Treat Fellow Practitioners With Kindness and Immense Tolerance By a practitioner from Australia
(Clearwisdom.net) In his recent Fa lectures, Teacher talked several times about the
relationships among Falun Dafa practitioners. Here I would like to share my
personal understandings on this subject. At the beginning of the persecution, the biggest test facing the
practitioners in China was whether they could sacrifice everything and step
forward to validate the Fa. Similarly, the biggest test facing the practitioners
living abroad was whether we could get rid of the attachment to ourselves, break
through our notions, and step forward to validate the Fa. Teacher has clearly
told us that currently we need to do well in three things: studying the Fa,
clarifying the truth, and sending forth righteous thoughts. How can we cultivate
ourselves in order to better fulfill our roles in the Fa-rectification process? Compared to China, there are much fewer practitioners living abroad.
Meanwhile, there are so many countries, governments, and everyday people that we
need to clarify the truth to. Thus, every practitioner that can join the Fa-rectification
is extremely precious. It is very important for us to cooperate with each other
because we have so much work to do yet not that many practitioners to do it.
Living outside China, we don't face the danger of losing our freedom or even
lives because of clarifying the truth about the persecution. Thus, the evil
forces have been trying to stop practitioners abroad from stepping forward by
interfering with the cooperation among practitioners. This interference, which
creates internal turmoil within our coordination efforts, can not only waste our
precious time that could be used to save the sentient beings, but also stops our
energy field as a whole from becoming pure and from reaching the standards of
the Fa. Our improvement as one body and our Fa-rectification process will then
be negatively affected. I think it is now time for us to pay close attention to
this problem. I think the reason that the evil forces can interfere with us is because we
have the following shortcomings. 1. Not having enough compassion, especially towards fellow practitioners. Sometimes, we keep a close watch on fellow practitioners' attachments.
Actually, we are searching outwardly when we judge or make conjectures about
others with the standards of how we think they should act. Such thoughts,
together with grievances and complaints against fellow practitioners, are very
uncompassionate elements, which absolutely cannot have a harmonious effect on
practitioners, let alone reflect the state of "... being able to understand
everything with kindness" (Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in
Boston). Every practitioner has attachments to some degree. Sometimes the
attachments even appear to be very strong. However, we should first look at
the well-cultivated side of fellow practitioners. If we do see their
shortcomings, we need to point it out with a compassionate heart. Even if the
fellow practitioners really did something wrong, we need to learn to forgive
them first and then try to come up with ideas for how to make up for it
instead of grumbling about it or blaming the fellow practitioners for it. When there are disagreements on some issues among practitioners, we should
not try to compromise with each other based on everyday people's notions of
friendship. Neither should we point fingers at each other. What we are
breaking through and rejecting is the old evil forces' arrangements of the Fa-rectification.
A major task for us now is to break through the barriers in our hearts that
stop us from cooperating with each other as one body. Cultivation is to
cultivate oneself, not to figure out others' shortcomings. The problems with
the relationships among practitioners can only be resolved when we can improve
our own xinxing (mind or heart nature; moral character), study
the Fa more, and share with each other our experiences and understandings of
the Fa principles. 2. Not striving forward vigorously. Not being strict enough with ourselves. Teacher told us that we need to strive forward vigorously in Buddha Fa
cultivation. However, very often we haven't done a good job with this. When I
first started to practice Falun Dafa, I was very diligent because the most
fundamental part of my being was waking up. However, just as Teacher said,
"But usually when it comes to the human part -- the body that's formed with
substances within the Three Realms -- the process slows down immediately, as
if brakes were applied. It's really difficult even to just take one step
forward. This is because it's really extremely difficult for human beings to
let go of their attachments" (Falun Buddha Fa -- Lecture at the Conference
in Singapore). Over a long period of time, I truly felt that it was
extremely difficult for me to take another step forward. When Teacher said,
"... Consummation is only a matter of the time of return..." (What Are
Supernormal Abilities), I didn't take what Teacher said to be motivation
for becoming more diligent. Instead, I unintentionally cut myself some slack.
Sometimes I saw my attachments or impurity, however, I thought they were
trivial matters. I didn't firmly and completely deny them or reject them. Now
I have realized that the old evil forces have sometimes taken advantage of me
because of my lack of control. Teacher also said, "So having said all that I have, it in fact all boils
down to cultivation issues" (Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in
Boston). Sometimes I keep myself so busy doing Dafa work that I forget
that no matter how much we have done to clarify the truth during the Fa-rectification
period, essentially, cultivation is not doing things but a process of
assimilating to the Fa and removing all the things that do not accord with the
Fa so that we can melt into the Fa. "... matter and mind are one thing." (Zhuan
Falun). If we don't improve ourselves, we will not be able to achieve our
goals no matter how much work we have done. From another point of view, many practitioners living abroad have a high
education level and are very capable in doing things. However, we should
remember that capability is not the same as xinxing since " ... one's gong
level is as high as one's xinxing level" (Zhuan Falun). Thus, only
through improving our cultivation levels, can we fully utilize our everyday
people's abilities and skills to validate the Fa to the fullest. 3. Having the attachment of protecting our own notions or ourselves. Many fellow practitioners have published articles on Clearwisdom.net that
talk about the fact that Falun Dafa practitioners also used to be the beings
from the old cosmos. This means that we have various degenerated notions or
material elements residing in us. I totally agree with this understanding.
Teacher said, "Precisely because of the way humans are, because you humans all
want to protect yourselves in this way, human society has been pushed to this
stage and is sliding downward. So everyone has his share of the blame. Even if
you haven't done anything wrong in this lifetime, you did in your previous
lives" (Falun Buddha Fa -- Lecture at the Assistants' Fa Conference in
Changchun). The above Fa principle had a great impact on me when I first
read it. Even now, I still think about it a lot because I feel that this is a
common problem among our practitioners. It's been a long time since the old cosmos started deviating from the Fa.
Those beings have very high levels and great abilities, and they have lived a
long history. They are all subject to a degeneration that is stubborn,
difficult to detect, and difficult to correct. Those old forces that made the
arrangements for the current Fa-rectification don't have everyday people's
notions or attachments. Neither do they have the attachment to material
interests. Their major attachment is that they don't want to change
themselves. They want to keep their own stuff and their own standards intact. I think we should pay special attention to this issue. Our main
consciousnesses are willing to assimilate to the Fa, to require us to meet the
pure standards of the new cosmos, and to give up and get rid of all the
degenerated things. However, we will not be able to truly assimilate to the Fa
if we are attached to our own notions or trying to protect ourselves. Manifested in this everyday people's dimension, this kind of deep-down
degeneration might show up as our feelings that our own ideas are the best. We
are trying our best to do Dafa work and we are working very hard. However, if
we cannot reach the standards that the Fa has set for us, we will restrict
ourselves and exhaust ourselves at our original levels and realms without
realizing it. We will not be able to broaden our thoughts and minds, and we
will not be able to see the whole picture of the Fa-rectification. Teacher told us before that when we are not sure what to do, just think
about what a Buddha or a Bodhisattva would do when faced with the same
situation. The Fa is creating the magnificent enlightened beings in the
future. They should have full control, great compassion, and immense dignity.
Their boundless wisdom is from the Fa, so they are also harmonious and
indestructible. They are at such a high level and have such abilities that
they can encompass everything and give their sentient beings benevolent
resolutions. If we can set requirements for ourselves with the standards of
such a realm, how could we not be able to tolerate fellow practitioners'
shortcomings? How could there be conflicts among the practitioners when we
work together? The above is my personal understanding. Please correct me if I said anything
inappropriate. Posting date: 12/4/2002 |