VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 5, SECTION 7

VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 5, SECTION 7

Every Stroke Drives the People to Their Deaths, This Chain Must Be Cut

The two sections before laid open, whole, that chain that harms the people lawfully, four links, grinding, breaking, cutting off, taking. This section draws that chain together, and tells you plainly why its every stroke drives the people to their deaths, and why, therefore, this chain must be cut, and cut from its source. And it turns your fire, at the last, from wanting to strike the people on the chain, toward cutting the chain itself, laying the ground for the saving that the next sections take up.

Let me first draw that chain together in one line. What is the most fearful thing about this chain? It is not that it is fierce, not that it is cruel on its face. It is that its every stroke is lawful, by the book, without a flaw, and its every stroke, all the same, drives the people to their deaths.

Weigh those two things together, and the scalp crawls. An open robber, an open murderer, however fierce, is against the law, and everyone can see that he is doing evil, and go after him, and there is a road to deal with him. But this chain is not so. Every stroke of it is within the law, by the dead letter, the procedure complete, and on the surface not a flaw. And yet, stroke by stroke, it grinds a person, crushes a person, robs a person, hounds a person, and in the end drives a living person to death. Doing evil in the full light of day, and wearing the full skin of the law, so that the harmed have nowhere to reason it out, and the ones who did it bear no fault, this is a hundred times more fearful than the open robber.

Then let me ask the question straight. This chain, its every stroke lawful and its every stroke driving people to death, is it to be let go on, or is it to be cut? It must be cut. There is no second answer. A thing that, in the full light, by the book, grinds and crushes and robs and hounds the people to death, if it is not cut, then that yardstick set up in the first section, the intent of the law is to protect the people, is empty talk. The law was raised, at the start, by the people to protect themselves, and now it has been turned, by this chain, into a tool that harms the people to death, and if this is not cut, then the law has wholly betrayed the root it was born for.

But how is it to be cut? Here is exactly where this book differs, from its root, from the thousands of years before. Your first thought is surely, cut the chain, then go strike down the people on the chain, one by one, the one who ground you, the one who crushed you, the one who robbed you, the one who hounded you, drag them all out, bring them down, and the chain is cut. This is the road thousands of years have walked. And I have to tell you, this road does not cut the chain.

Why does it not cut it? Look back at the fourth chapter, at that reasoning told through. Strike the people, and the people are replaced batch after batch, and the chain, the mechanism, does not stir. That one who ground you at the window, you bring him down, and so long as that thing which raises people into the letter-reading illiterate-in-the-law is still there, the next one to sit down grinds you just the same. That one on the bench who ruled by the dead letter, you bring him down, and so long as that education which teaches only the letter and does not grow the character is still there, it raises a next one, holding the dead letter, ruling just the same. You strike, and you cannot finish striking, because what you strike is the people on the chain, and the people are replaced batch after batch, and that thing which forges the people into the chain has not been touched.

So to cut this chain is not to strike the people on it, one by one. It is to cut the source that forges the people into this chain. And what is that source? It is two things, joined. One is that thought in the hand, toward the dead letter and away from the intent. The other is that education gone wrong which raises people into the ones holding the dead letter and losing the intent. Cut these two, and the chain is cut from the source. The thought in the hand turned back, from the dead letter to the living intent, and the ruler in the hand turns back, from a tool that harms people to a ruler that protects people. The education turned right, no longer raising crop after crop of the letter-reading illiterate-in-the-law, and the chain has no new people forged onto it. Cut from the source, and the chain is truly cut, and does not, as with striking people, grow back a new stretch the moment you turn away.

You see, this is again that root of the whole book, cut the lock, not strike the people. The fourth chapter cut the lock of the collusion of officials and business. This chapter cuts this chain that harms the people lawfully. The way is the same, do not fix your eyes on the people on the chain and strike, fix them on the source that forges the chain, and cut. Strike the people, and it is curing the branch, the chain grows back. Cut the source, and it is curing the root, the chain is truly gone.

Then let me turn, gently, that fire in your heart. Reading these three sections, that chain grinding and crushing and robbing and hounding the people to death, your fire has surely burned to its peak, and you want nothing but to drag out those on the chain and strike them down. This fire, I understand it, and it is precious, it is a heart that cannot bear to see the people driven to death. But let me lead this fire, off that dead road of striking people, and onto the road of cutting the source, saving people. Because only cutting the source truly cuts the chain, and only cutting the chain truly saves the people it grinds. Strike the people, and you vent a breath, and the chain grows back, and the next batch of people is ground just the same. Cut the source, and it looks slow, but the chain is truly gone, and going forward, no more people are ground by it.

And there is one more layer, the deepest, that turns the fire. Those people on the chain, the one who ground you, crushed you, robbed you, hounded you, are they born demons? They are not. The third section said it, they are raised crooked by that education gone wrong, their heads stuffed with the dead letter, and that leg of character, of the heart that reads the intent and holds the protecting of people, no one ever grew for them. They too are people forged onto this chain, their hearts to the person under their pen ground numb by that education. They are, at once, the ones who harm the people, and the ones harmed by that source, that education gone wrong. So they too are people to be saved, to be turned back, to be reforged. To strike them is no use, and misses the true source besides. To save them, to turn that thought in their hand back from the dead letter to the living intent, is exactly the way to cut this chain from within.

So this section nails down for you these two lines. The first, this chain, its every stroke lawful and its every stroke driving the people to death, must be cut, or the intent of the law, protecting the people, is empty talk. The second, to cut it is not to strike the people on the chain, one by one, for that is curing the branch, and the chain grows back, it is to cut the source that forges the people into the chain, the thought in the hand and the education gone wrong, and only that truly cuts it. And cutting the source begins with saving, turning back, reforging, the people on the chain, not striking them down. From the next section, this book, for the first time, facing this chain that harms the people lawfully, takes not the knife but the pen, and goes, the first step, not to strike, but to save, and to save first the people inside the legal system.

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