"Relationship built through your action"
All of you gathered together here today are already quite aware of where you stand, and furthermore you are all people in positions from which you should be taking action responsibly. There must be a great number of people who are watching you, partly out of attraction and partly out of respect.
So when you think of your position, what should you do? I have said to you before, "Always take the lead, always stand at the head and take command," and, "Become the train's engine!" That means being more passionate than anyone else, continuing to run and carrying everyone. Am I wrong? Trying asserting your position year in and out with demands like, "Isn't there some good way for me to make out? I want to take it easy, so I just want to ask you a favor." Just try it no one will stick with you! Or try always making excuses for yourself, saying "my student said so," or "so and so told me to," and always putting the blame on others; someday you'll be exposed, and when you look back, you won't be able to gain their trust anymore. I don't want you to take any of these ways, and that's why I'm standing here now upbraiding you, warning you, sounding the alarm.
Some call me a great leader or a great teacher, but no matter how great the leader or the teacher, in time they turn rotten or lose their brilliance. But it's hard for their subordinates to say anything. Now I am here and I stand alone speaking and acting bluntly, but if I disappear, what's going to happen? If you can't even criticize each other frankly, then you have no chance of taking care of someone who has gone rotten. I think it would end up with everyone taking care not to upset anyone, and everyone overtly trading in turf, interests, and reputation. Without daily personal relations based on the ability to speak frankly to each other, to check oneself and to transform each other, there is no way for real relationship of trust to develop. Moreover, it is even header and more trying to maintain trust than it is to build it in the first place.
Mao, the former leader of China's revolution used to say, "Among friends, there are both true friends and false friends. True and false friends can be distinguished clearly through times of action." As you know, I have come to the same conclusion through my own experiences. However before we casually set about calling people false and true, consider what I have often said without a meeting of minds, without the communication of intention to build a living organization of shared hearts, people cannot take action in accord.
It is said that only after this problem is solved can such action be achieved, abut the reality is that it is through action that trust is born and organizations grow. Take faith in this, and take a shot at doing and continuing our real activities. Perhaps the numbers might be inferior, but we would certainly be able to make true friends and an organization in which all could take pride.
(from a sermon at the July 1976 summer university training camp)
