Could Cultivation Practice Be Considered Selfish?

(Clearwisdom.net) While clarifying the truth to some people, someone said: You practitioners' goal of cultivation is to reach self-consummation; it is only good for yourself, so all of you are selfish.

I thus replied to them: "It is the universal law that whoever cultivates himself will obtain the Gong. A cultivator can only cultivate himself, and not others. But a good cultivator will become a good person with high moral standards and is good to all people, which is, even in the human world, beneficial in many respects to others such as family, those at work, and society in general. Could you say that this is selfish? On the contrary, an everyday person who does not cultivate himself has very limited abilities. Even if he does some good deeds, he is not able to do it on a large scale. Besides, he cannot give up his selfish desires, so he must fight with others for his own benefits. What good can he do for others? If he cultivates Falun Dafa, and he conducts himself in accordance with Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance, he must become better and better, otherwise, he could not ascend. In the end, he reaches the consummation because he has assimilated himself with Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance and has become a very good being. At the same time, he is very capable. Therefore, he will be able to do more good deeds on a larger scale for the sentient beings in the universe. Isn't this good? How could this be said to be selfish?"

"On the other hand, in this modern society, people mostly talk about their various pursuits. But most of those pursuits are undoubtedly for the sake of an individual's desires, comfort, fame and money--in other words, they are for the benefit of the individual himself. How do you consider cultivation selfish? How does that compare to what goes on in society today, and how people handle their personal choices?"

Then the other person changed the topic and said: "Why does your Teacher stay abroad? We would admire him if he came back to be with all of you."

I said: "Does the Jiang regime have any sincerity in handling the Falun Gong issue? No! From the very beginning, they invented things to frame Falun Gong, used fabricated "facts" and made up accusations to deceive people. In addition, they beat up practitioners and worse. Their purpose is to persecute Falun Gong, and they persist in the persecution at any cost. They have lost all their senses. Is it a reasonable thing for our Teacher to do, to walk in the door for them to persecute at will? Walk in the door and allow himself to be killed? Furthermore, our Teacher has much more important things to do!"

The other side was left contemplating these things.
Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2002/4/12/28340.html

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