A Reminder to Practitioners Who Cannot Endure

I haven’t done well in terms of "Forbearance," because I didn’t make strict demands on myself. After I failed to "endure", I always regretted it and got cross afterwards. However, I could not find the real cause of it. As the Fa-rectification has proceeded to today’s stage, I looked inside and found that although I studied the Fa every day, I didn’t study it with a peaceful mind. I only regarded Fa-studying as a formality, and didn’t take it as guidance for true cultivation. As a result, when sharing experience with other practitioners or finding others’ opinions were different from mine, I always insisted on my own position and even argued with them fiercely. Other practitioners were concerned about my situation when they saw me going wrong. They were afraid that I might fail in my cultivation. They thus advised me based on the Fa, but I turned a deaf ear to it and insisted on my own opinions. In retrospect, actually I didn’t really cultivate myself, but I regarded myself as doing very well in my cultivation.

On behalf of other practitioners, I once wrote some articles about our understanding of Fa-rectification, and contributed to Minghui.net. Then the mentality of showing off and the attachment of zealotry emerged unknowingly. As soon as the attachment to zealotry emerged, it was taken advantage of. I thus forgot being a Dafa practitioner, and didn’t pay attention to cultivation of speech. When another practitioners pointed out my gaps, I was reluctant to accept them. Gradually I became estranged from this practitioner, and always found fault with her. I often vented my anger on her and thought that she was inferior to me in terms of cultivation. Seeing her coordinating some Dafa work, the attachment to zealotry thus came up in my mind. I was even not happy about the practitioners who had associated with her. Without caring for the whole body, I was self-centered and didn’t get along well with fellow practitioners. Since my omission was exploited by the old forces, the conflicts thus became extreme.

In Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference, Master Li said: “At present there are some frictions among students, and you all need to watch out—you can’t let minor things affect the important things that Dafa disciples are supposed to do. I’m going to tell you that no matter what kind of conflicts arise, or what kind of situations emerge, it’s bound to be that we have gaps in ourselves. That’s for sure. If there weren’t a gap nobody could exploit it. When there’s a xinxing friction among our students or disharmony when you’re cooperating with each other, and it doesn’t matter if it’s something big or small, I’m telling you, it’s definitely demons exploiting the gaps. ……So when there’s friction that tries your xinxing from time to time, that’s caused by your understanding or your own attachments related to your xinxing. Although those incidents are minor, they can easily be taken advantage of by messy, bad beings in the different dimensions. Pay attention to these things! You’ve gone through the evil test so you should understand everything.” “So, cooperate well when you do things. Each Dafa disciple’s thing is everybody else’s. Don’t create distance and disharmony between each other over some little, trivial thing. You can’t do that, and you should treasure all this. And also, you need to cooperate in Dafa things, and you should do a good job of cooperating.”

Through studying Master’s lecture, I realized that so long as there is a conflict, no matter if it’s something big or small, regardless of who should be blamed for it superficially, there must be some gaps inside us. It is because our unrighteous thoughts were exploited by the evil that we couldn’t cooperate well with other practitioners. If we only pay attention to other practitioners’ shortcomings, and feeling indignant when seeing them doing something not according to the Fa, it also shows that we don’t have a kind heart of forbearance.

In Teaching the Fa at the Fa-Conference in Australia, a practitioner asked a question of Master Li:

Question: “It is very sad to find other practitioners’ selfishness, isn’t it?”

Teacher: it is another kind of attachment. As a practitioner, our mind is supposed not to be affected by anyone. When you see others’ selfishness, it is possibly for you to tell them the attachment, so that they are able to know it and eliminate it. If your mind is affected by their selfishness, and you feel uneasy, you still need to cultivate your heart, don’t you?” [Unofficial translation]

What I enlightened to was: When in disagreement with other practitioners, whatever good reasons there might be and no matter how much we are concerned about the Fa, as long as our heart is not peaceful, there must be some problems within ourselves. We are not supposed to demand from others with a high standard; instead, we should discipline ourselves seriously. Furthermore, we should tolerate others and appreciate others’ strengths more. By doing so, the cooperation among practitioners would naturally be better.

In Teaching the Fa at the Fa Conference in Australia, Master Li said: “I often mentioned that as a cultivator of a righteous practice, you first of all should not hit back and talk back. Then why didn’t you let go of attachments when you came across conflicts in your cultivation? Why did you feel unhappy when others told you something which was unpleasant to your ear? When you were unhappy, isn’t it that you rejected the opportunities to cultivate and make progress? Didn’t you long for happiness as ordinary people do? If so, aren’t you an ordinary person? At this moment, you should ask yourselves: Why are you not happy? Were you longing for something when hearing others’ criticism of you? Longing to be treated nicely by ordinary people so that you are able to lead a comfortable life? If that is the case, how can you make progress? How can you elevate your xinxing without giving up ordinary people’s attachments? That’s why you are unable to progress. You’ve got to let go of these attachments, which are hard for humans to give up. [Unofficial Translation]

I was shocked by every word Master Li said in this paragraph. Why haven’t I eliminated my demonic-nature after cultivating for six years? Why couldn’t I maintain my xinxing level rigorously? Why couldn’t I accept others’ opinions? When reading thtough Master’s lectures, I was ashamed of myself. For one thing, I found my own attachment of showing off; I thought I had done better than others, had gained more experiences than others and knew more than others, so that I couldn’t accept others’ opinions. Why does the sea hold such a massive volume of water? It is because the sea level is lower than that of rivers, so that it can accumulate the water from thousands of rivers. I also enlightened that, in the process of our cultivation, if we have the mentality that we have done well, and think that we are superior to others, it means that we have come to a standstill and are in a dangerous situation.

I seriously probed into the root of my unbearable thoughts. I finally found the excuse I often used in my daily life, i.e., “I have had a bad temper for the past several decades.” Didn’t I regard this demon-nature as myself? A practitioner told me several times: "You should not regard losing temper as something done by yourself. It is not you who did it. It is the evil and the old forces that forcibly made you lose your temper. They just wanted to prevent you from cultivation and drag you downward. So you must identify yourself, dispel them and negate them.

Another practitioner especially sent me the 62nd issue of the "Minghui Weekly." I thus once again read an article titled "Another dimension seen by a little Dafa practitioner Shuai Shuai." The last sentence of this article is: “Shuai Shuai also said: Those two times when you were mad with me, I saw an evil was behind your back the first time. It was shrouded in a skin like yours, but I still could recognize it as an evil spirit. When it opened and closed its mouth, you then shouted at me. The second time, the evil spirit was as big as your fist. But when you lost your temper, it suddenly became very big.” After reading this paragraph, it dawned on me that when losing temper, I was simply being exploited by the evil as an instrument, and I didn’t have any peacefulness, kindness, compassion or whatsoever.

When examining myself, I saw that I didn’t do well in terms of “Forbearance,” and often lost temper with ordinary people or fellow practitioners. I might have made a lot of karma, and pleased the evil many times. In retrospect, a kind of fearful feeling thus emerged. Whenever I lost my temper, what was behind my back would definitely be the evil, wouldn’t it? What a terrible situation it is. It is extremely shameful for a senior practitioner to be exploited by the evil as an instrument. I found my true self after I further probed into myself. The evil that has taken advantage of me was actually nothing, and it was eliminated at once. I finally passed this test and progressed to another higher level. I was then transformed completely, and became a true Dafa practitioner. With the assistance of other practitioners, I found my true self in the Fa. What I enlightened to was: Only after we calm down ourselves, study the Fa more, identify ourselves and find our true selves through conflicts, can we really made progress in our cultivation.

In Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference, Master Li said: “Your path is, and I think you’ve all seen this now, actually very narrow. If you deviate just a little bit you won’t measure up to the standard of a Dafa disciple. There’s only one very righteous path we can walk on, and we can’t deviate even just a little bit, because this is required by history, and required by the lives of sentient beings in the future cosmos. The cosmos in the future can’t have any deviation or errors due to your having omissions during the Fa-rectification, so it’s important for you to walk each and every step well during your own validating the Fa. It only looks as if it’s ordinary. Don’t leave any stain or regret on the path that you walk when you validate the Fa and during this period when you establish your mighty virtue. Those can never be erased. …. so you should do even better, and what happened in the past shouldn’t happen again.”

In the course of my cultivation, I have had some regrets. However, I will forever remember the lesson and pay more attention to the cultivation of “Forbearance” so as to maintain my xinxing at a high level, discipline myself rigorously and cultivate myself in a righteous way. I would also like here to sincerely remind the practitioners who “cannot tolerate” to learn a lesson from my experiences. Be sure to cultivate yourself well, eliminate your demon-nature, identify your true selves and regain your innate compassion. While doing well the three things reminded by Master Li, we should truly understand the Fa. Try your best to imbue your brain with more righteous thoughts and expel the unrighteous thoughts as much as possible. Remain steadfast in Master Li and Dafa all the time. Deal with things with righteous thoughts, and walk the critical last step well and righteously.

“What awaits Dafa disciples in the future are supreme and eternal glory and mighty virtue!” Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference

Translated from Chinese at: http://www.yuanming.net/articles/200308/23798.html