VOLUME VII, CHAPTER 10, SECTION 2
The One Who Truly Does the Great Work Is the Reader
The last section made plain that this book is only one small oil lamp that points out a direction, and not a savior. This section follows on and makes plain: since the ones who truly walk this world into good are the people who take up the faint light, who, then, truly does the great work? The answer: the reader. Everything this book writes down, the reasons, the institutions, the care behind them, is only words on paper. For these words to come alive, to truly stand up in this world, rests wholly on readers, one by one, who read, who believe, who act. The book is dead, people are alive. What gets the great work done has never been the pen that writes the words. It is the countless people who turn the words into deeds. This section will make this layer plain, solemnly, and set the position between this book and the reader right, once and for all.
One. Words in a Book Are Only Words
First look at a plain fact: whatever a book writes down, however many reasons, in the end it is only words.
This book has written of saving people, growing the heart, setting up institutions, guarding the five, going back to the human world, guarding the paradise. However complete, however earnest it is, it is still only words on paper. Words do not stand up on their own and walk into this world, lift up a person who is suffering, soften a harsh heart, guard a paradise about to be ruined. Words are still, they are dead. They lie on the paper and wait for someone to come and read them. If no one reads them, no one believes them, no one carries them into action, then these words, however well written, are no more than a heap of ink marks lying on paper, with nothing at all to do with whether this world is good or bad. This is not to run words down. It is to see clearly what words are for. They can carry the Way, pass on the heart, point the road, but they cannot set out on the road in a person's place, cannot do the work in a person's place. The one who does the work is always a living person, never words.
From ancient times to now, good books beyond counting, on humaneness and right, on reason, on great peace, fill the shelves to the rafters. Yet this world has not become good by itself because there are many books. Why? Because however many books there are, if no one acts on them, those reasons only lie on the paper, and they and the world have nothing to do with each other. The value of a book is never cashed at the moment it is written, printed, set on the shelf. It is truly cashed only at the moment a reader reads it into his heart and it turns into that reader's words and deeds. Writing the book only gets the seed ready. However many seeds are ready, if they are not sown in the ground and no one tills them, not one stalk of grain will grow. So with this book written, the share of the one who wrote it is only half done. The other half, the more important half, falls on the reader: the reader is the one who plants these words in the ground of this world, and lets them sprout, shoot up, and bear fruit.
Two. Words Becoming Deeds Rests Wholly on the Reader
Between words and deeds stands a gate. The one who passes through that gate is the reader.
A reason written in a book is words. When a reader reads it, believes it, carries it into his own days, his own position, every move he makes in dealing with people, only then does that reason pass from words into a deed. Growing that heart that guards people, written in a book, is words. A reader reads it and truly brings a little more understanding when he deals with people, and those words have become a deed. Guarding the five, written in a book, is words. Countless readers, each in his own position, keep the five and live them out, and those words have become deeds spread all over the human world. Guarding this paradise, written in a book, is words. Countless readers, each in daily life, spoil it a little less and care for it a little more, and those words have become the deed of guarding the homeland. This gate of words becoming deeds, the pen cannot pass, the book cannot pass. Only living readers, one by one, with their own belief and their own action, can carry it across. So the true change in this world is not at the moment the book is written. It is in the countless moments when readers turn the book's words, one thing at a time, into deeds.
These countless moments are scattered all over the human world. They do not shake heaven or move the earth, yet they are where this world truly becomes good. A mother reads this book, and from then on brings a little more patience to her child. A craftsman reads it, and from then on brings a little more care to teaching his apprentices. One who serves in office reads it, and from then on brings a little more feeling for the people. An ordinary person reads it, and from then on brings a little more friendliness to his neighbors. Each of these bits of patience, care, feeling, friendliness is too small to mention, yet when countless of them flow together, that is this world truly turning for the better. Change has never come with a great bang, done overnight. It is built up little by little, one thing at a time, by these countless readers turning words into deeds in countless ordinary moments. So do not look down on the drop-by-drop change in yourself after you have read: it is exactly these drops that flow together into the flood of this world turning for the better. This world has never become good through one earth-shaking feat. It becomes good quietly, day upon day, only through countless good deeds by countless ordinary people.
Three. So the One Who Does the Great Work Is the Reader, Not the Book
Seen this way, the one who truly does the great work is the reader, not this book.
At most, this book points out a direction and gives off a little faint light. The ones who truly follow that direction, set out, and walk this world step by step into good are the readers. It is like a map: however detailed it is drawn, it cannot walk one step of the road. The one who walks is the person who sets out holding the map. This book is that map, that lamp. Only the reader is the one who sets out, the one who does the work. So if this world becomes a little better because of this book, most of the credit is not the book's. It belongs to the countless readers who read the book in and live it out. The book is only the opening note. The reader is the lead. The book only makes a start. The reader is the one who gets this great work done, one thing at a time. The one who wrote the book bows down into the dust and gives the lead's place, respectfully, to the reader. This is not polite self-lowering. It is the clearest judgment, and the one that allows no blurring, about who is truly doing the work. The writer's merit is at most to show the way. The true merit of walking the road and getting it done belongs, always, to the reader. See this layer clearly, and you know why this book owns that it is one small oil lamp and does not dare claim the credit: it knows, clear as day, that the one who truly does the great work was never itself. It is the countless readers who take up its bit of faint light.
This layer also opens the deeper meaning of the line that closes every section. Why does the credit go to the ancestors? Because most of the reasons in this book were handed down along one vein from the sages before. The one who wrote them did no more than take them up, gather them, and say them once more, and does not dare take credit that is not his. And here one more layer must be added: if this book truly gets anything done, most of that credit belongs to the readers as well. The one who wrote it set down the words, the sages before handed down the reasons, but the ones who turn words and reasons into living good deeds, into this world truly turning for the better, are the readers. So if this great work is done, the credit lies in three places: the sages before laid down the reasons, the one who wrote them passed on the words, the readers got the work done. And of the three, the share of the readers who got it done is the most real, the weightiest, and the one that can least be done without. The one who wrote it is content to stand last. He pushes the credit forward to the sages before, and back to the readers after, and stands in the middle only as one who passes things on. This way of holding himself is one more place where the ground color, originally, not a single thing, shows.
Four. This Layer Hands the Load Back to the Reader
Making this layer plain is not to flatter the reader with a few pleasant words. It is to hand that load, solemnly, back into the reader's own hands.
To say "the one who truly does the great work is the reader," brought down to earth, is a heavy thing to say. It means that whether this world becomes good does not depend on how well this book is written. It depends on you, on you who have read this far, on whether you believe and whether you act. It blocks off completely that back road of "sitting waiting to be saved": there is no savior, no book can do the work for you, and whether this world can be walked into good, that load falls on your own shoulders, and on the shoulders of countless readers like you. These words sound heavy, yet they are the most honest, and the most respectful to the reader. They do not treat the reader as an onlooker waiting to be saved, as a pitiable person who needs someone to come and rescue him. They treat the reader as the lead who can truly get this great work done, and hand that strength and that responsibility to change the world, solemnly, back to the reader himself. Whether to take up this load, whether to do this great work, from here on, is the reader's own affair. This handing-over looks like dumping the heavy load on the reader. In truth it is the highest regard for the reader. It holds that the reader is not a weakling waiting to be saved, but a real human who can carry the responsibility of changing the world. Treat a person as a weakling, and he really will live as a weakling, sitting waiting for handouts, sitting waiting to be saved. Treat a person as a real human who can carry things, and only then is the strength in his heart called up and set alive. So this handing-over is not shirking. It is waking: waking, in every reader's heart, the strength that was there all along, able to change his own patch of heaven and earth.
Five. The Layer This Section Makes Plain
This section makes plain that the one who truly does the great work is the reader.
Words in a book are only words. For words to become deeds rests wholly on readers who read, believe, and act. So the true change in this world is not when the book is written, but in the countless moments when readers turn words into deeds. The one who truly does the great work is the reader, not the book. The book is at most a map, an oil lamp. Only the reader is the lead who sets out and does the work. Making this layer plain is to hand that load that can change the world, solemnly, back into the reader's hands: there is no savior, and the one who can walk this world into good is you, countless people like you. This handing-over is exactly this book's deepest trust in and respect for the reader. It does not keep the reader inside its pages as one being taught. It sends the reader out beyond its pages to be the true master of this world. The next section, where this volume and this book draw near their end, follows on and lays down one more layer: once this book is written, its fate from here on is handed to what? The answer: to letting it be as it naturally is.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
Section Three. Let It Be as It Naturally Is: This Book's Fate from Here On.