Wrongdoing and merit

The general knelt and presented a tray of offerings to the Taoist sage. High mountains and drifting clouds, a scene like the realm of immortals. In the green forest, pine trees leaned along the mountainside. The sound of a stream falling into a ravine murmured in the distance. Rocks of many shapes lay scattered around the thatched hermitages. The sage practised on the high mountain with a few disciples.
The general bowed, then sat to one side and said:

• Master, before long I will be summoned to the capital to take up the post of minister, with responsibility for the whole country and no longer only for this frontier region. For more than ten years I have held this post with countless difficulties and trials, but thanks to your advice I completed the duties the king entrusted to me. My merit and prestige have resounded throughout the capital. Now that I return to the capital, far from you, I won't know whom to ask when I meet difficulties. These are the last few times I can still come up here to pay my respects and learn from you. What can you teach me so that, even far from you, I can still handle every matter wisely and properly?

The sage asked:

• General, you have learnt many things from me, so what do you understand to be the core of the principle for being a general?

The general was silent for a long moment, then replied:

• Master, I understand that to be a general one must put the interests of the country above the interests of the individual and the family.

The sage shook his head:

• You have not understood fully. At this frontier you have to deal mainly with the neighbouring states. In the capital you will also have to deal a great deal with your fellow officials. The mandarinate is also a battlefield, and its tactics and schemes are extremely fierce. In everything you do, you must weigh wrongdoing against merit. You must advise your subordinates about the question of wrongdoing and merit. You must present to the king a strategy for teaching wrongdoing and merit to officials and generals.
  At this level of central power, the calculation of gain and loss is dangerous. For the sake of winning and losing, or gain and loss, people compete and scramble, using tricks to harm one another. Only when people know how to weigh wrongdoing against merit can they keep their integrity and UPHOLD JUSTICE FOR THE COUNTRY.
  But the question of wrongdoing and merit is very hard to see. Only those of real morality and wisdom can see wrongdoing and merit and weigh them in order to act properly. In this way they preserve their own integrity and also uphold justice for the country.

The general pondered and said:

• Master, on what basis can I judge the wrongdoing and merit of each action I take?

The sage replied:

• You must arrange to stay on this mountain for seven days so that I can tell you about the very complex and hard-to-grasp aspects of wrongdoing and merit. Often what looks like merit turns out to be wrongdoing, and often what looks like wrongdoing turns out to be merit.

- Master, I obey. I had thought that doing what benefits the country was the highest principle. I never imagined that doing what benefits could produce wrongdoing and so harm the country even more. 🌞

That is a matter of affairs of state; but coming back to the small matters of each of us, it is the same. If in everything we do we calculate gain or loss, we think ourselves clever but turn out not to be.

A wise person is one who weighs wrongdoing and merit carefully before acting. Often, to do what is meritorious and avoid wrongdoing, we have to accept losses. But later we will see good and happy results.

But wrongdoing and merit are not easy to understand thoroughly. We are clouded by prejudices from the past, so we do not know clearly what is wrongdoing and what is merit. We have long had imposed on us the traditions of society, the family code, and even religions, so we understand wrongdoing and merit from those viewpoints.
We must objectively free ourselves from old prejudices to find the true meaning of wrongdoing and merit.

The basic principle of wrongdoing and merit is the fair law of cause and effect. But the law of cause and effect is a profound mathematics in itself, which not everyone fully understands.