(Clearwisdom.net) Early this year, I shared experiences with a fellow practitioner that had warned me many times that I should pay attention to my personal cultivation and improve myself. He told me that I shouldn't only place emphasis on doing Fa validation tasks, or else my improvement in cultivation could be affected. While I admitted to my shortcomings, at the same time I tried to find excuses for myself. I felt I was right and claimed that I was being responsible to fellow practitioners. I felt that he didn't take the initiative to exchange experiences with fellow practitioners to help them improve and thus he did not fulfill his responsibility. In the past, he was a practice site coordinator in this district and frequently did a lot of coordination work and led practitioners in their tasks. Fellow practitioners also relied on him a great deal. His nonchalant attitude caused me to raise my voice during our experience sharing session, but he didn't try to defend himself when I criticized him.
Thereafter, because of interference from my human attachments, while studying the Fa, I frequently came across paragraphs that pinpointed the "shortcomings" of this practitioner. I felt that I had a good understanding of the Fa, so when exchanging cultivation experiences with other practitioners, I would often use his attachments as an example to prove my point. Inevitably, my sense of self expanded. One day, when I realized that his attitude of no resentment and not finding excuses for himself was in such stark contrast to my attitude, I clearly saw the shortcomings in my own cultivation status. He was only reminding me with kind intentions about my shortcomings, so why did I react so drastically? He had once told another practitioner not to look to him as a coordinator. I think he said that so that other practitioners would place less reliance on him and learn to make decisions for themselves, maturing in the process. Some practitioners frequently went to his house to exchange views with him. Perhaps their cultivation level was much different and their understanding of the Fa was different. He felt that this was a kind of interference for him. Thus, he was unwilling to go to other practitioners' houses to exchange cultivation experiences like he had often done in the past. He felt that he might interfere with others. I didn't agree with him on this. I felt that, as long as one could deal with the situation appropriately, one would not interfere with others' cultivation paths that had been arranged by Master. Theoretically, it should be this way, but during the actual exchanging of views, if one insists on his own view and doesn't allow others to speak their minds and doesn't recognize the interference from the old evil forces, still feeling that he is very diligent in cultivation, this attitude of showing off really does have the effect of interfering with others.
I had the understanding that, during Fa rectification cultivation, every practitioner's situation is different and the things that one can't accept may not necessarily be a deviation from the Fa. If we use our own limited understandings to assess others in a rigid way, we will feel that the other party is "definitely wrong." If we force our own understanding on others, then this is indeed doing a bad deed. The importance is the intention. Was the intention good or evil? Was the attitude calm or impulsive? Only when we look inward can we resolve doubts and improve ourselves.
September 18, 2008
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