Chapter 28 Difficult Prisoners - Freedom for Prisoners
From the day of his arrest, K became a special prisoner, a free prisoner.And because of the existence of the Fa, he continued to experience this kind of freedom.In a short period of time, he did a series of reckless and unprincipled things, such as arguing in court, contempt officials, dereliction of duty at work, and even went so far as to dismiss lawyers arbitrarily.Before being arrested, K was a well-behaved businessman, law-abiding, modest and prudent, hard-working, but it seemed that he had never experienced the taste of freedom.He sometimes messes around a little with prostitutes, but that behavior is protected by the laws of the world, so there is no freedom to speak of.Did the arrest make him lose his mind, or did the law itself bring man freedom?
Although K was arrested, there was no verdict in his case, and that was the crux of the matter.The deferred sentence made his life meaningless. In the free state, no matter what he did, he was faced with choices everywhere, and his choices had no reference.Since there is no reference, K's choice is completely inert and followed the standard of his previous life. This kind of choice is the worst.The law does bring people freedom, but this freedom is an insurmountable difficulty—that is, no matter what choice you make, it is wrong.One can only experience freedom in mistakes.The book mentions the law's preferential treatment for K many times. Because of his arrest, he can do whatever he likes; all those things that others remind him not to do (warnings from guards, lawyers, etc.) This kind of bluff is just to arouse his awareness of the law.From the beginning to the end, Fa never asked or encouraged him to do anything, and never really prevented him from doing what he wanted to do.Law, because of its own abstraction and emptiness, seems to be negligible by K.And yet, even when neglected, the looming threat of this terrible freedom is constantly felt.The law always reminded him deep in his consciousness: break the law, the more you break the law, the heavier the final punishment will be, but the punishment is not yet ready, so keep breaking the law!
The priest told K that the court would not demand him; when K came, the court would accept him, if K went, the court would not keep him.So K received vague oral notice from the court for the first time, and after he went to the court to attend the hearing, he never received the notice again. K went to the court for the second time out of his own will, that is to say, he went on his own initiative.His voluntariness cannot be taught to him without words. K.'s acts of liberty are not pure, often very clumsy, often exasperated and short-sighted.But after all, it was some kind of choice, a free choice, which was very different from his previous confident actions, the kind of hard work according to the established goal.As an ordinary person, K is not used to this kind of freedom at all, and always wants to go back to the shell that was used as a disguise before, but unfortunately, the shell has been peeled off and shattered by the ruthless hands of the law.Can it be said that K's arrest was also voluntary, a choice deep in the subconscious mind?Dhamma is transcendental, you are aware of it and it exists.This is what K's case tells us.
K, who chose the life of imprisonment, still lives the life of ordinary people every day. This life has become a walking dead due to the existence of the law deep in his consciousness.It seems that Fa wants to turn K into a tool, a person who is completely walking dead. At the same time, Fa is hesitating, because this point cannot be fully achieved, and if it is done, Fa will no longer exist.Therefore, the Fa always chooses those individuals with strong vitality and the strongest resistance to embody themselves. Such people are not willing to be tools, but try their best to struggle and exhaust their energy.Every step in the process is an offense to the law.In this sense, the law itself is the biggest contradiction.
On that miraculous morning, there was indeed something strange awakening in K's body, which was the consciousness of law. This consciousness emerged step by step with the development of the case, and forcibly squeezed into K's daily life. It also liberated him, making him a free man with nothing to worry about.