Complaining Harms Others and Oneself

In everyday life, people tend to first complain or blame others instead of looking for their own mistakes when facing conflicts or issues. Many practitioners still have this mentality and become initially frustrated when facing challenges. Then they look for others' mistakes. Even worse, sometimes they even insult others.

Complaining is not only a human notion, an attachment, but also a strong and very common behaviour of looking outward instead of inward, and it is sometimes difficult to detect.

Let's look at the results of complaining:

Harming Others

1. Complaining about everyday people will have a negative impact on Fa-validation and the Fa's image. It will also hurt the other party.

While one woman practitioner was detained in a brainwashing centre, her husband destroyed all her Dafa books and Dafa materials. She did not handle the situation wisely upon her return and began to resent her husband, often arguing with him and rarely doing housework. Her husband complained about her. Other practitioners encouraged her to change her attitude, but to no avail.

Prior to the Olympics, she was arrested along with several other practitioners from the same workplace. The other four other practitioners were released through others' rescue efforts. She was the only one that was sent to a forced labour camp for a year and a half.
We negate the old forces' arrangements. We should always comply with the Fa. Because we only have two routes--one arranged by Master and the other arranged by the old forces. Deviating from our path would be following the old forces' arrangements. We do not need to be afraid of any attachments because we have Master and the Fa. We can measure them against the Fa, recognize and eliminate them. That way the old forces do not dare to take advantage of us. But if we don't purge those everyday notions for a long time, it means we are already on the road the old forces have laid out for us, which is dangerous.

Complaining makes it hard to maintain a righteous mind. Emotions often lead to things that do not comply with the Fa.

My mother-in-law often interferes with my cultivation and even urged my husband to divorce me, making it difficult for me to like her. Although by all appearances I treated her well, my sister-in-law and I often complained. I knew it was wrong, but I could not help it. Sometimes my mother-in-law even said disrespectful things about Dafa. Once I got rid of my complaining mentality, things got better. The other day I watched the Shen Yun Performing Arts show VCD with my mother-in-law after lunch. She gave up her nap to watch the show and said she liked it.

2. What happens when we complain about fellow practitioners? Superficially viewed, practitioners do have some issues. But we complain because we lack compassion, increasing the bad elements. It often happens that the more you complain, the worse the problem becomes. It causes conflicts and separation, which is exactly the trap the old forces have set.

For example, an elderly practitioner's life was extended because of cultivation. She is retired and still receives a salary, yet she took on another job to make extra money. The job requires her to work extra time without holidays. She suffered from sickness karma several times. I advised her not to work anymore. She was upset with me and said I interfered with her practice. I asked other practitioners to try to persuade her, too. She always came up with different excuses. We eventually found out she was trying to avoid harassment from a residential committee but tried to cover it up and refused to admit that she was afraid. Many practitioners looked down on her. She continued doing things her own way. Even worse, she distanced herself from other practitioners, developing a huge gap. You can imagine her cultivation state. Looking back, I think her becoming distant from us as a whole body happened primarily because of everyone complaining about her.

Harming Oneself

Complaining is looking outward, a strong attachment, and that makes it is easy to become upset. Even if one's temper does not show, one's mind cannot stay calm, preventing people from staying rational and clear-minded and does not solve anything. When a practitioner does this, all wisdom goes out the window, empowering bad substances to take over.

While doing a Dafa project, the practitioner with whom I often worked forgot things. Initially I patiently pointed it out to him but soon became impatient. It was actually an opportunity for me to eliminate my impatience and anxiety, but I failed to be aware of it and complained. Once while working on a project, he forgot something again. I was not too annoyed at that moment, but because my mentality was still there, my mind was blank, and I almost forgot to notify fellow practitioners to help send righteous thoughts. If this were prolonged, it would negatively impact the progress of the project. The consequences would be severe.

We complain because we are too narrow-minded, have an impure mind, and fail to view an issue from others' perspectives. Being tolerant and purging our ego is a matter of reaching the required realm. Getting to that place is what we need to cultivate.

Master said,
"So what's their state of mind? It's tolerance, an extremely immense tolerance, being able to accept other beings, and being able to truly think from other beings' perspectives." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A.")
Master said,
"When a being is considerate of others in doing things and displays tolerance in the process, it's because his starting point is selfless." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2004 International Fa Conference in New York")

Master said,
"I want you to cultivate to reach the kind of Consummation that is of a righteous Fa, with righteous enlightenment, and is one in which others come before yourself. That is removing selfishness, being able to remove "self." The part of you that has completed cultivation is guaranteed to resemble what I just described, it's fully like that. So looking at things from where you are, if when you encounter problems you are able to look for the causes on your part, think more about the welfare of others, cultivate yourselves, look inside, look less at others' shortcomings, and manage to do as I teach with everything you do, then in fact you are already progressing diligently." ("Teaching the Fa at the Fa Conference in Australia")

As I see it, the root of complaining is egocentricity. We need to cultivate: "To attain the righteous Enlightenment of selflessness and altruism;" let us completely eliminate the root of any attachment!