PureInsight | June 3, 2007
[PureInsight.org] I have
cultivated for a while and just realized that I walked on the path of
cultivation because I wanted to be a good person among everyday people.
When people refused to take my flyers or truth clarifying materials, I
still felt happy when, instead, I should have been saddened that he did
not want to be saved. Is there any wonder that I wanted only to
validate myself? I am doing a good deed and I am a good person! This
kind of mentality has its root cause: Before I practiced Falun Dafa, I
was in misery for a long time. Deep down in my heart, I knew my misery
came from being selfish and filled with self doubt. I did not know my
true worth and I thought that I was a worthless or bad person. The fact
that I thought I was a bad person forced me to want to change
drastically, but it did not materialize because of many other factors.
Right after I started practicing, I remember that I often looked at
Master's picture and told Master, "I want to be a good human being."
What is a good human being then? I thought that doing good deeds should
make me a good human being and totally forgot what is stated in Zhuan Falun: Zhen-Shan-Ren is the sole criterion to discern good and bad people."
For a long time, I was doing good deeds in a pleasant state of mind. In
the beginning, I participated in many large scale activities and
tolerated all kinds of hardships without complaint. I thought that I
cultivated quite well with good xinxing. I realized later that it was a horse of different color.
It just occurred on me that doing good deeds with the mindset of
ordinary people is only being a good person among the ordinary people,
but does not qualify one as a cultivator. I often fight about the
principles of ordinary people with ordinary people and practitioners. I
recall a time when I was selling tickets in New York. Several of us
stayed in one room. I slept next to the door and was afraid of the cold
air coming into the room. Another practitioner slept next to the
heating pipe and was afraid of not enough cool air coming into the
room. He wanted the door wide open and I wanted it barely open.
We compromised but, sometimes subconsciously, we complained about the
door and resented the other party. One day, I suddenly thought, "What
am I doing here? Why can't I let him have his way? I can dress a
little more, move my sleeping bag away from the door, and at most wear
a hat to sleep." Once I let go of my human notions, I had no more
problems.
From that incident, I recognized that many conflicts result from
fighting over the principles of ordinary people. Every time, if I have
the thought of who is right and who is wrong in dealing with a
conflict, I am already fighting over the principles of ordinary people.
Only ordinary people fight over the principles of ordinary people, but
I am supposed to be a cultivator. For cultivators, conflicts are not
co-incidental; they are for us to improve ourselves. In teaching the Fa
at the Fa Conference at the U.S. Capital, Master said, "If we look for
a moment at just the situations where these conflicts and things arise,
they are still different from those that occur in ordinary human
society. The conflicts and tensions that Dafa disciples encounter are
solely for the sake of cultivation and the sake of validating the Fa."
Cultivation is to cultivate away our selfishness and our egos. The process of arguing is to emphasize and validate ourselves.
I often remind myself that I want to be a cultivator and not just a
good person among the everyday people. I cannot let Master down!
"Someone said to me: 'Teacher, it's enough to be a good person among
everyday people. Who can succeed in cultivation?' After hearing that, I
felt really disappointed! I did not say a word to him. There are all
kinds of xinxing. However much one can be enlightened to is however much one understands: whoever understands will attain."
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2007/6/1/44176.html
