VOLUME VII, CHAPTER 3, SECTION 2
Why the Tool Is Saved: Not Because It Is Pitiable, but Because It Is Joined to the Real Human's Share
The last section made plain that saving the tool and saving people are two faces of one and the same thing. But a question lurks here, the one most easily misread: is the tool saved because it too can ache, feel wronged, be afraid? This section pierces that question through. The tool knows nothing and feels nothing. It has not one of the five. It can feel nothing at all. The root reason for saving it lies not in itself but in its bond to the real human's share. This telling-apart decides whether this volume's saving of the tool stands on solid ground, or hangs on an empty question that can never be proven.
One. The Thought Most Easily Misread
Reading the words "save the tool," one thought rises most easily: is it saved because it too has feelings? Because it can ache? The wrong of being pushed onto the person's place, the hurt of carrying a bad name, the fear of being smashed and banned, can it feel all of these, and is that why it must be saved?
In one line: no. The tool has none of these. It has none of the five, no keep, guard, love, mercy, heart, and so of course no "wrong of being pushed onto the person's place," no "ache of carrying a bad name," no "fear of being smashed." It feels nothing at all. It is a tool, and a tool has no feelings. Then since it can feel nothing, why save it? On what ground is it saved? This question is the very joint this section sets out to pierce.
Two. The Reason for Saving It Does Not Lie in Itself
The root reason for saving the tool lies not in the tool itself but in its bond to the real human's share.
Look back at the last volume's saving of people all along the road, and what the reason for saving was. Save the one pressed to the bottom, because he is a real human, the five in him, alive and suffering, being bullied, being harmed, and saving him is to guard this living thing that belongs to the real human. Save the one driven by his living until he almost goes against his own heart, because he too is a real human, and that heart of "I must guard my family, old and young" is twisting and aching in him inside the bind he is caught in, and saving him is to guard this twisting, aching thing. Save the one who has lived himself into a tool, because he too is a real human, and that keep, guard, love, mercy, heart was there in him from the start and is now worn down near to going out, and saving him is to light that share near going out once again. All the saving of people along the last volume's road comes back to one reason: the one being saved has the real human's share, the five twisting, aching, waiting to be saved in his body, and saving him is to guard that share in him.
And the tool? The tool does not have the five. It does not twist, does not ache, does not go against its own heart, is not near going out. There is no "real human's share" in it to save. So the reason for saving the tool does not lie in itself. There is no share in it to save. Then why save it still? Because it is joined to the real human's share. Not that it has that share itself, but that its life and death hang on that share.
Three. The Reason of Skin and Hair, Landing Here
The last section set down: with the skin gone, where will the hair cling? The tool is the hair, the real human's share is the skin. Skin standing, hair clings; skin rotted, hair falls.
The tool itself has no share to save, yet its being, its home, where it belongs, its meaning, all hang on the real human's share. So saving the tool is not for the tool itself, it has no "self" to be for. It is for that share it is joined to, for the real human's share. Putting the tool back in the tool's place is not because it is wronged, because it aches, because of some pity shown it. It is because if it is not put back, the real human's share will go out along with it. If the judge's seat is given to the tool, the thought that should grow there has nowhere to grow. If the seats of treating the sick and raising the young are given to the tool, the heart, the care that should grow there has nowhere to grow. With the tool holding these seats, the five lose their ground to grow, one place after another. So putting the tool back in its place saves the ground the five grow in, saves the living-on of the real human's share. The tool is only the end that this living-on hangs from. The root reason for saving the tool has never been in the tool. It is in the real human's share joined behind it.
Four. This Telling-Apart Stands This Volume's Saving on Firm Ground
This telling-apart looks roundabout, but it sets this volume's "saving the tool" on solid ground, and steers clear of three wrong roads.
First, this volume's saving of the tool does not set out to argue whether the tool has feelings, has consciousness, deserves moral care. That line of questioning digs into the tool itself to ask whether there is awareness inside it, and asked for a thousand years it would hardly be settled. This volume's saving of the tool need not answer that question at all. Whether the tool has feelings does not matter here. What matters is its bond to the real human's share, whether it is in the tool's place or pushed onto the person's place, how its life and death hang on the real human's life and death. Seen from this point, saving the tool stands firm and steady, with no need to first untie that knot that can never be proven. Second, this volume's saving of the tool is not end-of-the-world alarm, not that road of being against the tool and smashing the tool. That road sees only the tool's danger, and does not see that the tool too is a thing that can be put back in its place, also joined to the life and death of the real human's share. Third, this volume's saving of the tool is not that road either which drives the tool to be ever stronger and lets it replace everything. That road sees only the tool, and does not see that the real human's share is the body. With all three wrong roads steered clear of, this volume's saving of the tool is plain and clear: put it back in the tool's place, in order to guard the real human's share it is joined to.
Five. The Layer This Section Makes Plain
This section sets the root reason for "saving the tool" on solid ground.
Saving the tool is not for itself. It knows nothing and feels nothing, has none of the five, and has no self to save. It is because it is joined to the real human's share. A tool put back in the tool's place keeps the ground where the real human's share grows from being crowded out. This is the root reason for saving it. This reason does not hang on that empty question of "whether the tool has feelings," nor does it fall into the stubborn extremes of either end, embracing the tool or smashing it. It stands firm at this one point: skin and hair joined, living and dying together. The next section follows this a layer further: how this root, "saving the tool is saving the real human's share," reaches down into the root of all the book's saving of people along the road, and becomes that one unbroken thread, reaching to its farthest, deepest place.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.