VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 5, SECTION 2
The Law Is a Living Ruler That Leads People to Keep Themselves in Check, Not a Coercive Power to Be Enforced
The last section set up that the intent of the law is to protect the people, and set up the yardstick of reading the intent, not the letter. This section goes on to set this yardstick one layer firmer, and tells you what, in its true nature, this thing called the law is: it is a living ruler that leads people to keep themselves in check, not a coercive power to be enforced. With this true nature set up, it then points through a thing you have probably never thought of this way: where everyone has character and torments no one, there is no need for so many laws, and the statutes ought to be cut down, made precise. This chapter, in speaking of the law, was never about piling up much; it is about shining precisely.
One. The Bridge Quietly Left at the End of Chapter Four
First let me bring that bridge, quietly left for you at the end of the last chapter, up onto the table. At the end of that road of the fourth chapter, you were pointed to one line: the end of the law was never to enforce, to hold down, to punish; it is to lead every person to keep himself in check. At the time, you may have taken it only as a line of transition and not savored it. This section breaks this line open for you to see. What it speaks of is in fact an enormous thing: the true nature of the law is a ruler, not a coercive power.
These two things look nothing alike, and yet in many people's heads they have grown into one shape. Say "the law," and what floats up in his head is the robe, the gavel, the handcuffs, the prison cell, law enforcement, the look of coercion and suppression. As though the true nature of the law were just such a coercive power, there to enforce, to hold down, to punish. Let me tell you: it is not. The law was meant to be a ruler.
Two. A Ruler Is Set There for People to Measure and Keep to Themselves
What is a ruler for? A ruler is for measuring; it is set there to tell you the line is here. A ruler stands there, and every person passing by takes a look himself, measures himself, knows it in his own heart: oh, this line is the bottom line, cross it and I harm others, so I do not cross it; inside this line is the place where I and everyone can live and work in peace, and I keep to it myself.
A person looks at the ruler and keeps to it himself, does not cross that line: this is keeping oneself in check. So the true nature of the law is a ruler, and its highest use is to lead every person to hold the bottom line himself, that is, to lead people to keep themselves in check. It is not for enforcing upon people, not for holding people down and punishing them. It is a ruler set there, for people to look at themselves, measure themselves, keep to themselves.
Think of those unwritten rules in daily life; it is the same reasoning. A little alley has no traffic lights and no police, and yet the people walking it keep to the right on their own, make way on their own for the one carrying a load on a shoulder pole, and on their own do not block other people's doorways. Why? Not because someone stands there forcing them, but because in their hearts each has a ruler, knowing that walking this way, everyone gets along smoothly, and walking that way gets in other people's way. This ruler stands in every person's heart, each measures by it himself, keeps to it himself, and that alley is peaceful. The law was always meant to be just such a ruler, standing there for every person to look at himself and keep to himself, and kept well, this world would be like that peaceful alley, with no need for anyone behind forcing it.
Three. Coercive Power Enforces and Holds Down, Pressing On from Outside
And coercive power? What is coercive power for? Coercive power is for enforcing, for holding down. Its premise already assumes that someone surely will not keep himself in check, and so coercion must be used to force him. It is coercion added from outside, a force pressing on from outside, not a keeping of oneself in check that grows out from inside a person's heart.
So the law is a ruler, not a knife. How great is the difference between these two things? The difference is in the innermost thing in each. The ruler leads people to keep themselves in check, growing out from inside the heart. The knife forces people to obey, pressing on from outside. One from inside, one from outside; one lets people keep to it themselves, one forces people to keep to it whether they will or not; one alive, one dead. This is what that line at the end of the last chapter, you could never think up a law-enforcement apparatus, was speaking of. The law was meant to be a ruler, not a knife. Since it is not a knife, then law enforcement, that business of carrying things out by coercion, ought not to exist at all. And since that business of law enforcement does not exist, then the law-enforcement apparatus, that apparatus especially for holding down and punishing, naturally cannot even be thought of as something that ought to exist.
Four. That Knife Was Ground On by the Ones Illiterate in the Law
Then the look of coercive power, when did it grow onto the law? It was those illiterate in the law who ground it on. They cannot read the intent of the ruler, leading people to keep themselves in check. But they can see the ruler standing there, and they see that someone has not kept to that line, and in their heads only one reaction is left: use coercion to force him to keep to it, to hold him down, to punish him. They take the ruler that was meant to lead people to keep to the line themselves, snatch it up backhand, and grind it into a coercive power for holding people down, to hold down, to hack, to punish.
The true nature of the law is a ruler, and the illiterate in the law ground it into a knife. This is the deepest kind of twisting this chapter is to shine through: the ruler ground into a knife; the true nature of leading people to keep themselves in check twisted into a dead thing that is carried out by coercion. To shine through this twisting is to dissolve that coercive power back into the ruler.
Five. That Whole Nest, in Their True Nature, Are All There to Guard the Ruler and Help People Keep Themselves in Check
Why bite down so hard on this distinction, the ruler and the knife? Because once you see this distinction clearly, the fourth chapter's you could never think up a law-enforcement apparatus, and this whole set of the fifth chapter's saving the illiterate in the law and undoing the twisting, all open through. The law is a ruler, leading people to keep themselves in check, and its highest reach is everyone having character, not harming people, holding the bottom line himself, joining the root of the second chapter. The law is not a knife, does not enforce, does not hold down, does not hack, and a law-enforcement apparatus ought not to exist at all, joining that bridge of the fourth chapter.
And those roles that look most like law enforcement, lawmakers, judges, lawyers, law-enforcement officers, in their true nature are all there to help that ruler stand firm, to let people see it clearly themselves and keep to it themselves, not to swing that coercive power down on its behalf. The lawmaker sets that ruler up plainly, for everyone to see clearly, so people can measure by it themselves. The judge, when the ruler is misread or disputed, goes back to the intent of the ruler, protecting people, and gives an exact reading; not using coercion to decide life and death, but going back to the ruler and helping people back into keeping themselves in check. The lawyer helps people read and understand that ruler, use and understand that ruler, helps people keep themselves in check, not helps people slip through loopholes. The law-enforcement officer, there is no such role at all, only administration, settling people well, and the raising of people, leading people back to keeping themselves in check, joining the fourth chapter. The true nature of this whole class of people is all to guard that ruler and help people keep themselves in check; not one of them is meant to hold a coercive power and enforce it.
Six. Even If Someone Really Crosses the Bottom Line, He Is Not Held Down but Invited Back to That Courtyard
Then what if there really is someone who will not, however it goes, keep to that line himself, who insists on harming people? Even then, he is not held down with coercion. He is settled well, invited back to that courtyard, the second chapter's school is a prison, taught anew to read that ruler, his character patched anew, helped back to the shape of one who can hold the bottom line himself. This is administration plus the raising of people, joining that whole set of the fourth chapter; it is not law enforcement.
To a person who has crossed the bottom line, the thing done is to teach him back into keeping himself in check, not to hold him down, not to hack at him. Use the pen and not the knife: brought down onto the law, this is what it looks like. You see, shining to here: the true nature of the law is a living ruler that leads people to keep themselves in check, not a coercive power to be enforced. Lawmakers, judges, lawyers, those called law enforcers, in their true nature are all there to guard this ruler and help people keep themselves in check, and not one of them ought to hold that coercive power. The highest reach of the law is this ruler standing plain, everyone seeing it, measuring by it themselves, keeping to it themselves, everyone keeping himself in check, living in his own living and working in peace.
Seven. If Everyone Keeps Himself in Check, What Are So Many Statutes For?
Then reading to here, a truly important question probably rises in your heart: if everyone can keep himself in check, what are so many statutes for? What are so many letters, procedures, and clauses of the law piled up there for? A good question. Let me point it through for you.
What shape does the law take in your head? Most likely this: row upon row of bookshelves, thick law codes set on them, one volume after another, adding up to tens of thousands of statutes, hundreds of thousands; people who spend their whole lives especially to read them, memorize them, argue over them. The statutes piled up as high as a mountain, and the more of them, the more watertight it seems, the more complete, the more this society seems to have the rule of law. Let me tell you: this picture of the more statutes the better is exactly wrong; it was piled up by the illiterate in the law. Why are so many piled up? Look back at the second chapter: what is the greatest root of sickness in this world? Torment. A crowd of people tormenting one another, scheming against one another, making things hard for one another, and most of this world's trouble starts here. Then once torment starts, what is done? Laws are made to manage it: this is not allowed, that will not do; he finds another way to torment, and another statute is added; the more torment, the more statutes must be added, the statutes added more and more, and the torment is still just as much, because that urge in the human heart to torment, to harm people, has not been cured. A heap of statutes piled up, and what they cure is that little bit on the surface; the root of sickness underneath, the torment, has not moved a hair.
Eight. What Is Wanted Is Not Many, but Precise
So statutes piled as high as a mountain are not the look of this world's rule of law getting better and better; they are the look of this world's torment getting fiercer and fiercer, and the root of sickness in the human heart getting worse and worse. Then where is the true solution? Not in piling up statutes, but in the root set up in the second chapter: character education, curing torment. A person with character, in his heart that urge to torment, to harm people, is gone at the root. It is not that the statutes frighten him so that he dares not; it is that he himself does not want to at all. Then such a person, how many statutes does he need to manage him? Next to none. He has that line in his own heart, protect people, do not harm people; he need not leaf through the law code, need not read clauses, need not ask a lawyer; he keeps to it himself.
Then what if everyone were like this? Then the statutes of this world ought to be cut down, and most of them would be of no use. Guarding the bottom line of do not kill, one. Guarding the bottom line of do not steal from others, one. Guarding the bottom line of do not cheat others, one. And a few more of the most fundamental bottom lines. Just these few most fundamental ones, which everyone knows in his own heart anyway. The thousands upon thousands of others left over were mostly piled up by the illiterate in the law, to patch loopholes, to cure the surface, to generate revenue, and once the root of sickness is cured, they are of no use. This is the true meaning of that word precise spoken of all along: what is wanted is not many statutes but exact ones; not piling up much, but shining precisely. The highest reach of the law is not statutes piled more and more, more and more watertight; it is the statutes cut down, made precise, every one the most fundamental, the most exact, the most deserving of being set up, every one facing the intent of protecting people, every one something everyone can understand and keep to himself. Few statutes, a clear bottom line, everyone able to understand, everyone keeping himself in check: this is that word precise.
Take this yardstick of precision and look back at that mountain of statutes now, and you see what is going on. A country whose statutes pile up to hundreds of thousands, so thick several lifetimes cannot read them through, so that even the experts cannot read them all and the common people get a headache at a glance: that is not how enlightened this country's rule of law is; it is exactly how sick it is. So many statutes shows that there is that much torment, that many loopholes, that deep a root of the sickness of harming people in the human heart, that statute after statute had to be piled on, hole after hole patched, patched and patched, the more patched the more there are, the more there are the messier, the messier the more there is to slip through. The other way around, a world where everyone has character and holds the bottom line himself needs very few statutes, a few of the most fundamental, that everyone can remember, everyone can keep. So the number of statutes runs exactly backwards: the more piled up, the heavier the sickness underneath; the more cut down to precision, the better the human hearts underneath. That mountain of fog has to be lit until it scatters, leaving a few of the most fundamental, brightest living rulers. But in reality, the ones who occupy the position of representatives of the law, the ones who make it, rule by it, expound it, apply it, are exactly the illiterate in the law who grind the ruler into a coercive power and pile the statutes into a mountain. The next section is to shine through this contrast.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.