PureInsight | April 19, 2004
[PureInsight.org] Practitioners have been using a variety of methods to clarify the facts on a massive scale. Many veteran practitioners not only have stepped out to coordinate various projects, they have also encouraged new practitioners to participate in these activities as well. Many Practitioners care about how other practitioners are doing in their cultivation and how actively they participate in Fa-rectification activities. These practitioners sometimes even worry about other practitioners' living conditions and job situations in the same way that they show concern and care toward their family members and close friends. Even though they know that the emotional attachments they have toward fellow practitioners are everyday people's sentimentalities, these emotions still surface from time to time, and it is sometimes hard to know what the best way to deal with them is.
I have always been warm-hearted. Caring about my fellow practitioners has unconsciously become a personal habit of mine. I treat ordinary people very politely and don't intrude on their lives because I am very different from them both in terms of how I think and how I approach life. But I failed to recognize that I have become overly enthusiastic in my efforts to show my care toward my fellow practitioners and it had become an attachment.
I didn't recognize my attachment until I had a conversation with a local practitioner M about practitioner S who had obtained the Fa a year earlier. I analyzed all the attachments and notions that practitioner S displayed. Practitioner M probably didn't think too much of what I said at the time. He just nodded and participated in the conversation. But when the conversation was over, another practitioner J said to me, "Listening to you is just painful, because you criticize others all the time." At that moment, I was so stunned that I felt as if I had been hit by a club. I was so angry that I couldn't say anything. I could not imagine why my caring about fellow practitioners could be conceived as criticizing others and gossiping.
Master said:
For example, there are conflicts among one another, such as "you're good, but he isn't good," or "your cultivation is good, but his isn't." These are conflicts themselves. (From "Cultivation of Speech" in Lecture Eight of Zhuan Falun)
Even though my original intention was to encourage practitioners to care about their fellow practitioners' states of cultivation and offer timely reminders to those practitioners who had fallen behind, I unintentionally used my mouth to criticize others and pick apart their cultivation states. This is an issue of cultivation of speech, and I was creating conflicts! Master told us:
Your altered path of life is not allowed to be seen by others. If it is seen by others or if you are told when you will have a tribulation, how can you practice cultivation? Therefore, it is not permitted to be seen at all. Nobody from other schools of practice is allowed to see it, either. Even fellow disciples from the same school of practice are not allowed to see it. No one will be able to tell it correctly, because a life like that has been changed and is one for cultivation practice. (From "Your Mind Must Be Right" in Lecture Six of Zhuan Falun)
Therefore, when I see that fellow practitioners have certain problems, I don't understand the various elements and the different kinds of predestined relationships behind those problems. In that case, it isn't surprising that fellow practitioners find it difficult to tolerate my words.
As a matter of fact, I think that when we show that we care about fellow practitioners, we often carry too much human sentimentalities and put too much emphasis on our own ideas. When dealing with other practitioners, if we do not become attached to what our perceptions of how they are doing and if we truly believe that Master has arranged the best cultivation path for every one of us, we won't cause conflicts when we show concern over fellow practitioners. Instead, it will be the true manifestation of compassion and righteousness.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2003/10/28/24244.html
