The Preservation of Life (6)
養生主（六）
1‘Finger’ and ‘fat’ shared the same character in ancient Chinese language. The fat as fuel of lamp can be burned out while fire can be lighted on other lamp and be transmitted down eternally.
指是脂的古字。燈油脂有燃盡之時，而燈火卻能藉另一個油燈重新燃起，永遠長存於世。
2 The relation between fire and lamp is somewhat like that between the universal life and the individual life. The latter vanishes with flesh body by illness and death, which is transient but life appears continually on more other individuals. Life exists on universe, endless and immortal.
這有些像宇宙繼起之生命與個體生命的關係。個體之生命隨著肉身的生老病死而興起滅亡，祂是短暫的。可是生命會不斷地在另一個個體中體現，宇宙存在一天，生命就會存在一天，永無休止，永不滅亡。
指窮於為薪，火傳也，不知其盡也。
Another argument is as following:
另一種說法是:
1 We count by fingers and toes, total twenty. It is insufficient soon when counting something, but the generations of fire transmitting never come to the end.
我們用指頭來點數，手指、腳指都用上也不過二十個，很快就不夠數了，可是薪火相傳則永遠沒有盡頭。
2 What is the difference between the generations of fire transmitting and the finger and toe counting?
薪火相傳與扳著指頭一個一個地計算，其間之差異在什麼地方呢？
3 Fire transmitting is non-self. The first fire is transmitted to the second kindling. When the second kindling is lighted, the first fire breaks off from the second fire, and the second fire is totally out of the first fire's control. The second fire is lighted up and then the first drops off. The second fire becomes completely independent.
薪火相傳是無我的，第一個火種傳給第二個火種，當第二個火種燃起時，第一個火種與第二個火種的關係就斷絕了，第一個火種對第二個火種完全沒有控制力，第二個火種升起後，第一個火種就完全退出了，第二個火種成為一個完全獨立自主的火種。
4 If the first fire is transmitted to twenty kindlings in its life, the twenty fires are independent and self-controlled respectively. They are new fires equal to the first one. Transmitted as so, the first fire has far-reaching and far-ranging influence.
第一個火種如果在它有生之年傳播了二十個新火種，那這個世上就有了二十個完全獨立、自立，與第一火種等量等觀的新火種，如此這般的傳播下去，第一個火種所造成的影響是既深且廣的。
5 The first finger is used in finger and toe counting and then the second is used, until to the twentieth. It always is me as dominator who counts.
第一根指頭用完就完了，換第二根指頭，這樣以此類推，直到二十根指頭用完，主導者始終是那個我在計算。
6 My life is definite, as is my finger and toe counting. If I am set aside and every new I who am affected take the domination, then what we want to transmit down forever has its transmitter because of human’s multiplying on the earth.
我的生命有限，因此計算也變得有限。如果丟掉我，讓每一個接受影響的新我自己去主導，那麼自人類出現在這個地球上，種族不斷延續的實情來看，我們想傳遞的東西就永遠都有了憑藉。