that whole set of methods, saving the ones illiterate in the law, cutting the chain, turning back to the intent, cutting down the clauses. This section turns back, to look once at the crowd this book has ached over most all along the road, and can least forget, the people already harmed by this chain that harms the people lawfully. To cure the source is to save the people downstream who were going to be harmed. But the people already harmed, someone has to see to them too. Of these two, neither can be missing. How to see to them? I give you four things, give back, clear the name, raise a stone, heal the heart, and not one may be left out.
One. That Long Line of the Harmed Is Not a Number
Think back over that long line from before. The one who could not pay the land tax, whose home was taken, who in the end stayed there along with the home. The mother a lawyer drilled through a loophole and lawfully crushed, until the family was broken and gone. The small shopkeeper whose savings a low-level official robbed clean, with a broken code and criminal means. The old man pressed down by exorbitant taxes and levies, who walked onto the road of death. The ordinary person a judge settled by the letter with one stroke of the gavel, wronged for a lifetime. The one coaxed by a warm "it's for everyone's good" into paying tax willingly, who found only at the end that the money was not spent on a good cause. The one pressed down by a single "the procedure is compliant," who could not lift his head, and never again dared stand up straight. And more, many, many more.
This crowd of the ones illiterate in the law, this chain of thousands of years that harms the people lawfully, the people it harmed are not ten, not a hundred, not a thousand. They are tens of thousands upon tens of thousands, generation after generation, past counting. Let me nail one line down first. The people already harmed are not a number. They are one real life after another, one real home, one real good name, one real lifetime. Not one of them may just be let pass like this.
Do not take them for a few words passed over with one stroke in a history book, for a cold figure in a book of statistics. Each one is a living person. That old man who lost his home, he kept that home, kept it a whole lifetime, and on the wall there still hang the photographs of his children when they were small, and the stove is still the one his wife used while she was alive. That ordinary person who was wronged, to his death he could not work out where in the end he had gone wrong, and before he died he still held his wife's hand tight and said, I was wronged. That one whose spirit was ground away, when he was young he too was full of life, he too believed that reasoning a thing out could get it done, and it was this world, an inch at a time, that ground him into a person who goes weak at the sight of an official and bows his head when anything happens. Every one of them has a name, has flesh and blood, has a lifetime of joys and sorrows. That whole set in the sections before, saving the ones illiterate in the law, cutting the chain, turning back to the intent, all sounds good. But these people already harmed, their homes are gone, who gives them back? Their lives are gone, who answers for them? Their good names are gone, who washes them clean? Their lifetimes are gone, who can give them back? This one thing cannot be gone around, and will never be gone around.
Two. The First Thing, the Source Cured, Downstream Saved Together
Let me speak first of the first thing. The source cured, the people downstream who were going to be harmed are saved together. This one, the sections before have already set down. Oversight putting that single thought under the sunlight, the ones illiterate in the law changed out one by one and reforged, those who were corrupt or did harm barred for life, officials chosen by that heart, good people who truly understand the law stepping in, and that chain of thousands of years flowing out from the source, harming the people lawfully, is cut.
From now on, the ruling that signs away a home, gone. The law that sets up exorbitant taxes and levies, gone. The defense that drills a loophole and crushes people lawfully, gone. The window that robs money with a broken code and criminal means, gone. The people this chain was going to send onto the road of death, the ones who were going to lose their homes for not paying the land tax, the ones who were going to be lawfully crushed until the family was broken and gone, the ones whose savings a low-level official was going to rob clean, the ones a judge was going to settle by the letter and leave wronged, they are saved, together. This is the first thing. But your heart is still aching, what about the ones before?
Three. The Second Thing, the People Harmed Before Must Be Seen To Too
The second thing, the people already harmed before must be seen to too. Then these people, how to see to them? I give you four directions. The first, what is to be given back must be given back. Those homes taken lawfully by the land tax are not numbers, they are real households, one after another. What can be given back, give back. What cannot be given back, because the person is gone, the house torn down, passed through several hands, then where the descendants can be found, where it can be made good, make it good.
That money robbed lawfully by exorbitant taxes and levies, where it can be traced, trace it. What can be found and is clear, give it back. Those fines a low-level official lawfully took with a broken code, one sum at a time, trace them, give them back, make them good. That wealth crushed away lawfully through a loophole, what can be traced clearly, give back. This one thing is taking what was robbed back then in the name of the law, and by the newly set ruler of the intent, one sum at a time, measuring it back, giving it back. This is not a thing done at one stroke. It is a thing for several generations, to clear slowly, trace slowly, give back slowly. What can be given back, give back first. What cannot be traced clearly, record it first, keep it, clear it slowly. But there is one iron rule. It must not go undone because the years are long past, the procedure is complicated, too many are involved. So long as the ruler of the intent measures that it was robbed lawfully back then, it must be given back.
Four. The Second, the Wronged Must Have Their Names Cleared
The second, the wronged must have their names cleared. Those a judge settled by the letter with one stroke of the gavel, wronged for a lifetime, their cases are heard again. This time, not by that old standard of compliance with the letter, but by that ruler of the intent.
That ruling back then, did it protect the people? It did not, and turned around and harmed the people, wronged a person, then clear the name. Where the person concerned can be found, apologize, compensate, give back the good name. Where the person concerned is already gone, apologize, compensate his family, give the good name back to his name. Take each of those wrongly judged lawfully, wronged for a lifetime, one after another, and pull them out of that wrong. A person wronged for a lifetime, what does that taste like? It is a whole lifetime of not lifting his head, of people pointing and whispering, and even his children and grandchildren not lifting their heads along with him. Turn this wrong around, clear it, give him back a good name, even if he is already gone, give the good name back to his name, back to his descendants. This is the accounting this world owes him.
Five. The Third, for the Dead, Raise a Stone, Set Down a Line
The third, for the dead, raise a stone, set down a line. Those this chain that harms the people lawfully drove onto the road of death, who stayed there along with the home. Those robbed clean lawfully, with no road left, who walked to the end. Their lives are gone. A life cannot be given back. But a line, they must be given.
Raise a stone, write a passage, record a name, record how they went, how that chain that harms the people lawfully turned on them. Not to drag someone out and bring him down, that was set down before, strike no one, undo the lock and save people. It is so that this life does not vanish for nothing into the fog of the lawful. This world runs on as usual, the next day that crowd of the ones illiterate in the law sit back down in their positions, but someone is remembering, raising a stone, writing it down, letting those who come after know, this life vanished like this, and to vanish like this is wrong. Let every person on that chain that harms the people lawfully see this line underneath, the name he signed, the law he set up, the gavel he struck, the procedure he walked through, there truly were lives, underneath, that ended. To record the lives is the very least conscience this world can have, and it is also a mirror that must hang there when this chain is cut.
Think of it. A person lived a whole lifetime, kept to his place, harmed no one, and in the end this lawful chain drove him, an inch at a time, onto the road of death, and not one person spoke a word of fairness for him, not one person set down a line for him, and so, without a sound, he vanished into the fog of the lawful, as if he had never come into this world. This is the coldest thing under heaven, the thing that leaves people least at peace. Raise him a stone, set down a line for him, not to dig up old accounts, not to drag someone out to pay with his life, but to tell this world, to tell those who come after, here there was once a person, he lived like this, he went like this, and he should not have gone like this. A stone stands there, and that life has not vanished for nothing. Those who walk this road later, passing this stone, will remember how many such lives this road under their feet was paved with, and they will walk steadier, shine brighter, protect more closely.
Six. The Fourth, the Deepest, the Wounded Heart, How to Heal It
The fourth, the deepest, the wounded heart, how to heal it. Those who did not lose a home, were not wronged, did not die, yet were tormented, held down, their spirit ground away, a whole lifetime. That one tormented at the window by the ones illiterate in the law, running back and forth for twenty years, until that little hope he had in the world was ground away. That one held down once, who from then on never again dared stand up straight and speak. That one who paid protection money a whole lifetime and got not one cent of protection for it, until that little faith in his heart that a government ought to protect the people went wholly cold. That one who watched the people around him harmed to death lawfully, and lives on himself feeling he has failed the dead, carrying this wound a whole lifetime. Their hearts are wounded.
This wound cannot be made good by giving back money, clearing a name, raising a stone. This is the deepest account this world owes them. A lifetime of faith in the human world, faith in the law, faith in the people around them, ground away, pressed away, frightened away. How to heal it? In one line, slowly, let them see.
Seven. Slowly See, Slowly Believe Again
Let them see that chain of thousands of years that harms the people lawfully cut. Let them see that crowd of the ones illiterate in the law changed out and reforged, and good people who truly understand the law, who carry that heart that protects people, sitting in the courts, the legislatures, the law firms, the windows. Let them see their families, the people they know, the people around them, go again to get a thing done and not be tormented, go again to bring a complaint and be able to get it moving, go again to appeal and have someone listen.
Let them see that the words they spoke back then, the injustices they suffered, the tears they shed, were not spoken, suffered, shed for nothing, that they were a share of how their generation lit this lamp. Slowly see, slowly believe again. This is the accounting this world owes them, and it is also the shape of the human world that those who went first, the harmed, the ground down, those still here, the ones with wounded hearts, can wait for and see slowly come back, once this chain is cut.
A person's heart, once wounded through and gone cold through, to warm again and believe again is the hardest thing, harder than giving back a sum of money, harder than clearing one wrongful case. This is not a thing a "sorry" or a sum of compensation can settle. It takes his seeing with his own eyes this world truly getting better, one day at a time. It takes the people around him truly no longer being harmed, one at a time. It takes him himself, slowly, an inch at a time, coming back to himself out of that wound. This is the slowest thing, and also the warmest. It tells those with wounded hearts, the suffering you bore, this world remembers. The tears you shed were not shed for nothing. Those years you endured were exactly so that those who come after need not endure them again.
Eight. Saved Together, Seen To Together, Not One Left Out
Reading to here, you may want to ask, these things, giving back, clearing the name, raising a stone, healing the heart, are they what this book is going to do? In one line, they are not something this book can finish alone. This book is a lamp. It lights up this road, makes this principle plain, the source cured, downstream saved, and the ones before not forgotten either. The real giving back, clearing the name, raising a stone, healing the heart, coming down to the ground one thing after another, is for the generations after, one after another, the people who saw this lamp and walk this road, to do themselves.
What this book does is to set this thing down here, the people harmed before, not one may be forgotten, not one line may be left out, not one wound may go unseen to. Set it down here, so that those after who walk this road see it. Saving the ones illiterate in the law is to save all the people the ones illiterate in the law harm. What it saves is downstream, the ones who were going to be harmed. What it also saves is upstream, the ones already harmed. And what it must save as well is those who did not die, yet were ground a whole lifetime until their hearts were wounded, the ones still living. Saved together. Seen to together. Not one left out. The next section takes this machine turned back to its place and lands it back on that most fundamental thing, a thousand labors coming down to one, letting the people live and work in peace.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.