(Clearwisdom.net) Throughout my life I've always felt that I was an accommodating person with no desire to compete with others. But I've recently encountered quite a few incidents of people arguing with each other over trivial matters. In situations like these, if our heart is affected, we should think about why this happened and look inside our own mind for reasons.
As a practitioner, how could I have a competitive mentality? When people take things that I consider to be "mine," I'm always willing to share. Once, while I was debating with a non-practitioner friend over something that happened, I thought, this was absolutely not my fault; I had cut her a lot of slack, but how come she still could not see her own problem? And why does she keep blaming me? Are we still good friends? I became very upset by these thoughts.
But wait a minute! Master told us that when a practitioner argues with a non-practitioner, it's the practitioner that is wrong. But in this instance, I felt that I had done nothing wrong. In reality, however, I was wrong. When this friend came to my city to go sightseeing, I invited her to stay with me and did everything I could to make her visit comfortable. But she did nothing in return. I felt this was unfair. After she had stayed at my place for a week, I thought, "Do you know how much money you've saved by staying with me? And you did not show any appreciation, and took things for granted!" My selfish emotion was boiling, and I even complained to others. As a practitioner, I was not acting correctly. No matter what others do to me, and if I feel that I've been unfairly treated compared to others, in this instance I've dropped to the level of ordinary people. As a practitioner who is cultivating into a god, how can I feel unfairness over such a small loss of material benefits?
This competitive mentality comes from my own selfish mindset. When reflected in everyday life, it becomes a strong competitive mentality. When I thought that I suffered a loss of personal benefits, I felt bad and tried to regain a mental balance by arguing with others.
This selfish heart must be abandoned before we enter the heavenly kingdom. We must find and relinquish this mentality in ourselves and become more compassionate to people.
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Category: Improving Oneself
