Looking Inside And Progressing Together

I think that progressing as one body is largely a manifestation of how much we have taken care of our fellow practitioners as individuals, and how willing we are to accept a broader responsibility and genuinely look inside ourselves. Teacher stressed in the Boston and Washington lectures the importance of treating our fellow practitioners with compassion. I think that if we all really were responsible to the practitioners in our local environment as individuals then we certainly would go a long way to merging into one body. I think that progressing as a whole does not just mean being able to understand how we fit into the larger picture, does not just mean co-operating together, does not just mean sharing our understandings as a whole. It also means that we need to truly care for the individual practitioners in the environment around us with the sincerest of compassion.

I think that probably most of us know of practitioners who have slacked off in their cultivation, or even stopped participating in Dafa activities, have become too busy with their work and life, because they have stumbled a little in their cultivation, and whose attachments have led them to follow an incorrect way in cultivation. We need to take care of them, and try our very best to unconditionally help them back to their path.

When we arrange Dafa activities, we should really give careful consideration to the practitioners around us, and think about how to involve each one, how to use their skills, how to encourage them to join in and how to help them overcome any initial reluctance or ideas which may stop them. Perhaps sometimes we become a little obsessed with trying to keep pace with the speed of 'events' and selfishly do not take care of encouraging those practitioners whom we regard as being less diligent, and do not make the time to spend with them. When we are walking well our own path, we often do not make the time to contact other practitioners just to see how they are doing and to share experiences and just to make sure they are walking their paths well. I think this is a real shame.

When other fellow practitioners are having difficulties, or when they are not able to do things well if we are really to talk about acting as one body, we must truly look inside and examine ourselves and consider ourselves. The same is true for more general problems. Progressing as one body still means that we must look inside ourselves as individuals unconditionally. How could we all have the same attachment? I see that a fundamental issue in terms of whether we are able to progress as one body is a question of whether we are able to look inside ourselves as individuals when there is a broader issue. I think that progressing as one body means that for each of us as individuals we are responsible for the environment around us, from the local practice site, to the nation, to the whole world; with such a responsibility we must look inside ourselves as individuals for the cause of problems, not look outside ourselves for general trends amongst the practitioners.

I think that things such as sharing the load when looking after each other’s children, helping fellow practitioners with all kinds of domestic issues, taking time to talk to fellow practitioners who have slacked off, encouraging newer practitioners, having the patience to explain our understandings of issues to those who are slower to understand, helping fellow practitioners unconditionally with this or that are the true manifestations of progressing as one body. It is no use in talking about the merging of energy channels, if in a very practical way we are not able to support each other in our lives and every aspect, and truly work together with an altruistic state of mind.