(Clearwisdom.net)

I often hear fellow practitioners complain that it is hard to offer salvation to people of the world. I have also read these kinds of articles on Falun Dafa websites. Several analogies have been put forward to describe the difficulties sometimes encountered when clarifying the truth to people. For instance, there is the analogy of trying to rescue a drowning person -- only to have that person criticize us because we were too rough while pulling him to safety. Another example uses the scenario of discovering a person sleeping in a room that's on fire; we shake him and wake him up yet he unexpectedly complains that we were not objective enough in describing the intensity of the fire. I personally have also had such an experience. After I gave a colleague of mine some Falun Dafa truth-clarifying literature, she reported me to the company leaders. I really felt sad in my heart. Here we are trying to save others, yet our kindness is requited with enmity instead. I felt that such people were completely unsalvageable.

However, after thinking about it, I realized that my colleague reported me to the leaders partially because I didn't actually clarify the truth to her. I simply gave her the materials and asked her to have a look. She of course didn't awaken; on the contrary, she thought that it was the right thing to report me. Due to my inadequate consideration of the circumstances, I was taken advantage of by the evil, which caused me to lose confidence in saving sentient beings. Of course, my colleague was manipulated by the evil to do bad things, so I definitely do not acknowledge its persecution.

The goal of the evil forces is to destroy the benevolent thoughts in people's hearts. Then when we are treated unfairly and wronged, isn't it all arranged by the evil forces? The evil forces manipulate sentient beings, whom we are wholeheartedly trying to save, to attack our benevolent thoughts. They try to make us give up on mercifully saving them, causing us to fail in fulfilling our mission.

We must see through the very nature of evil and step out from feelings of grievance and being treated unfairly. We must find our own shortcomings, cultivate great benevolence and forbearance, and maintain an unshakable calm when facing the evil's challenge. We must absolutely maintain benevolent thoughts at all times. We should also send forth the righteous thoughts to eliminate everything arranged by the evil that manipulates the sentient beings to undermine our benevolent thoughts. Meanwhile we should help those people who interfere with us, to free them from the evil's control. With greater compassion and a broader mind, we should use kindness to save those sentient beings that are otherwise headed for destruction because of their ignorance. In this manner we'll better fulfill our mission of assisting Teacher in the Fa-rectification.

In fact, all lives were created by Master. Our Teacher wants to save all sentient beings. Shouldn't we treat our fellow sentient beings with mercy and tolerance -- just as our Teacher treats us? Can we blame them for their childishness and ignorance? Shouldn't we patiently teach them with reason, do our best to awaken and nurture their benevolent thoughts, and sincerely hope that they will have a brighter future?

We should treasure all lives without being attached to it. People who persecute and damage Dafa should receive retribution so that they can be awakened and saved. As for the old forces that manipulate vicious people to damage Dafa, these we must eradicate with righteous thoughts. We cannot allow them to destroy people. This is showing compassion for all sentient beings.

If we truly display our great compassion and maintain an unshakable calm, the evil would not be able to harm us. All feelings of grievance and being treated unfairly will be melted away by the great mercy of Dafa. What's left is the pure and selfless thought of sincerely caring about the future of sentient beings. In the face of such righteous thoughts, the evil will be at its wits' end and be eliminated.

I suggest that whenever we encounter problems during the process of clarifying the truth and distributing truth-clarifying literature, we must first look inward and purify ourselves. Let's send forth the righteous thoughts, wholeheartedly consider the well-being of others, and truly use compassion in our dealings with all sentient beings. We cannot lightly jump to the conclusion that someone is unsalvageable. Dafa is evaluating all lives. As long as the Fa-rectification has not been completed, each and every life still has hope. We need to improve ourselves and use greater compassion to offer salvation to people. We must honor our original pure thought to save sentient beings and be worthy of our Teacher's expectations of us.

In Lecture Five of Zhuan Falun ("Consecration"), our Teacher says, "Today, those who study the human body have discovered that our human mind activities or human thoughts can generate a substance. ... A practitioner's energy, on the other hand, can be preserved much longer." The energy from a practitioner can last much longer than that of an everyday person. I have come to realize that when we send thoughts toward a person or an object, the energy will remain on him (or it). If we send righteous thoughts or benevolent thoughts toward someone, we can rectify their incorrect condition and strengthen their benevolent thoughts. Isn't this a better way to conduct ourselves?

Posting date: 4/14/2002
Original article date: 4/14/2002
Category: Views on Cultivation
Translated on 4/2/2002
Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2002/4/1/27669.html

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