My Understanding of the Power of Compassion

In "Fa Teaching at the 2009 Washington DC International Fa Conference" Master said, "compassion is an enormous energy, the energy of righteous gods." He also speaks in detail on "true shan (compassion)." Master's words touched me in a profound way.

Reading Master's words, I started to recall things that happened a year before, when I was forced to leave home as a result of the persecution. The local police kept harassing my family. They even tried to lure me back with certain "benign" conditions. When I got word of their deeds, I started to seethe with hatred. One day, I could not contain my anger, so much so that not only could I not memorize the Fa, but my feelings of hatred magnified and completely engulfed me. Bad thoughts kept churning up and swirling around in my mind, making my head heavy. I spent the whole day in vain trying to suppress it. I knew that my Xinxing (heart and mind nature/ character) had fallen and my state of mind was not right, but I could not do anything about it.

That night I had a lucid dream that felt so real. In my dream, the local policeman came to my house again. I said to him, "Stop persecuting Dafa disciples! Don't you know that they are the kings and lords of the future cosmos? If you continue to persecute Dafa disciples, you will create enormous karma, as huge as heaven." He then went to the kitchen to get a knife to threaten me. Surprised at seeing him do that with such animosity in his eyes because I had only told him that for his own good, I did not have the slightest fear in me. I closed my eyes and said to Master in my heart, "Master, if it takes my life to dissolve the hatred in him, I am willing to go." With that one thought, I felt my entire body embraced by a strong energy - an immense compassion that was supremely beautiful! Such warmth, brightness, and familiarity, as a lost child would feel when he found his home again - a force that penetrated me to the deepest core and shook heaven and earth! The knowledge that Master has empowered me with! At that moment, I felt boundless compassion rising in me. I was shot through with a sense of pity for the sentient beings ruining themselves with ignorance. I caught myself crying. Some time passed, with my heart in absolute quiescence, everything around me motionless, as if all had come to a stop, without the stirring of life or death. When I opened my eyes again, I found the police officer convulsing in tears - the knife he had thrust toward me stopped short and fell to the ground. He darted out of my house while I stayed immersed in the enormous power of compassion. I woke up to find that everything was nothing but a dream! Lying there in the dark, I continued to feel myself enveloped in great energy, which continued through the following day.

"Compassion can harmonize Heaven and Earth, ushering in spring". ("The Fa Rectifies the Cosmos" in Hong Yin Volume II) Even though it was a dream, Master made me literally sense that the power of compassion can harmonize everything. In the past, when I used hatred to confront them, that amounted to countering evil with evil. At that moment, I came to understand why Master bestowed upon me a chance to experience compassion and why we need to save sentient beings. Reading "Fa Teaching at the 2009 Washington DC International Fa Conference" further clarifies for me the means we can use to save sentient beings, that is, through compassion, grand compassion. Master said,
"If man wants to become divine and transcend the human state, then he must forsake that frame of mind and use compassion to resolve things." ("Fa Teaching at the 2009 Washington DC International Fa Conference")

When a cultivator is able to let go of life and death, what he harbors within himself is eternal compassion.

Such understanding filled me with feelings of generosity and peacefulness, not tainted with fear but impregnated with goodwill for sentient beings, and a sense of the grand mission bestowed upon us. If we can have pure compassion towards sentient beings, the evil, however deceptively powerful, will disappear without a trace. Compassion calls on people's benevolent side. In the face of boundless compassion, the persecution will cease to exist.

One thought surged in me: I hope to spread compassion throughout the world and have sentient beings harvest the fruit of shan from their seeds of shan.