Positive Encouragement

During the course of our cultivation, no matter whether we are doing well with our cultivation or not, we all need positive encouragement from our fellow practitioners. If we look back at our own path of cultivation in the Fa-rectification, we will realise that we wouldn’t have made it this far without Teacher’s compassionate and positive encouragement, nurturing, and watchful protection along the way.

When we are doing well with our cultivation, we need fellow practitioners’ positive encouragement and their timely reminders not to harbour attachments or display zealotry. We also need fellow practitioners’ help in enhancing our understanding of the Fa [law and principles in the Buddha school] and on the latest developments of the Fa-rectification, so that we will not stay at the same cultivation level and fail to make progress. Fellow practitioners’ positive encouragement will also help us keep diligent in our cultivation practice, keep our divine side dominant, and walk the final path well.

There may be times when we encounter a severe tribulation but lack enough righteous faith in Dafa at that time to overcome the tribulation. Or there may be times when interference causes us to be stagnant in our cultivation for a long time or cause us to suffer tribulations for a long time. At times such as this, we would especially need fellow practitioners’ positive encouragement.

My limited understanding on how to give a positive encouragement is to “take the Fa as the Teacher.” When a fellow practitioner encounters an obstacle, I would look to the Fa first to review what Teacher has taught us in regards to this type of situation. Next, I would encourage my fellow practitioner in a way that he would feel positively encouraged in his current situation and cultivation state. I believe that positive encouragement will help each practitioner boost his confidence in cultivation and reinforce his righteous faith in Teacher and Dafa, and thus become more diligent in his cultivation. I believe that positive encouragement will help each practitioner who is suffering from tribulation overcome the tribulations and reinstate his diligence in cultivation. I also believe that positive encouragement will help those who have tripped and fallen in their cultivation to get up, make up for the losses, and catch up with the Fa-rectification so as not to let Teacher or the sentient beings down.

When we try to positively encourage fellow practitioners, I feel that we should base our actions on the principles of Dafa, while being responsible to all. With that in mind, we should encourage fellow practitioners in a way that they are able to hear and understand at that time. We should speak in a neutral and affectionate voice and tone, in benevolence, and share our understanding of the Fa clearly, rationally, and wisely with an attempt to truly create a positive effect on the practitioner. We will never attain any positive result if we reproach fellow practitioners for their past wrongs. We must not feel that we are entitled to criticise or belittle fellow practitioners with resentment, anxiety, anger, hatred or any hard feeling, simply because we have not erred the same way they have, and call it “positive encouragement.” Such “positive encouragement” will only send them to the depths of despair and in fact create interference and damage to fellow practitioners’ cultivation in a way that may even exceed the interferences and damages by demons from other dimensions. However, this does not mean that we should just offer our emotional support or say sentimental things to “cheer up” fellow practitioners. Positively encouraging fellow practitioners is not the same as becoming buddies and pals or maintaining harmony on the surface. After all, Teacher said, “We don't talk about the ‘unity’ everyday people do, which is a forced, superficial thing.” (From “Teaching the Fa at the Washington, D.C. Fa Conference”)