PureInsight | December 26, 2005
[PureInsight.org] In our daily lives, oftentimes we only see the surface of matters, but fail to understand the real meanings behind it. It takes a lifetime to understand and appreciate some principles. Here I'd like to share some stories about how the principle of "no loss, no gain" has applied in my own daily life as well as in the daily life of another practitioner.
Admission Ticket Price vs. Bus Fare
Five years ago, my parents came to visit me from China. I took them to visit the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The museum offered discounts to people 65 and older. I was under the impression that my mother was only 64, so I bought her a regular ticket instead of the discount ticket for the senior citizen. When she realized what I had done, she said I was mistaken about her age and therefore she should have been entitled the discount. I had spent a few dollars more on her ticket than I should have spent. My parents are very frugal people. My mother wasn't happy with me, but I didn't take it seriously.
After we visited the museum, we took the bus home. A bus soon arrived, and we got on. When I was about to buy our tickets, I was told that the ticket machine was broken so we did not have to buy any tickets. The money that I had saved from the bus fares was exactly the amount that I had overpaid the museum.
Loose Change
This is a story of a fellow practitioner. It also took place in Manhattan, New York.
One day she went to attend a Fa conference. After she parked the car, she walked over to the entrance. When she arrived at the entrance, she saw a homeless person begging in the cold. She wanted to buy him a cup of coffee, but she didn't have any change with her. She suddenly recalled that she had some change left from paying the toll for the tunnel in her car, so she went back to her car to get the change. To her surprise, she found that she had left her car key in the car and the engine was still running.
She bought breakfast for the homeless person and gave him the remaining change. When he thanked her, she thanked him back sincerely. If it hadn't been for her compassion for the homeless person, her car could easily have been stolen.
"Class Status" vs. Withdrawing from the Chinese Communist Party
After The Epoch Times published "The Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party," people have gradually realized they should break away from the evil specter. Wave after wave of people have withdrawn from the Party, the Communist Youth League and the Young Pioneers. When I called my mother in China, I was hoping she could talk with my cousins and persuade them to quit all organizations affiliated with the evil party. To my surprise, my mom told me that none of them had been allowed to join the evil party or any of its affiliated organizations in the first place because they were not from the right "social class." (When the Communist Party first took power in 1949, it divided people into different "social classes" based on how wealthy or how poor their family had been. The poorer and the less educated the family, the higher one's "social class" was. Those who were classified as "landlords, rich farmers, counter-revolutionaries, rightists and criminals," also known as the Five Black Categories, and their children, had suffered untold forms of discrimination and were not allowed to join the party). Therefore, they have never been marked by the evil. It turned out that their "loss" has traded them a wonderful future.
An eternal principle exists in this universe: no loss, no gain. Everyday people often fail to understand this principle. Therefore they don't want to be taken advantage of. Instead, they want to take advantage of others. They feel terrible the moment that they are taken advantage of. The loss of a little bit of wealth hurts them as if their heart had been dug out. As a cultivator, one understands the principle of "no loss, no gain" well and knows that after giving up all the bad thoughts and all the attachments, one will eventually attain the Tao and become an enlightened being.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2005/12/15/34953.html
