VOLUME VII, CHAPTER 9, SECTION 1
Originally, Not a Single Thing: the Ground Color of This Great Love
The end of the last chapter drew out the last bringing-together of the whole volume: lawmaking all along the road, guarding the five, going back to the human world, guarding paradise, under all of this, what kind of heart is it? This section first sets down the ground color of this heart: originally, not a single thing. These words are a line handed down by the sages of old, passed from mouth to mouth through the ages, and what they say is that a person, at bottom, originally clings to nothing, takes nothing, seeks nothing. Under everything this book has set up all along the road is just such a heart, not for name, not for gain, not for oneself. Only from this ground color of originally, not a single thing can there grow that great love to be left to the human world. This group of sections is the bringing-together of the whole volume, and of the whole book too. To say clearly what the great love to be left to the human world is, we must first speak of the ground color of this great love.
One. Originally, Not a Single Thing, What It Means
First say what these words, originally, not a single thing, mean. They do not say that this world is empty, with not a single thing in it. They say that a person, at bottom, originally clings to nothing, takes nothing, seeks nothing.
A person comes into this world naked, and when he goes, he cannot take a single hair with him. Name, gain, wealth, position, however much he fought for them in life, however tight he held them, in the end he cannot take any of them with him. This is a fact everyone understands, and everyone easily forgets. Originally, not a single thing, says exactly this: a person originally has nothing, and in the end has nothing. Those things fought over and grabbed, clung to and never let go, never truly belonged to oneself. They are only borrowed for a while, and must in the end be handed back. See through this, and a person is no longer bound tight by name, gain, wealth and position, no longer reckons every matter from the place of "what is in it for me", and an empty space opens in the heart. This empty space is not a dead, silent emptiness. It is the light, still, clear state of heart that comes after letting go of clinging and setting down taking. Originally, not a single thing, speaks of this seeing-through, this setting-down, this emptiness and stillness in the heart.
It must be said clearly: this "nothing" is not a passive nothing, like dead wood and cold ashes. It is not the withered stillness of every hope burnt out, wanting nothing, doing nothing. Just the reverse. It is a nothing that is most active, most full of life. When a person sets down his clinging to name, gain, wealth and position, it is not that from then on he does nothing and his heart is like cold ashes. It is that in his heart there opens up that great space the "I" had been taking up, and it can now hold other things, greater things: hold all living beings, hold the human world, hold a care and a mercy for all things. A person whose heart is full of his own gain and loss cannot hold anyone else. Only when that heart-filling "I" is set down and emptied out can it hold all under heaven. The heart is only so big. Fill it with yourself, and there is no room left to hold others. Empty yourself, and all that room can be used to hold all living beings, to hold the human world. So the "nothing" of originally, not a single thing is not an end point. It is a starting point. Only by making nothing of the clinging and taking of the small self can there open up the breadth of heart of the great self. What it makes nothing of is the clinging that binds people. What it gives birth to is a heart that does good for all things. In this one making-nothing and one giving-birth lies the deepest, most living layer of this ground color.
Two. This Book Stands Right on This Ground Color
Under everything this book has set up all along the road is just such a heart, the heart of originally, not a single thing.
Look back over the whole book: saving the people at the bottom, growing that heart, setting down the floor of a living, turning the machine of government around, making clear the ruler of the law, guarding the five, going back to the human world, guarding paradise. Thing after thing, one after another, what was it all for? Not to fight for a name for the one who wrote it, not to seek a gain, not to take a position. If it were for name, gain and self, there would be no need at all to do it this way. All of it was done so that each living person in the human world can live like a person, so that the five do not go out in body after body, generation after generation, so that this one and only paradise can be guarded. This heart is not for itself, only for others. It does not seek to take, only to give. It does not ask that name, gain, wealth and position fall on itself, only that some good fall on the human world. This is exactly the ground color of originally, not a single thing: if the heart of the one who wrote it still clung to name, gain and self, he could not have set up a book like this, purely for the human world. Only a heart where originally there is not a single thing, that clings to nothing and takes nothing, can give birth to this care, only for the human world and not for oneself.
This layer needs no word from the one who wrote it. Readers who finish the whole book can tell it for themselves, between the lines. A book written for name always shows, between the lines, an eagerness to win praise. A book written for gain always hides a scheming for profit. A book written for one's own private ends can never cover the marks of self-display. But this book, from beginning to end, its care faces outward, toward the human world: what it is anxious about is whether living people can live well, what it worries over is whether the five can be kept from going out, what it hopes for is whether this paradise can be guarded. It never put the one who wrote it in the position that matters. Read it through, and everywhere is the human world, all living beings, the five, this paradise. Only the one who wrote it, who ought to claim the credit, has stepped back into the least noticeable corner, and only in that one line of signature at the end of each section pushes all the credit to those who came before, and gathers all the mistakes to himself. In this one pushing-away and one gathering-in, that ground color of originally, not a single thing, claiming no credit, not showing oneself, is already plain to see. This care that faces outward through the whole book and not inward is the natural outflow of that ground color, originally, not a single thing. If the heart still held a big, big "I", the book could not have been written this pure. Only because the "I" in that heart had been set down very light, very faint, near to nothing, could this book, purely for the human world, be written.
Three. Not a Single Thing, and Only Then Can Great Love Be Born
Why say that only originally, not a single thing can give birth to great love? Because clinging to oneself, the love cannot go out. Only when oneself is set down can the love flow toward the human world.
If a person's heart is full of "I", full of his own name, gain, position, gain and loss, then his heart is filled up by this "I", and there is no room left to hold others, to hold all living beings, to hold the human world. Even if he has love, it is mostly love for what profits himself, love for those who can pay him back. That is a love with conditions, a love at a discount, and it cannot be called great love. Only when a person sets down that "I", and in his heart there is originally, not a single thing, clinging to nothing and taking nothing, can that emptied-out heart hold all living beings, hold the human world. Only then does his love not need to ask first "what is in it for me", only then can it flow, without conditions and asking no return, to every living person, to this whole human world. Originally, not a single thing, is setting down that "I" that fills the heart. Just because the "I" is set down, the love can make room, can flow out, can grow great. So the root of great love lies exactly in originally, not a single thing. Not a single thing is the cause. Great love is the effect.
This cause and effect the sages and the good of past and present proved long ago with their whole lives. Those who truly walked the world with great love, every one of them, set themselves down very light, very faint: they did not pile up wealth for themselves, did not gather power for themselves, did not seek a name for themselves. All they did in their lives faced outward, to do good for others. Just because that "I" in their hearts was very light, very faint, near to nothing, the love could flow without any block to all the people under heaven. Look the other way, at those whose hearts are full of themselves. Even if they do some good, that good is always mixed with reckoning, always has an eye on the return, always weighs first its own gain and loss. Such love cannot flow far, cannot flow wide, and is trapped within the small square of the "I". So great love and no-self have always been joined together: the more thorough the no-self, the wider and deeper the great love. The further the "I" in the heart is set down, the wider the love flows. This is not empty talk. It is a plain truth that every act of great love, from ancient times to now, has proved together. See this cause and effect of no-self and great love clearly, and you see clearly where this book's great love was born from: it was born from that clear emptiness where the small self has been set down, where originally there is not a single thing.
Four. This Ground Color Runs Through the Whole Book
See this layer clearly, and you know that this ground color, originally, not a single thing, is not only in this section. It runs through the whole book from beginning to end.
All along the road of the whole book, from the first volume to this one, that care not for oneself, only for others, is the ground color of originally, not a single thing flowing. Saving people, not so that oneself gets something, but so that the one saved can live well. Setting up institutions, not so that oneself takes something, but so that this world can be settled. Guarding the five, guarding paradise, not so that oneself leaves some name behind, but so that the human world, so that the children and grandchildren, can have a good piece of heaven and earth. This ground color, like an unseen thread, strings together every piece of lawmaking and every bit of care in the whole book. Readers who come to this last group of sections and look back over the whole book should be able to see this thread: all that was set up, saved and guarded along this road had the same heart underneath, a heart where originally there is not a single thing, purely for the human world.
This thread matters because it is the reason the whole book can be trusted, the reason it can move people. A book that sets out a teaching, if it hides a heart for itself underneath, then however smoothly it argues, readers always faintly sense that layer of impurity, and the argument is marked down too. But under this book is a heart where originally there is not a single thing, purely for the human world. Just because this heart is pure, the lawmaking, the saving of people, the guarding of things all along the road land, every word of it, sincere, and stand on solid ground. Not every reader can name this ground color, but every reader can feel that pure warmth turned toward the human world. This warmth is not piled up out of fine words. It shows through, naturally, from that ground color of originally, not a single thing. So this ground color is not only the source of the whole book's care, but also the reason the whole book can move the human heart. This heart is the ground color of the whole book, and also the first layer this last, bringing-together group of sections sets out to make clear. The next section goes on from here: this heart born from originally, not a single thing, purely for the human world, what is it, in the end? It is great love. What is it to leave to the human world? This great love. This great love born from not a single thing, what it looks like, in the end, and how it stays in the human world, the next section will lay out one by one.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.