Plainness, Profit, and the Uncarved Block
The lecture opens at Yixin Lecture Center and resumes on the line about cutting off cleverness and profit so that thieves and bandits disappear.
Patriarch Lü Chunyang explains “cleverness” here as crafty opportunism — scheming, shifting, and taking advantage through trickery. The teacher lingers over the image of contrived mechanisms and hidden devices: once a person’s mind becomes like that, always changing and always plotting, that person turns slippery and deceptive. He says such people may speak one way in the afternoon and another way at night, smiling to your face while undermining you behind your back.
So “cleverness” is not wisdom in a good sense. It is manipulative cleverness, false presentation, and calculated self-advancement. People use pleasant words, flattery, and tactical behavior in order to compete for reputation and position.
“Profit,” meanwhile, means greed for money and goods. Once a person sees profit and forgets righteousness, inner theft begins. Even if he has more, he still wants more. Greed does not become satisfied. That is why the heart easily gives rise to robbery and stealing.
So Laozi’s instruction, as the teacher explains it, is to throw these things out from within. If cunning and profit-seeking are truly cut off, then the “thieves and bandits” in the heart do not arise on their own.
The teacher says this is not abstract at all: in ordinary society people really do exhaust every method for the sake of advantage. Sometimes they claim they support you, but in fact they only want access to the machinery of power. Human hearts often work this way.
So he says Laozi is right to tell people to cut off this kind of cleverness. A person should not become “too clever” in the crooked sense. Over-shrewdness leads people away from the Dao just as surely as dullness does. Opportunistic thinking goes off the road.
He then turns sharply to modern religion. Every religion, he says, contains teachings on morality, righteousness, and human goodness. If Taoists truly followed the *Dao De Jing*, or if Buddhists truly followed Shakyamuni’s words, things would be very different. The problem is not the teachings but the people who exploit them.
He complains that many preachers speak beautifully, but in the end still ask for money. He gives examples of religious groups sending letters, donation forms, and elaborate requests for large sums under the name of ritual relief, temple work, or spiritual merit. Outwardly they say they do not talk about money, but later the remittance number still appears on the screen. In the end, he says, money becomes commander-in-chief.
He continues the same warning: even when people say they are “preaching the Dao, not talking about money,” the real test comes later. Those wearing religious masks may speak very well. He quotes a Buddhist saying in paraphrase: the Buddha speaks thirty-seven factors of the path, but the demon speaks thirty-eight — adding one more item, namely fame and profit.
That is the teacher’s point. In the end, most corruption comes back to either fame or gain. He mentions huge temple-building appeals and enormous sums raised in the name of merit, and says ordinary people should be frightened by how easily religion gets tied to money.
He then speaks personally. If his own television appearances ever have to be mixed with commercial promotion, he would rather not speak at all. His principle is to discuss the Dao without turning it into business. If fellow students sincerely wish to preserve the teachings, then let them preserve them for later generations. He says he does not dare call himself a sage or think of himself as a Buddha.
The session then closes with praise for Laozi as a supremely great figure, and the audience is told good night before the lecture moves into the next recording.
The next session restarts the same passage in a more systematic way.
Patriarch Lü’s explanation is repeated: when people are clever in the scheming sense, they fight for power and their “bandit heart” arises; when they act for profit, they seize wealth and the “thief heart” is born. If this cleverness is cut off, then all such thieving and bandit impulses naturally disappear.
He then goes through dictionary-style notes.
First, “cleverness” is glossed not as innocent intelligence but as falsity, trickery, and deceit.
Second, “profit” includes salary, emolument, reputation, private advantage, and chasing gain.
Third, “benefit” can refer broadly to what gives happiness or advantage, whether materially or mentally. But the lecturer stresses that the issue is not legitimate livelihood; it is grasping and contention.
Fourth, “thief” and “bandit” are distinguished: violent taking is one thing, secret stealing another. Yet he extends the meaning further: tax evasion, false weights and measures, shoddy workmanship, cutting corners in labor, and religious exploitation all fall under the same moral pattern. If money is obtained unjustly, it partakes of theft.
His summary is blunt: cleverness here means fraud, profit means gain, and whenever people struggle for power or money by improper means, the thief-heart and bandit-heart have already appeared.
The teacher now turns practical. Wages, bonuses, overtime pay, and legitimate compensation may all be received. But if one takes what should not be taken, that crosses into theft. Benefit must be gained honestly, not by any method whatsoever.
He argues that even in a bad economy some people still earn a living, while even in good times some people still fail. The key, in his telling, is not to be lazy, quarrelsome, or unwilling to work. He uses long personal examples from his own children and acquaintances to make the point: steadiness, endurance, and a willingness to do one’s job matter more than scheming.
He tells his son not to fear temporary setbacks, reduced pay, or cold treatment at work. Better to live simply than to chase gain desperately. In the end, he says, a truly useful worker is not easily discarded.
He also cites a newspaper story about a “happy unemployed person” who, after losing his position, simply found other honest work and kept studying rather than sinking into self-pity.
The lesson is that worry itself destroys people. Honest effort, a settled mind, and freedom from greed bring more real benefit than anxious profit-seeking ever can.
The teacher next brings in Mencius meeting King Hui of Liang.
When the king asks, “Have you come with some benefit for my state?”, Mencius answers, “Why speak only of profit? There is only benevolence and righteousness.” The teacher explains the passage at length: if rulers seek profit from ministers, ministers seek profit from rulers, and everyone pulls advantage upward and downward, the state becomes endangered.
He glosses the terms carefully. Benevolence is the virtue of the heart and the principle of love. Righteousness is the proper standard that restrains action so it does not exceed what is right. “State” and “house” refer to different political levels, but the lesson is universal: whenever people put profit first and righteousness behind, disorder begins.
He then applies this to ordinary life. Children and siblings fight over inheritance. People sue one another over property. Families break apart because gain takes precedence over moral relation. But a person who truly has benevolence will not abandon parents, and a person with righteousness will not harm the larger order to which he belongs.
From there he moves into a long reflection on contentment. To eat enough, wear enough, have a home that shelters from wind and rain, and live in family harmony — this is already a great happiness. No one can eat more than a few meals a day, sleep on more than one bed at a time, or take more than one body into the coffin. Therefore profit should not be chased beyond measure.
He adds that peace of mind, family warmth, and moral harmony are better than wealth. That is the deeper meaning of “do not let everyone compete for profit.” Honest earnings are fine; mutual profit-struggle is destructive.
The lecture now moves to the next phrase of chapter 19: “These three are thought to be merely decorative and not enough; therefore let there be something to which people can belong.”
The teacher explains “decorative wording” as covering up something rotten inside by making the outside look fine. In this context, he says the previous triads — cutting off sagehood and wisdom, humanity and righteousness, cleverness and profit — can become empty slogans if they remain only verbal teaching.
So the real issue is not eloquent speech but embodiment. Talking is easy. To transform the world, one must teach by personal example. If a teacher does not live the doctrine, people have nothing solid to follow and no place for their cultivation to settle.
He criticizes the abundance of mere preachers: turn on the television and there are many religious speakers, but very few who actually cure greed, anger, and delusion in themselves. He insists again that he is not condemning religion as such. Every religion teaches people to become better. The fault lies with practitioners and teachers who do not follow their own scriptures.
So here “let there be something to which people can belong” means there must be a real grounding in lived practice, not only polished words.
The next phrase is “See the plainness; embrace the uncarved block.”
Patriarch Lü explains “plainness” as the plain heart-ground — the original nature of the human being. In Buddhist language, the teacher says, this is what is meant by “seeing one’s nature.” “Embracing the block” means holding fast to that original nature so that it is not stirred and scattered by desire for external things.
He says “seeing the plain” is the lead-up to realization, while “embracing the block” is the maturation of realization. In cultivation these two cannot be separated.
The lecture then spends time on terminology. “Plain heart,” “original heart,” “self-nature,” “true suchness,” “original face” — these are different labels from different traditions, but all point toward the same underlying reality: the original, unspoiled nature that does not perish and does not change.
This section becomes more reflective and somewhat digressive, but its meaning is recoverable.
The teacher says people should not get tangled in names. Whether one says self-nature, original nature, plain heart, true suchness, or original face, the referent is the same. He admits that he keeps unpacking the terms at length because otherwise students become doubtful or confused.
He then cites a Buddhist dictionary passage: if you want to see Buddha, you must see your nature; nature itself is Buddha; if you do not see your nature, then chanting, reciting, vegetarian practice, and observing precepts are of no ultimate use.
But he immediately warns against abusing that statement. If beginners hear it and conclude, “Then there is no need to chant, no need to keep precepts, no need to practice,” one may go badly astray. One must ask: who said this, in what setting, and to what level of practitioner? A teaching given to those aiming directly at seeing nature is not always the same as the teaching suitable for beginners.
So he insists that many apparent contradictions among scriptures and traditions come from differences in audience, context, and spiritual level. For beginners, chanting, discipline, and moral restraint are still good and necessary. For deeper realization, one must go beyond forms to nature itself. Both levels have their place.
The final stretch of the source is partially noisy, but the sequence remains clear.
The teacher says traditions and sects differ endlessly, but the *Dao De Jing* is valuable because it points toward action without contention. One may discuss and compare teachings, but one should not turn them into quarrels.
He repeats that statements about “seeing nature” cannot be judged in a crude yes-or-no way. One must not lazily declare that one sentence is absolutely right and another absolutely wrong without understanding context.
He then returns squarely to Laozi’s wording. To “see the plain” is to recognize the original nature. To “embrace the uncarved block” is to preserve that original truth and keep it from being dragged around by sensory desire and worldly craving. Only by not being entangled in desire can one keep one’s nature intact.
Again he summarizes Patriarch Lü’s reading: “plainness” is plain heart, or self-nature; “embracing the block” is holding firmly to that nature. The first is the opening toward realization; the second is the ripening and completion of realization. They belong together, like “clarifying the mind and seeing the nature” in Buddhist vocabulary.
He ends the evening there. The next phrase, “reduce selfishness and lessen desires,” is left for the following session.
This literal version consolidates the lecture’s English material into continuous notes, keeping close to the spoken sequence while preserving explanatory detail.