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Love and Hate Cannot be Clearly Understood at the Human Level
May 14, 2003 (Clearwisdom.net) It is said that the deepest love in the human world is a mother's love, which
is pure and transparent. I realized that it is impossible to clearly explain
love and hate in the human world. Let me tell an old story about a mother's love. A young woman cultivated for over 10 years, and her hard work in cultivation
had finally rewarded her with sweet fruit. She was about to complete her
cultivation. She sat cross-legged, conjoined her hands ("jieyin"), and rose up
into the sky. Suddenly she heard a few heart-breaking cries, "Daughter, please
don't be so cruel as to leave your elderly mother behind!" Yes, the mother had
endured tremendous pain to give birth to this girl, for whom she felt happy her
whole life. She had given her milk in this life that came from her own body. She
had happily fed this girl with the pancakes that she saved from her own plate.
Then one day, when the child was collecting firewood, she met an old man. The
old man enlightened her and made her recollect that this life of hers was meant
for cultivation. Now the mother is old, and feels that what she loved her whole life was going
away unnecessarily. Her crying echoed in the sky. She first cried, "Do you
really not want your mom anymore?" The cultivator's mind was as calm as still
water. The mother cried again, "How can a Buddha kill his mother?" The
cultivator remained completely unmoved. The mother cried the third time, which
turned into sobbing, "Alright, now that you are determined to leave, could you
just turn around and give a glance to your pitiful old mother?" The cultivator
was touched while rising up, "Since I am about to succeed, and I am determined
to leave, why not give her another look?" As she turned around and look, she
dropped onto the ground immediately. She then saw her mother's sad face
deforming under her gray hair. She turned into a strange bird, and left with
loud laughter, "Aha, in order to ruin your cultivation in this life, I have
waited for three thousand years. Aha!" There is a predestined relationship behind love and hatred, which is hard to
explain in the human world. The deepest love tends to turn into implacable hatred when one is not able to
receive the expected rewards. Next, let's take a look at a story about hurt
feelings from love. It is the love story of Buddha Sakyamuni. Since Sakyamuni gave up his delicate wife and his wealth, and went into the
mountains to search for the Tao, his young wife had been forced to give up her
youth, beauty, and her love. When Prince Suddhodana became emaciated because of
hunger, the lonely princess could hardly swallow water or rice in the palace,
either. When a shepherd girl fed a spoon of milk congee to the prince who had
fainted from hunger, the lonely princess reluctantly drank a sip of rice soup,
merely for the sake of her young child. When Sakyamuni reached enlightenment
after sitting for a long time under a bodhi tree, when he was saving all
sentient beings and was admired by tens of thousand of people with his
impressive and dignified manner, the lonely woman was getting more and more
lonely, and older. At this time Sakyamuni came back to save the people of his
own country. The old King Shuddhodana led the princes and their descendants and
came out to welcome him reverently, leaving her sitting in the palace tower
alone. His disciples reported to him, "She doesn't want to see you." Buddha
said, "Fine. I will go find her." He went upstairs and closed the door. The two
of them sat together, face to face. She did not say a word. Her wasted youth had
turned bit by bit into hatred. Buddha said softly, "I know you hate me. But
please take a look at this." He used his palm to display the memory from her past life, and showed their
predestined relationship. It was when Buddha was cultivating in his previous
life. He was a young boy. He dedicated a lotus flower to Buddha Dipamkar with
his whole body and soul. Buddha Dipamkar nodded with smile, "You are destined to
attain the Tao in your next life." At that moment, a young girl walked up and
keeled down in front of Buddha Dipamkar, "Buddha, with my Buddha nature in life
after life, I beg you let me be saved with him in the next life!" Buddha Dipamkar said, "In his next life, he is doomed to wander around to
spread the Fa. You will have to pay the price of loneliness for a whole life.
Are you willing to do it?" "Yes I am willing!" "You will have to give up your entire youth." "Yes I am willing!" "You will have to suffer from the pain of resentment for most of your life,
until he saves you." "Yes I am willing! I am ready! I am ready!" Thus, came her suffering in this life. Love and hatred are both obstacles of sentimentality for cultivators. If one
cannot understand it thoroughly and let it go, not only will both sides be
strangled with emotions, but it also serves no one any good. In jails today, we encounter both the deepest love and the deepest hate. So
many times I have seen moving scenes in the visitors' room when the kind Dafa
practitioners say good bye to their wives and children, with tears in their
eyes, turning away from the family's warmth, being called back to the labor
camp, "that evil den with the blazing fire." I remember one of the scenes very
clearly. The so-called "family gathering" room is in fact an evil battlefield. The
police's motive was actually to invite the practitioners' family members to join
their battle with the weapon of emotion while torturing the practitioners into
giving up their belief. I met practitioner Shuxiang (alias) from the No. 2 Team by accident. His
young wife took him to the room that my mother and I stayed in and tried to get
"help" from us. The intense atmosphere of her amazing beauty and pitiable and
sad voice, a voice that was capable of wounding anyone, made me feel suffocated.
She was crying, out of control, with her hands covering her face, and making
accusations: "Shuxiang, do you remember how you swore to my mom when we first married,
saying 'Please feel at ease. I will take care of 'little swallow.' Have you
forgotten all of those words?" "I don't want a next life. I don't. I just want to be happy with you in this
life." "You could so easily hurt me, because I love you..." I thought Shuxiang must be very hurt because even my heart was touched. I
told Shuxiang from the bottom of my heart, "I admire you. You were able to
resist such a beautiful weapon. To tell you the truth, even my heart was almost
broken." However, one month later, Shuxiang, the practitioner who didn't even give in
under the brutal torture of electric batons night after night, had a good cry
and submitted to the entreaties of "the little swallow." The guard who brought
him to see her said that she was so happy that day, like a little deer. When I met Shuxiang again, I tried hard to persuade him and even painfully
begged him. I asked him to recite with me, "Lunyu" (from Zhuan Falun),
"Non-existence" (from Hong Yin), and
"Cultivators' Avoidances" (from Essentials for Further Advancement).
However, it was all of no use now. His spirit seemed to have been drained from
him. His face, which used to be so resolute and steadfast, now just showed a
strange and cynical smile, without wavering. Recalling the "little swallow" at
this moment, I feel as if I am being wounded by an icy blast of wind! My predestined relationship did not give me a beautiful wife, but a mother
who endured all kinds of hardships and encountered tremendous sufferings. When
she was young, in order to help her poor family earn a living, she had to give
up her educational opportunities, even though she received excellent grades.
After she got married, she shouldered the family affairs alone and took care of
my ill father who had been lying in bed for a long time, in great suffering. Now
I am imprisoned in jail. Every time she comes to see me, my heart is torn. She
told me how my father and she knelt down in front of the police department when
I was first detained; how they wanted to rent a small room near the forced labor
camp to stay there until I got out; how the tragedy happened to my father, who
lost his senses under the tremendous pain and jumped off a building, and how she
had to wash him, spending the whole night without sleep. In the end, one day in
July 2001, I knelt down by her feet in the team meeting room, to offer a
sacrifice for her suffering and greatness with my tears, entreaty, and
tremendous pain. I knelt down on the ground and raised my face, to accept her
palm on my cheek. At last, I held her palm and unburdened tenderly, "It's they
who separated us and then turned others against us, slandering us ruthlessly. It
is not that I don't feel pain, but I have to offer up this tremendous
suffering." Afterwards, I put together my broken body and soul, and steadfastly continued
on my path that I should go alone. During the dark hour of that day, a verse
flowed through my mind and heart, again and again, "Dissolving into the Fa with selflessness and
altruism Dissolving into the Fa with selflessness and altruism." In a light, milky crystal halo, I saw the salvation from millions of years of
suffering by Master. I saw the sentient beings in my future world anxiously
expecting me to go teach the Fa. I saw, among those sentient beings who were
worthy for me to show tender affection and forego everything to save them, my
mother sitting there surrounded by beautiful songs and illuminated by colorful
rainbows. I saw myself like a tiny particle -- a Fa particle, dissolving in the
ocean of the Fa. Walking out of the workshop, after completing work after the rain, I suddenly
saw a clear blue sky! Raising my head to behold those transparent light clouds
and the sunset, I suddenly felt my world so vast and my heart so pure. Having
been held for so long in the narrow and small space of the jail, I enlightened
to such thoroughly delightful freedom. The words that people often say in this world seemed natural and insipid,
"With no selfishness in the heart, the heaven and earth will open wide to you."
At that moment I realized that pain, hardship, and love--all the emotions--have
to be seen for what they are and put aside. Only then will Master lead you to
your origin, the heavens, and help you find the compassion that is capable of
holding all, and resolving all things benevolently. It is indeed difficult to distinguish clearly between love and hatred in this
human world. Editor's note: cultivation in the past stressed individual consummation.
This is different from the cultivation of today's Dafa practitioners. However,
the old forces still want to test Dafa practitioners with their own standards,
leading to such tribulations. Posting date: 5/27/2003 |