By practitioner Sheng Jie from China

(Clearwisdom.net)

One day, when I sat down at my desk to calm down and review my thoughts, I came to realize that I had complaints about a fellow practitioner. All the other practitioners in our area had complaints about her too. I didn't criticize her face to face. However, I was also unhappy with her. My heart wasn't calm. A strong voice in my head was criticizing her, "How can you be like that? How can you disregard fellow practitioners' well-meaning advice that way? Don't you know how bad that is? No wonder they all have complaints about you!" However, those thoughts didn't make me calm. Instead, I felt very uncomfortable.

This person was very opinionated. She was unwilling to accept others' opinions and stubbornly stuck to her own ideas. Meanwhile, the people who blamed her tended to unintentionally reject her because what she did and said didn't accord with their opinions. Both sides built barriers while creating discomfort and pain for everyone involved, This is because we each stuck to our own notions and attachments. Eventually, we were unable to exchange opinions and even became unwilling to coordinate with each other. The power of us acting as one body was greatly reduced. And that was exactly what the old evil forces arranged. Yet, we still weren't aware of it.

After I came to realize this, my heart suddenly felt lighter. When I considered what she did and said from her perspective, I immediately had no complaints and no bitter feelings about her. I came to realize that we could also reach our original goal by using her method. I could now completely understand her approach. I felt very relieved and at peace.

Later, when I met with practitioners who blamed me for my actions or words, I was able to feel their pain. Because of that, we were able to exchange ideas with a calm heart. And the cooperation went very well. Similarly, when I met the practitioners whom I had complaints about, I was able to consider things from their perspectives. Thus, we were able to work together smoothly.

It is easy to say we need to understand each other. However, it isn't so easy to achieve that since we all want to be understood and get help from others. So we need to require ourselves to do this. We should first look at other people's strong points and things that they do well so we can truly understand them with a compassionate heart. If every practitioner is able to do this, a powerful righteous field of all the Falun Dafa practitioners as a whole will be formed right in front of our eyes.

Understanding others requires us to be able to change roles in our minds. We need to truly consider things from the other's perspective. Understanding others requires us to be able to let go of things, including ideas that appear to be better than others. We need to get rid of the notion of self and consider things as a whole. Then, we can get rid of selfish thoughts. Understanding others is a manifestation of xinxing (mind or heart nature; moral character) improvement. Only through truly understanding others, can we have an even better feeling than the one that we get when we have our own ideas or methods accepted.

Understanding others will make us feel deeply moved. That is because when we truly understand other people and complement the ideas of others or their methods without saying a word, we will feel deeply moved from melting into the boundless Fa. An admiration and a deep respect of Teacher will automatically rise in our hearts. Understanding others is pure compassion. It requires us to be willing to do any kind of work in Dafa without complaint. It requires us to treat the suffering of hardship as joy. We will enjoy this state very much because we seamlessly melt into the immense compassion of the Fa.

Understanding others is a manifestation of having a sense of being one body. Only through that can we truly take other people's matters as our own and truly care about others, not just superficially. Understanding others is rewarding and precious. Understanding others is powerful and can enable communication under any circumstance. Understanding others displays our tolerance. Understanding others is noble and virtuous. Understanding others is the basis that helps us to move forward together and get rid of omissions as a whole even when we are doing different work for Dafa.

My fellow practitioners, we have been trying our best to do well in Fa-rectification matters in order to expose the evil and save sentient beings. As we improve, members of the public will no longer doubt our patience, persistence, kindness, and compassion. Yet to do this, we need to cultivate our compassion and understanding among practitioners even more. My fellow practitioners, let's have more understanding and less complaints about each other. Let's improve together, help each other, and strive onward to the absolutely bright future ahead of us.

Posting date: 3/21/2003
Original article date: 3/21/2003
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Translated on 3/15/2003
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/3/9/46110.html

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