VOLUME VII, CHAPTER 13, SECTION 3
The Human World Is Full of Love. The Human World Is Full of Hope. In the Human World, There Is You. And That Is Enough.
The last section brought the whole book's great love down to one line, there is love in the human world, and placed this line in your hands. This section is the last page of this book, of these seven volumes of Justice Way. By now, all that reasoning along the road, the institutions, the root, has been said in full. What remains is no longer reasoning. It is a serenity, a blessing, a trust. The last thing the whole book has to say is only a few short lines, yet they are the one share of the heart that all the thousand words of these seven volumes must come back to at the end, and most want to leave to you. These lines are very short, very homely, short enough for a child to read aloud. Yet the reasoning, the institutions, the root, the great love of these seven volumes all come to rest in them at the last. They are these. The human world is full of love. The human world is full of hope. In the human world, there is you. And that is enough.
One. The Human World Is Full of Love
The first line: the human world is full of love.
Having walked through these seven volumes, having said everything about the darkness and the hardship of this world, everything about the traps that harm and the roads that save people, at the end, the thing this book most wants to tell you is not how bad this world is. It is that this human world is full of love. Look at a mother's care for her child, the true heart between friends, the bowl of hot soup between neighbors, the bit of kindness between strangers, the pair of hands held out in danger by someone who never knew you. This love has always filled every corner of the human world, and has never once been cut off. Whatever kinds of darkness this world holds, that darkness cannot cover the love spread all through the human world. This book lays down the five and speaks of the great love, and at the end, it is to have you believe this line, and see this line: the human world is full of love. This is no soft word to comfort you. It is a truth this book still means to tell you, solemnly, after walking through so much darkness and speaking of so much hardship. To see the darkness and still see the love, that is true clear sight, and that is where true hope lies. Do not let a passing darkness blind your eyes. Do not let a passing hardship turn your heart to ash. Lift your head and look: everywhere in this human world, there is love. This is the first line this book has to say to you.
The seven volumes before spoke of so much darkness in this world: of the traps that harm, of the people ground into hollow shells, of the paradise pushed toward hell. Saying all this was not to make you lose heart in this human world. Just the opposite. It was so that, having seen the darkness clearly, you could still see the light that even the darkness cannot cover. A person who sees only the darkness falls easily into despair, and comes to think the human world not worth loving, not worth saving. But what this book wants you to see is this: for all that darkness, this human world is still full of love. The mother's hand tucking in her child's blanket in the deep of the night, the stranger holding an umbrella over you in the rain, the friend keeping watch at your side through hard times and never leaving, the one you never knew stepping forward in danger to do what is right, this love has never, for one moment, gone from the human world. Quietly, and stubbornly too, in the dark places of this world, it gives off light and warms people. See these, and you know: this human world is worth loving, and worth guarding those five for, keeping that light for.
Two. The Human World Is Full of Hope
The second line: the human world is full of hope.
Where there is love, there is hope. This book is called Hope. Where does that hope come from? From just this love that fills the human world. So long as the human world still has love, so long as the five still live and pass on in one heart after another, this world has the promise of turning for the better, and this human world is full of hope. That hope is no optimism out of thin air. It stands on the fact that there is love in the human world. Because there is love, there are people willing to go and save, to guard, to pass on. Because there is love, the five cannot be put out and the light cannot be cut off from being passed. Because there is love, this world, for all its thousand darknesses and ten thousand hardships, still has the hope of getting better, generation after generation. Do not say this world is past saving. Do not say this human world has no promise. So long as love remains, hope remains. This human world is full of hope. This is the second line this book has to say to you.
This hope is the footing this book most wants to leave you. This world never lacks reasons for despair: there is always bad news, always unfairness, always something to chill the heart. If a person fixes his eyes on only these, it is easy to conclude that this world is beyond cure and this human world has no tomorrow. But this book would say to you: do not be quick to despair. Despair is looking at the darkness in front of you and concluding the sky will never lighten. Hope is, though standing in the dark, still trusting that one point of light will light the sky at last. These two ways of seeing face the same world, but choose different ways to live. What this book chooses is hope, and it hopes you will choose hope too. Not because it is naive and cannot see the darkness, but because it sees deeper: it sees, under that darkness, the love and the five that have never gone out. It knows that so long as these remain, this world always has a thread of life, a share of promise of turning for the better. With a share of love there is a share of hope. While love is not cut off, hope does not go out. Only living with this hope can a person keep walking, and only so can this world be saved. Despair makes a person let go. Hope makes a person walk on. This book wishes you to be the one who walks on, and trusts that you will be the one who walks on.
Three. In the Human World, There Is You
The third line, and the most important: in the human world, there is you.
The love of this human world, the hope of this human world, said to the end, all come to rest on this one word, "you." Why is there love in the human world? Because there is you, and in your heart there is that love. Why is there hope in the human world? Because there is you, and you are willing to make this world a little better. All the thousand words of this book, the saving of people, the guarding of things, the lawmaking, the trust, traced to the very end, place their hope in you: hope that the five live in your heart, hope that you pass that love on, hope that you become one lamp among the countless lamps of this human world. Without you, "there is love in the human world" is one share less. Without you, "there is hope in the human world" is one corner short. This human world has love and has hope precisely because in this human world, there is you. You are no onlooker who might as well be there or not. You are a real, particular, irreplaceable part of the love and hope of this human world. In the human world, there is you: these words are this book's deepest regard for you, and also its deepest trust.
This line, "in the human world, there is you," when those before wrote it, they wrote it with solemnity and with deep feeling. Those before did not know you, did not know who you are, where you are, in what age you live. But those before knew that there would always be a "you" who, one day, would read to here. Those before wrote this book, in the end, not for an abstract world, but for each particular "you." You are reading these words this moment, and so all this book's saving of people, guarding of things, lawmaking, trust along the road were spoken for you to hear, and in this moment they all come to touch you. Across time, those before look at you with solemnity, and trust you: trust that there is that love in your heart, trust that you cannot bear to see this world go bad, trust that you are willing to be one among the people who guard those five. This regard takes you as a link the love and hope of the human world cannot do without. This trust places the burden of guarding the human world, with solemnity and with tenderness, into your hands. With you in the human world, those before are at peace, for those before know that so long as people like you are here, that great love has someone to take it up, and it can be passed on. The greatest hope of this world was never in any savior. It is in you, in the you who has read to here, and in whose heart a share of warmth has been stirred.
Four. And That Is Enough
The last two words: that is enough.
The human world is full of love, the human world is full of hope, in the human world there is you. With these, it is enough. There is no need to ask this world to be perfect, no need to ask that all things be whole and without flaw. So long as the human world still has love, still has hope, still has one person like you willing to guard the five, it is enough, it is well. These words, that is enough, are a very deep serenity, and a very deep contentment. They do not demand too much, do not grasp for more, do not cling to a perfect ending. They rest only in this one truest, most needful wholeness: there is love, there is hope, there is you.
Turn over these words, that is enough, and they are the deepest release of this whole road, walked to its end. A person, living out a life, so often clings to wholeness: seeks success, seeks a name, seeks all things as he wishes, seeks a flawless ending. Seeking and not getting, he suffers, he resents, he cannot let it go. But this book, walking to the end, sets down all this clinging and seeking, and keeps only these words: that is enough. It does not ask that this world from now on have no more darkness, no more hardship. That is not possible, and need not be forced. It asks only that this human world still have love, still have hope, still have people like you willing to guard it. With these, it is enough. With these, though the world still has its flaws, the most needful wholeness is already here. This "that is enough" is no passive making-do. It is the contentment and the settledness that come after seeing through: knowing what matters most, one no longer tangles oneself in grief over the lesser flaws. Holding fast the one truest share, one can say to this human world, with an easy and settled heart: this way, that is enough. This "that is enough" is the last serenity, the last setting-down, the last blessing of wholeness of this book, and of the great love of this whole road. This is also the final landing of that ground-tone, originally, not a single thing: having set down all demanding and all clinging, keeping only this one truest share, the heart is content, and what more could it ask? The human world is full of love. The human world is full of hope. In the human world, there is you. And that is enough. These four lines are the last words of these seven volumes of Justice Way, and also the most homely, most warm blessing that the great love of this whole road has last to leave to you, and to this human world.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.