VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 5, SECTION 15
In Closing: The Light Is Fixed but the Door Is Not Sealed, and On to Volume VII
The last section had law, this machine, turn back to protecting the people, and land back on that most fundamental thing, letting the people live and work in peace. This section is the last stroke of the fifth chapter. It gathers back what this chapter shone on all along the road, leaves the door, and passes over to what comes next. The intent, the light is fixed on it, but the door is not sealed. Because this world is too big, this chain too long, this crowd of the ones illiterate in the law too many, the people harmed lawfully too many, and how much is still not shone on, not set down, not seen to. Shine however bright, it is only the patch this one generation can reach. The rest is left to the next generation, handed down, one generation after another.
One. The Light Fixed on These Thirteen Steps
By this chapter, the light is fixed. What did it fix? It fixed that the intent of the law is to protect the people. It fixed that the law is a living ruler that leads people to keep themselves in check, not a coercive power to be enforced. It fixed that those who represent the law, stand for it, embody it, measured by the ruler of the intent, are exactly the ones illiterate in the law. It fixed that the chain of thousands of years that harms the people lawfully drives the people to their deaths, stroke by stroke. It fixed that the first step is not to strike, but to save. To save the ones illiterate in the law is to save all the people they harm.
It fixed that the four strengths are brought at once, law turning that single thought, culture warming the heart, the economy taking the fuel from under the pot, politics dissolving that coercion, until they cannot, do not want to, need not, dare not, harm people lawfully any longer. It fixed that in the saving there is iron, the corrupt, the harmful, the benefit-takers, the door of holding the law shut on them forever. It fixed that officials are chosen by that heart, not by tests of the letter, with a license, a yearly review, and reforging to make up character. It fixed that the good people culled by AI stand as a reserve, so the people who truly understand the law can take the positions. It fixed that the law is not piled high, what is wanted is precision, not a heap. It fixed how the harmed are saved, give back, clear the name, raise a stone, heal the heart, and not one left out. It fixed that the law goes back in its place, that machine turned back to protecting the people. It fixed that a thousand labors come down to one thing, letting the people live and work in peace. The light is fixed on these thirteen steps.
Look back over these thirteen steps, from the first step to this section where the door is left, and it is one whole road, running through in one breath. First make plain what the law was meant to be, then shine through to what it has been twisted into now, then shine clearly on that chain that harms people, then set down that the first step is to save, not to strike, then one method after another, save the ones illiterate in the law, cut the chain, see to the harmed, turn the machine back to its place. One step after another, one link in another, not one link alone, not one link broken. These thirteen steps set down in full, and this machine of the new order for law stands up, turns back, from head to foot, from inside to out. This is what this chapter, shining a whole road long, has fixed.
Two. What You Hear Is "Fixed," Not "Finished"
But what you hear is "the light is fixed," and not "the shining is finished." Why? Because the door is not sealed. This road fixed the main axis, but this door of this chapter is not sealed.
Why not sealed? Because this world is too big. This chain is too long. This crowd of the ones illiterate in the law is too many. The people this chain harmed lawfully are too many. How many of the ones illiterate in the law are still not shone on? There are still more. How many methods still not set down? There are still more. How many of the harmed still not seen to? There are still more. How many clauses that should be made precise still not made precise? There are still more. How many new things, AI, new tools, a new world, that this book, when it was written, had not yet met? There are still more.
Three. Shine However Bright, It Is Only This Generation's Patch
Shine however bright, it is only the patch this one generation can reach. The rest is left to the next generation. The next generation sees this lamp, and goes on shining themselves, goes on saving, goes on making precise, goes on saving the harmed. They will shine on places this generation did not reach, set down methods this generation did not set down, meet things this generation did not meet.
Do not think little of this one door left open. How many books in this world, how many principles, how many systems, are written dead, shut dead. The one who writes the book says everything, says it full, says it into one slab of iron, as if the truth comes to its end with him, and those after can only read it out as it stands and may not add one more word. But such a book is dead. It cannot stand up to the world changing, cannot stand up to new things coming, and on the day it is written it has already begun to go out of date. This book will not be written that way. It says things as far as this generation can say them, and stops there, and leaves a door, and tells those after, this is not the finish line, this is a relay baton, run on from here yourself. Only a book willing to leave its door open is alive. It will grow along with the human world, change along with it, go forward along with it, and it will never go out of date, because it never wrote itself dead in the first place.
So the door is not sealed. This chapter is not sealed. This volume is not sealed. This book is not sealed. The book is alive. The human world is alive. Those after who walk this road are alive too.
Four. Leave the Door, for the Generations After
Do not take this chapter for a book written dead, coffin-lidded. It is alive, a tree still growing, this big today, and putting out new branches tomorrow. What you read today is its shape at this moment, and come again after some days, and it may well have grown a stretch taller. This too is the heart of the writing of this book. It is not a dead thing one person finishes and locks in a drawer. It is a living thing set under the sunlight, for all under heaven to read together, to add to together.
To leave the door is to leave, for the generations after, one after another, who walk this road, a way in. You come, go on walking, go on shining, go on saving, go on writing. This book waits for you. This lamp waits for you. This road waits for you, waits for you all along. You come, and walk in yourself. Walk in, and light your own lamp yourself. One lamp after another, and in the end what is lit is not this book, not this chapter, it is this world, it is the human world.
Five. The Fifth Chapter Walked, but One Thing Still Aches in Your Heart
Come to this section, the fifth chapter, the new order for law, has been walked to its end. But in your heart, probably, one thing still aches. The light is fixed on the intent, the machine is turned back to its place, the people should live and work in peace. But this whole volume, all along the road saving people and undoing locks, come to here, that deadlock to be undone, what in the end is it?
The four new orders, culture, the economy, politics, law, are all set down, all saved. But these four, how do they fit together, how do they complete one another, lend one another a hand, check one another, so that the whole world turns together? And the deepest, that new thing this generation has run into in this lifetime, that has not been for thousands of years, AI computing power, in all of this, what in the end is its position? This book's root all along, its saving all along, its undoing of locks all along, come to this matter of AI computing power, where does it land?
Six. That Is for the Next Volume, Volume VII, Hope, to Walk
That is for the next volume, Volume VII, Hope, to walk. This volume saw so much, undid so many deadlocks, and in Volume VII this stretch of the way is to land, at the last, on the ground, back in the human world.
In Volume VII, Hope, the deadlock this volume is undoing is pointed through, head-on. AI computing power is only a tool. It cannot replace real human beings. The root of saving people is carried on to AI. The first five chapters all saved real people, saving the slave, saving the laborer, saving capital, saving the people inside the political system, saving the ones illiterate in the law inside the legal system, and in Volume VII, it is AI's turn to be saved. How the four strengths, put together, complete one another and check one another is told clearly, and this is the high point of this volume. And the last stretch of this way, back to the human world, lands on the ground.
Savor how complete this arrangement is. The first five chapters led you, chapter by chapter, to undo the deadlock, culture, the economy, politics, law, undoing one lock after another, saving one crowd of people after another. But these four, come to here, are still apart, still one chapter minding one thing. In Volume VII, these four are to be brought together into one piece, to tell you how, like the five fingers on one hand, they complete one another, lend one another a hand, and also keep one another in check, so that the whole world turns together. This is the things the first five chapters told apart, at the last made into one whole, and so it is the high point. And that newest thing, the thing this generation aches over most, AI computing power, what in the end is its position in all of this, is it a tool or a master, should we be replaced by it or should it too be saved, that too is what Volume VII, Hope, is to answer head-on.
Seven. Heaven Is on Earth, Not on Mars
Volume VII is to make one more thing plain, where the heaven of this world is. In one line, heaven is on Earth, not on Mars. The deadlocks this volume undid all along the road, the people it saved, the four new orders it set down, landing on the ground, are for making this Earth, this human world, a place people can live in, live steadily in, live and work in peace in. They are for building heaven on this Earth, in this human world.
Not abandoning this Earth, abandoning this human world, running off to Mars to start over. This Earth, this human world, these living, real human beings, one by one, are what this book all along the road sets out to protect, to save, to settle. Heaven is not somewhere else. It is right on this Earth, in this human world, in the everyday where every person can get on with the days safely and steadily. In the end, fundamentally, not a single thing exists; let great love remain in the human world. And the whole book closes.
Listen to these words, fundamentally, not a single thing exists; let great love remain in the human world. This volume flew so high, undid so great a deadlock, set down four new orders, saved one crowd after another of people caught in the lock, and at the very end, it lets all of it go, fundamentally, not a single thing exists. Then what is left? Great love, left in the human world. Not a set of great principles for people to worship, not a monument for people to look up to, not anyone's name. What is left is that share of the plainest love for these living, real human beings, one by one, so they can live well, get on with the days safely and steadily, on this Earth, in this human world. This is where this volume, having seen so much, at the last lands back, the human world. And this is the last stretch of the way the next volume, Volume VII, Hope, will walk with you to its end.
Eight. The Light Fixed, the Door Not Sealed, Passing Over, See You in Volume VII
Come to here, the fifth chapter, the new order for law, the light is fixed, gathered back, the door left. It shone through that contrast that makes the scalp crawl, the representatives of the law turn out to be the ones illiterate in the law. It shone on that chain of thousands of years that harms the people lawfully, stroke by stroke driving the people to their deaths. It set down that the first step is to save, not to strike, save the ones illiterate in the law first, bring the four strengths at once. It landed on one method after another, oversight, saving him so he harms no more, that iron of barred for life, choosing officials by that heart, good people stepping in, the law not piled high, how the harmed are saved. And at the last it put the law back in its place, and landed back on that most fundamental thing, letting the people live and work in peace.
This chapter, for the first time, did not raise the blade to cut people down. It shone through that skin of the representatives of the law, saw the ones illiterate in the law caught in the lock underneath, and with the four strengths brought them out. For the first time, it did not stand on the side of justice and curse the ones illiterate in the law. It recognized that the lock caught them too, was ruining their conscience too, and that they too are to be saved. For the first time, it did not let the ones illiterate in the law who harm people off, did not muddle things together. In its benevolence there is iron. To save him as a person is benevolence. To weld shut the door of holding the law, barred for life, is iron. For the first time, it did not save only the ones downstream who were going to be harmed and forget the ones upstream already harmed. It is give back, clear the name, raise a stone, heal the heart, and not one left out. In one line, the intent of the law is to protect the people. Turned around in the hands of these ones illiterate in the law, it drives the people to their deaths, stroke by stroke. To save them is to save all the people they harm, cutting from the source that chain which for thousands of years has harmed the people lawfully. The light is fixed, the door is not sealed, passing over. See you in Volume VII, Hope, that last stretch of the way, back to the human world.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.