(Clearwisdom.net) There is a story in "Monk Jigong's travel notes" that goes like this. A wife was framed by a bad person. Not only was her husband killed, she also almost lost the land she and her son lived from. Fortunately, she received help from Jigong and was able to expose the fake document which claimed that the land was leased. In the end, she was able to keep her land. Later on, the bad guy who caused this incident died, receiving karmic retribution for his evildoing. The officer used a broken bamboo sheet to wrap his body, so that both his head and feet remained uncovered when he sent the body to be buried. By accident, the orphan and widowed mother who had been harmed by this evil person saw the dead body. Seeing the enemy who had killed her husband in such a pitiful condition, the lady did not feel happy about having hatred in her heart. On the contrary, she felt sorry for him. She took some money (two oz. of silver) and asked the service person to buy a coffin. ......In ancient times, ordinary people's compassion and tolerance was truly touching.
Similarly, we are touched by the story of Han Xin, mentioned in the book Zhuan Falun. Han Xin was young and strong at the time when the famous episode occurred. He was good at Martial arts and carried a weapon but he didn't do anything wrong. On the other hand, the person who challenged him was known to be an unreasonable person without knowledge or skills. If someone else other than Han Xin had been faced with the same situation, they would probably have beaten him or even cut off the challenger's head in anger, unable to keep their heart unmoved by the encounter. The people surrounding him would probably have applauded him as well. But Han Xin, instead of fighting the challenger, indeed crawled through his legs, as demanded. Later on, the legend tells us that Han Xin became a senior officer. The bad guy was afraid that Han Xin would then be looking for him for revenge. However, Han Xin had forgiven him, and even offered him a position as a low ranking officer. Such a kind, tolerant and forgiving heart can't be found among ordinary people.
I remember an old Chinese saying: "You are superior if you have tolerance." As Falun Dafa disciples after so many years of cultivation, we should be able to do much better than most people at this. Yet many of us do not do well and sometimes behave even worse than non-practitioners.
When I look back at my own cultivation path, it was like this. I only wanted to see people I liked and wanted to hear only what I liked to hear. But how can my eyes and ears be the standards for measuring good, bad, kind and evil? Following that logic, if one can't get rid of the attachment to winning fights, it could be thought as being tolerant enough if one doesn't bully others, not to mention being happy while being harmed by others.
After the persecution began, it was hard for me to control the hatred I felt against the evil persecutors, and the negative feelings towards people who listened to the lies. I was angry every day and wished that the bad guys would receive retribution for their evildoing, thus hoping this would change the situation immediately. I considered changing the situation would be "Fa-rectification."
When ones heart is filled with bad feelings, can one's appearance be kind and peaceful? Can your tone be frank and gentle? In fact, the evil was already trying its best to put a negative label on Dafa practitioners, and people already had a predetermined notion of Dafa disciples. When we clarify the truth in such a bad state, how can we reflect "Falun Dafa is good" and how can we show that we are good people? In addition, we are not fighting about who is right and who is wrong when we clarify the truth. We don't aim at "gaining people's support" so that we can surpass the evil through more people and their strong support. The true purpose of clarifying the truth is to let people understand Dafa positively and to ultimately save their lives.
Therefore, we must cultivate forbearance and forgiveness. But, we don't always have enough tolerance. We can only bear good but not bad, kind but not evil and so on. We often use our own feelings in order to measure what can be tolerated and thus forget to use Dafa as the standard. Actually, what the universal principle can tolerate, we must be able to accept. When Master can tolerate things, we must be able to do so as well. In fact, we should give every living being that came to live in this world a chance. We must be kind and try to save them. We need to put them into our energy field, be kindhearted and try to direct each of them towards a beautiful life within the Fa. We are also lives within the Fa. Originally, we were lost in this world, as they are, and we also may have had serious karma. Fortunately, we obtained Dafa.
For those who are still lost and can't understand Dafa, we have to look back and try our best to save them. We should not be too happy if he/she accepts the truth clarification material and we should not be annoyed if person doesn't listen to the truth. We should not hate the ones who are still doing evil things. We send out righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil trying to destroy Dafa. This is also based on a benevolent heart towards sentient beings.
True cultivation has to eliminate all sorts of attachments including many sentimental feelings and various desires. When you still feel hatred, are you a true cultivator? On the other hand, the practitioner's thoughts whether they are good or bad contain energy. Bad thoughts send out bad energy which may cause a life that could have been saved not being saved now. Then we have committed a bad deed. So our hearts have to be forgiving and tolerant to save human beings.
In fact, what Dafa disciples in Mainland China and overseas have done in the past several years is all for the purpose of saving sentient beings. Master said in "Teaching the Fa at the 2004 Western U.S. Fa Conference":
"Only when we're able to be forgiving can we save people. If every Dafa disciple could think that way, then think about it, with that power of compassion, would there still be any room for bad factors to exist?"
Let's remember Master's Fa firmly and cultivate well so that we can save sentient beings with sufficient tolerance and forgiveness. It is also the process for Dafa disciples to elevate ourselves and reach consummation.
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