VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 5, SECTION 7
Every Stroke Drives the People to Their Deaths, This Chain Must Be Cut
The two sections before shone a light down this whole chain that harms the people, tormenting that grinds life, crushing that breaks life, robbing that cuts life off, hounding that takes life. Four things, one step up from the next, link locked into link, from the lightest, wearing away a person's days, to the deepest, taking a person's life. Every link wears a full skin of the law, lawful, by the rule, by the procedure, with reason and grounds. This section takes these four together, to see what they truly are. Then it answers that question you have kept pent up in your heart all along, this whole nest of the illiterate-in-the-law, what in the end is to be done with them, is it to bring them all down.
One. The Four Together, Every Stroke Drives the People to Their Deaths
This whole chain, the four together, in one line, every stroke drives the people to their deaths. Look back at these four. Tormenting looks the lightest, but it grinds away a person's spirit, grinds away his hope in the world, and it is the deepest groundwork that lets the three links behind it land on a person without his fighting back. It is grinding life. Crushing is one layer heavier. It presses down a person's back, presses down his fighting back, makes a person lower his head from then on and never dare stand straight again. It is breaking life. Robbing is one layer heavier again. It eats a person's home, robs a person's goods, leaves a person without even food and a roof. It is cutting life off. Hounding is the top. It hounds a person onto a dead road and does not leave him even a breath. It is taking life.
Four things, from grinding life, breaking life, cutting life off, to taking life, every stroke drives the people to their deaths. Not one stroke is a small thing that looks bad but can still be borne. Every stroke is harming a person's life, only each stroke is more direct than the last, leaves less room than the last.
Two. Every Stroke Wears a Skin of the Law
And every stroke wears a skin of the law, lawful, by the rule, with reason and grounds. Tormenting wears the skin of that broken code of department regulations. Crushing wears the skin of that whole set of the letter of procedural compliance. Robbing wears the lawful skin of the land tax, the harsh taxes and sundry levies, the criminal fines. Hounding wears the whole skin, the three skins above added together, a whole lawful process walked through to the end.
Four things, and the warmer, the more proper, the more high-sounding the skin, the more lives are hidden under it. The more by the rule the skin, the deeper the blood under it. If you do not have that ruler of the intent in hand, and look only at that skin, you will only feel that all of this is deserved, is by the rule, cannot be helped. But measure it with this ruler, and underneath is one life after another, sent lawfully, gently, properly by the rule, onto a dead road. This is what this whole nest of the illiterate-in-the-law does to the people, in the human world, every day, every stroke driving the people to their deaths.
Three. What Leaves You Most Speechless, There Is Not One Killer
And what leaves you most speechless is that not one person is named as the killer. Behind every stroke there is by the regulation, by the procedure, by the letter, by the duty, by the contract, by compliance, and every person who carried it out says he only did his own small share. No one feels he is harming anyone, no one feels this life has anything to do with him.
Then this life, in the end, who took it? This whole nest of the illiterate-in-the-law took it, together. One by one, the illiterate-in-the-law, each by his own small share, finished his piece of the tormenting, the crushing, the robbing, the hounding, and the four pieces added together are one life. Every person feels he is fine, but that life is, truly, surely, gone.
Think how fearful this thing is. A killing you can see at least has a killer, someone bears the fault, someone pays with his life, someone cries out the wrong for the dead. But this chain that harms the people lawfully takes one life and breaks it into four pieces, ten pieces, dozens of pieces, shares them out into the hands of a long line of people, each one touching only a little bit, each one saying I only handled my small share by the rule. And so a living life is gone, and not one killer can be found. The one who made the law says I only made a law, the one who judged the case says I only judged by the letter, the one who signed says I only walked a procedure, the one who worked the loophole says I only did my duty for my client. Ask all the way round, and not one person owns it, but that person, truly, really, is dead. This is the most underhanded thing about harming people lawfully, it thins out the taking of a life until not one person needs to feel his conscience uneasy. The intent of the law is to protect the people, and the illiterate-in-the-law use it backwards. The law that should protect life turns around and takes life. The representatives who should protect people turn around and harm people. What should let the people live and work in peace turns around and leaves the people with no food, no roof, on a dead road. Everything is backwards, every stroke drives the people to their deaths.
Four. That Fire to Bring Them Down Has Burned to Its Peak Again
Shining the light to this step, look back at that overall soul of the chapter, lit for you and nailed dead today, the intent of the law is to protect the people, but this lot of the illiterate-in-the-law use it backwards, into crushing, tormenting, robbing, hounding the people to their deaths, every stroke driving the people to their deaths. Nailed dead. Then this chain, how is it to be cut?
That fire in your heart, by here, has probably burned to its peak again. This whole nest of the illiterate-in-the-law do nothing but lawful harming, lawful killing. It is lit up clear, the intent is lit up, every stroke driving the people to their deaths is nailed dead, so drag them all out and bring them down. Slow down a step.
Five. For Thousands of Years They Have Struck, and That Chain Never Stopped
Look back. For thousands of years, how many people clutched the same fire and shouted to bring down the corrupt officials, to bring down the unjust courts. Dynasties changed, people dragged out and paraded, blood shed, new dynasties founded, and that nest of the illiterate-in-the-law, that chain that harms the people, did it ever stop? It did not. The new dynasty founded, and that chain grew back of itself. New illiterate-in-the-law sat into the new courts, made new laws, walked new procedures, and every stroke still drove the people to their deaths.
For thousands of years, what was struck was people, and that chain was never once cut. So that nest of the illiterate-in-the-law, that chain, has been there for thousands of years. You bring down the judge before you, and it is a moment's satisfaction, but that chain is still there, and into that position, that mechanism of reading the letter and not the intent at once stuffs a new one illiterate in the law, who goes on doing it by the letter, goes on harming people lawfully. You bring down a hundred, and that chain does not move an inch, and the hundred-and-first new one illiterate in the law, just the same, lawfully hounds people onto a dead road. You strike, and you cannot finish striking, because what you strike is people, and the people are replaced batch after batch, but that mechanism of reading the letter and not the intent, of doing it by the letter and harming people lawfully, does not stir.
Think what a disheartening thing this is, and what a clarifying one. For thousands of years, how many men of blood, who could not bear to see corrupt officials harm the people, could not bear to see the courts wrong people, clutched a breast of fire, rose up in revolt, changed the dynasty, dragged out those corrupt officials and unjust judges of the dynasty's last days, brought them down, put a batch of new people up. Batch after batch was changed, dynasty after dynasty was changed, and this thing of the illiterate-in-the-law harming people lawfully, did it stop? It did not. The next dynasty, just the same, had the illiterate-in-the-law who read the letter and not the intent, sitting into new courts, making new laws, walking new procedures, harming people lawfully. This is not that those before were not brave enough, not fierce enough, it is that they struck the wrong place. They spent a lifetime's, a generation's, strength all on striking people, and that chain which truly harms people, that mechanism of reading the letter and not the intent, they never once touched. Thousands of years have proven it, resting on striking people, this chain cannot be cut.
Six. To Cut the Chain, It Has to Be Severed at the Source
To make this chain stop, what it rests on is not striking one more batch of people. It is cutting this chain itself, severing it at the source. Severing it at the source, how is it severed? The source of this chain is this whole nest of the illiterate-in-the-law. To cut this chain is not to cut them, the people, it is to cut that state in their hands of being illiterate in the law, unable to read the intent, to save them out of that empty straw sack, and fill them with the intent of the law, protecting people.
Savor this reasoning, it is of one lineage with the chapters before. That lock of the third chapter was business, forced by if you do not earn you are wiped out, going to wring people, and to cut that lock was not to bring business down, it was to undo that lock forcing it. That lock of the fourth chapter was the official, rolled along by the collusion of officials and business into harming the people, and to cut that lock was not to bring the official down, it was to undo that lock rolling him along. Come to this chapter, that chain is the illiterate-in-the-law, locked by the state of reading the letter and not the intent, harming people lawfully, and to cut that chain is also not to bring the illiterate-in-the-law down, it is to undo that state locking him, making him read only the letter, and put the intent back into his heart again. The lock undone, and that locked person turns back of himself. The intent put back, and that one illiterate in the law who read the letter becomes, of himself, one who protects people. It is this one method all along the road, undo the lock, save the person, do not strike the person.
Once they read the intent, that thought as they set their hand to it is, from then on, no longer by the letter, by the procedure, harming people lawfully, but by the intent, protecting the people. Save one of the illiterate-in-the-law, and you sever all the lawful harming that would have flowed down from that thought as he set his hand to it. From then on he judges a case, and there is no more lawfully hounding a family until it is broken and its people dead. From then on he makes a law, and there is no more lawfully prying money from the mouths of people who cannot get enough to eat. From then on he signs his name, and there is no more lawfully sending a person onto a dead road.
Seven. Save One of the Illiterate-in-the-Law, and Save Generation upon Generation He Would Have Harmed
To save one of the illiterate-in-the-law is to save the hundreds, the thousands, the generation upon generation of living people he would have harmed from then on. Savor this account. A judge, in office twenty years, thirty years, how many cases pass through his hands? How many times does he sign? How many people's road to life or road to death does he decide? Save him from one illiterate in the law into one who truly understands the law, and in those twenty, thirty years ahead, every person who would have been harmed to death, lawfully, by one thought of his, is saved. To save one of the illiterate-in-the-law is not to save him, one person, it is to save that long line of people ahead of him, not yet born, whom one thought of his would have rolled over.
Now work this account out on a larger scale. In this world's courts, legislatures, law firms, and behind its windows, what sits there is not one of the illiterate-in-the-law, it is a whole nest, the ground covered with them. Take this whole nest, one by one, save each out of the empty straw sack and fill each with the intent, and from then on, generation upon generation, how many people who would have been lawfully harmed to death, lawfully hounded to death, lawfully stripped of their homes by this whole nest? Too many to count. This is the true weight of saving the illiterate-in-the-law. It is not mercy toward any one of the illiterate-in-the-law, it is cutting off, from the source, whole, that chain that has swallowed countless lives for thousands of years. It is saving, ahead of time, out of the mouth of this chain, the people of generation upon generation to come, not yet born. Work this account out clearly, and you understand why it is held, teeth set, that they must be saved.
This is the must-be-saved spoken of all along the road. Not generosity, not smoothing things over, not letting them off, but because, to cut this chain that for thousands of years has driven the people to their deaths, the only way is to start saving from the source, this whole nest of the illiterate-in-the-law. To save them is to sever this chain, is to save everyone who would have been sent onto a dead road by one thought of theirs. They must be saved. Otherwise, you strike one nest, and there is the next nest. You cut down one crop of people, and there is the next crop. This chain cannot be cut, and every stroke driving the people to their deaths cannot stop.
Eight. This Section Stands Whole, and the Next Section Walks That Road of Saving People
This whole stretch, by here, stands whole. It shone a light on tormenting that grinds life, crushing that breaks life, robbing that cuts life off, hounding that takes life. The four together, every stroke drives the people to their deaths. All wear the skin of the law, lawful, by the rule. Not one is named as the killer, the life taken together, everyone saying he is fine. The intent used backwards, what should protect life turning around to take life.
Reading to here, you have seen clearly that this whole nest of the illiterate-in-the-law, in the human world, every day, does lawful harm. To make this chain stop, the thousands-of-years road of striking people does not go through, and there is only one road, which is to save the illiterate-in-the-law, to sever it at the source. But that fire in your heart to strike has not yet fully turned. By what right save them? The people they lawfully harmed to death these years, is that just to be let go? These questions, the next section tells you through, one by one. The next section walks this road no one has walked in thousands of years, to save first the people inside the legal system, the four systems saving together, and to save them is to save all the people they harm.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.