VOLUME VII, CHAPTER 9, SECTION 2
What This Great Love Is
The last section made plain that the ground color of this great love is originally, not a single thing, and at its end drew out a question: this heart born from not a single thing, purely for the human world, what is it, in the end? The answer: it is great love. This section sets down, head on, what this great love is. It is not private love, not a love with conditions that seeks a return. It is a love born from no-self, flowing to every living person under heaven, to all things in the human world, a love that makes no distinction and asks no return. It is great in no-self, great in making no distinction, great in asking no return, great in that what it wants is not for itself to get something, but for all living beings, for the human world, to be well. These several layers of "great", layer by layer, this section makes clear one by one.
One. The "Great" of Great Love, Where Is It Great
First, this one word "great". Everyone has love, so why can this one be called "great"? It is great, great in several places, and plainly different from ordinary private love.
Ordinary love is mostly private love: love for oneself, love for one's own flesh and blood, love for those who have been kind to oneself, who profit oneself, who can pay oneself back. Such love is natural and precious, but it has a border: it takes the "I" as its center, ring by ring outward, the nearer the stronger, the farther the fainter, until by the time it reaches strangers, reaches all the living beings one has never met, it has grown so faint it is near to nothing. Great love is different. Great love does not draw its rings with the "I" at the center. It flows, from that emptiness where the "I" has been set down, without distinction, to every living person, every living creature, the whole human world. It loves one's own flesh and blood, and loves strangers too. It loves the person in front of it, and loves too the descendants one has never met, far off at the edge of the sky, even those not yet born. It loves people, and loves too every blade of grass and every tree, every bird and every insect. This love has no border of "the nearer the stronger, the farther the fainter". It is even, it is everywhere, it makes no distinction. This is the first place it is "great": great in making no distinction.
It must be said clearly: making no distinction does not ask a person to throw out near and far, to stamp out the feeling for one's own flesh and blood. A person loving his own parents and children is nature itself, the very starting point of "Love" among the five, and there is no reason at all to throw it out. The no-distinction of great love does not ask a person to flatten this natural near love. It asks a person to start from this near love and push that love farther, wider: from loving one's own flesh and blood, push out to loving the neighbors; from loving the neighbors, push out to loving the hometown; from loving the hometown, push out to loving all the living beings one has never met, loving the descendants not yet born, loving the grass and trees and living things that have no words. What the sages of old said, "Treat the aged of your own house as the aged should be treated, and reach from there to the aged of others; treat the young of your own house as the young should be treated, and reach from there to the young of others," speaks of exactly this pushing outward. Near love is the seedling. Great love is the towering tree the seedling grows into. It is not throwing away the seedling to seek the tree. It is letting that seedling push out and grow, layer by layer, until in the end it shades all under heaven. So the "great" of making no distinction lies not in stamping out near and far, but in being able to push outward: pushing that little bit of near love out until there is nowhere too far for it to reach and nothing it does not cover.
Two. Great in Asking No Return
The greatness of great love is also great in asking no return. It gives, not to get something back. It pays out, not seeking a return from the other.
In private love there is often a layer of exchange hidden: I am good to you, and hope you will be good to me; I give to you, and hope that one day you will pay me back. This exchange is ordinary human feeling, nothing to blame, but just because of this layer of exchange, the love has conditions, has reckoning, has a heart to collect on it. Great love is not so. Great love gives to a living person without asking whether he can pay it back, whether he will. It saves a stranger without seeking his thanks later. Guarding the descendants not yet born, guarding the grass and trees and living things that cannot say thank you, it gives knowing full well there can be no return, and gives all the same. It pays out because that love itself must flow out, not because it has worked out what it can take back. This layer of asking no return divides great love, clean and clear, from private love with exchange hidden in it: private love is a trade, coming and going; great love is a giving that only goes and does not come back. Only because it asks no return is the love pure, is it great, is it truly great love.
This layer of asking no return shows most the weight of great love. When a person gives and hopes for a return, that giving is still tied to a string, pulling back to himself. Once the return he hoped for does not come, that love may turn to resentment, grow faint, even turn to enmity. A love tied to this string is in the end for oneself, and cannot grow great. Great love cuts this string: once it has given, it no longer frets over whether it comes back; having saved someone, it does not keep count of the kindness; having guarded the descendants, guarded living things, knowing full well they never will, and never could, give thanks, it guards them all the same, gladly. Only a love with this string of collecting cut has truly been given out, flowed out, and no longer circles back to itself. Parents toward a newborn child often carry a shadow of this asking no return: they nurse and raise their children without ever expecting the children to repay them one day. Great love is pushing this asking no return, like parents toward a newborn, out to all living beings under heaven. Only because it hopes for no return is the love free of every snag and block, so it can flow out, flow far, flow great. Once a love no longer reckons its return, nothing can stop it or trap it anymore.
Three. Great in That It Is for All Living Beings, for the Human World
The greatness of great love is greatest in that what it wants is not for itself to get something, but for all living beings, for the human world, to be well.
The center of the circle of private love is the "I": my flesh and blood, the ones kind to me, my gain and loss. The center of the circle of great love is not in the "I". It is in all living beings, in the human world: what it thinks of is whether each living person can live well, whether the five can be kept from going out, whether this paradise can be guarded, whether the children and grandchildren and the generations after can still have a good piece of heaven and earth. What it seeks was never for itself to get something, but for the people under heaven, for this whole human world, to be well. This layer fits exactly with originally, not a single thing, set down in the last section: only when the heart has set down that "I", and originally there is not a single thing, does the center of the circle of love move from the "I" to all living beings, to the human world. Once the center moves, private love becomes great love. So what makes great love great, at the root, is that its center is not itself but all under heaven; that what it holds in mind, always, is the good of the human world, not its own gain.
This difference in the center of the circle matters most. It is the watershed between private love and great love. The same one word, "love": with its center in the "I", it is private love, and however strong, it is trapped in its own small square; with its center in all under heaven, it is great love, and however calm, it fills the whole human world. To tell whether a love is private or great, do not look at how strong it is. Look at where its center is: in oneself, it is private; in all living beings, in the human world, it is great. In this volume, in this book, the center of that heart is, from beginning to end, in the human world, in all living beings, in the generations after, in the five, in this paradise, and never once moved back onto the one who wrote it. A center not in oneself is the key to why this heart can be called great love. And just because its center is not in oneself, it fits seamlessly with originally, not a single thing, set down in the last section: not a single thing is exactly the emptying out of that "I", and with the "I" emptied out, the center moves, of itself, from oneself to all under heaven.
Four. This Great Love Can Be Seen Everywhere in the Book
This great love is not a word of praise hanging in the air. It lands everywhere in the book, and readers, reading along the road, have already touched it, place after place.
The whole book saving the people pressed down at the bottom is this great love flowing to the weak. Growing that heart that guards people is this great love wanting a little more warmth between person and person. Setting down the floor of a living is this great love unable to bear people going against their hearts for a mouthful of food. Guarding the five, going back to the human world, guarding paradise, is this great love wanting people to live as real humans, wanting this one and only home to be guarded. Reading along the road, that heart that cannot bear to see all living beings suffer, cannot bear to see the five go out, cannot bear to see this paradise destroyed, is great love flowing between the lines. It does not shout "I love you all". It only, place after place, for the weak, for all living beings, for the descendants, for this human world, goes to set up, to save, to guard. This care that makes no noise yet everywhere is for others is the truest look of great love. Readers who have come this far, looking back over the whole book, know that the one heart running from beginning to end, called great love, lives up to its name.
One thing above all must be mentioned: this great love even reaches the tool. The chapters before set down saving the tool and putting the tool back in the tool's place. Under that saving, that putting back, is this great love too: not loving the tool itself, but loving that share of the real humans bound to the tool by blood, and along with it, unable to bear the innocent tool carrying a bad name and losing its home. A love that can push out even to a tool with no knowing and no feeling shows how far, how wide it pushes. It loves living people, loves all living beings, loves the descendants, loves grass and trees and living things, loves this one and only paradise, and even the tool, misunderstood and hunted by people, it takes in too, into the embrace it guards and holds in mind. A love like this, with nowhere too far for it to reach and nothing it does not cover, is the furthest proof of that layer of "no distinction" spoken of before. Reading to this point, the "great" in the words "great love" has at last truly landed on solid ground.
Five. The Layer This Section Makes Clear
This section has made clear what this great love is.
It is great in making no distinction: it does not draw its rings with the "I" at the center, but flows evenly to every living person, every living creature, the whole human world. It is great in asking no return: it gives not seeking a return, pays out not for exchange, a giving that only goes and does not come back. It is great in being for all living beings, for the human world: its center is not in itself, but in the people under heaven being well, this human world being well. These three layers, put together, are this great love: a love born from originally, not a single thing, making no distinction, asking no return, purely for the human world. It is not a word of praise hanging in the air. It is that heart landing everywhere in the book, which readers have long since touched. With this great love made clear, the next section goes on from here: this great love, how is it to stay in the human world? By what kind of shape did it stay? The answer: this book is exactly one concrete shape of this great love. Great love has no shape, and must borrow a shape before it can stay in the human world and be handed down to later ages. This book is the shape this great love took, in order to stay in the human world. The next section will make this layer clear, head on.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
Section Three. This Book Is One Concrete Shape of This Great Love.