Truly Looking Inward And Improving as a Whole Body

(Clearwisdom.net) Because there is still evil remaining in this world, there have been cases of interference and arrests occurring one after another in our local area. Some practitioners have become very ill in their homes. Some practitioners have even lost their lives to sickness karma. When news of such cases spread to other practitioners, they would say he/she did not do this well, or didn't take care of that correctly, and so on. I have commented in the same manner a few times, as if we were helping those in trouble to find their shortcomings. However, I have come to realize that this is a situation that affects the overall improvement of our body of practitioners. When we do this we are not looking at our own shortcomings, but instead, talking about those of others. I realized this point after I read an article written by a fellow practitioner titled "Find Your Own Faults".

Master told us to look into ourselves when we come across any trouble. Why--

Master said,

If we always think it's someone else's fault when we run into trouble, or always blame other practitioners instead of looking within ourselves, aren't we just exposing our attachments--

Because we fail to look inward, we often have the mentality of trying to find faults in practitioners who run into tribulations because of their own attachments, even when we are sending forth righteous thoughts to help them. The dark minions and other dark beings can see this very clearly and they will take advantage of our attachments. As a result, we cannot focus on sending forth righteous thoughts and our supernormal capabilities are not powerful enough to eliminate the evil. Though the practitioners in tribulation try to help themselves by sending righteous thoughts, they alone cannot conjure the power to lift off the evil. They need the help from fellow practitioners. However, due to fellow practitioners' own attachments, these practitioners in tribulation cannot get the help they need. As a result, some of them have even lost their lives amidst enduring sickness karma or other tribulations. Aren't we all responsible--

During our cultivation, obviously we're going to have some attachments here and there. But if we talk about other practitioners' shortcomings behind their backs, saying how the reason their having troubles is because they're not cultivating well, wouldn't this stir up fear in some practitioners-- They would fear stepping out to clarify the truth because if they had problems, troubles and interference, their fellow practitioners would not help. Of course, this does not include compassionately pointing out problems to other practitioners during experience sharing. If we treat these practitioners who are not doing well and suffering persecution with compassion, then we would have helped them, and also cultivated away our bad thoughts.

When I was a child I got into quite a lot of trouble. I was the cause of many disasters in my family. Once I even burned down 2 rooms of my home, but my family members never blamed me. They insisted that I did not do it on purpose. Even when I started practicing Falun Gong and was being persecuted, my family members did their best to help me. If a family of everyday people can do this, why can't practitioners-- We are one body, and our compassion should definitely surpass that of an average family.

When someone's feet get hurt, his hands would go into help the feet without any delay or hesitation, because it is part of his own body. When we hear about a practitioner having troubles, it's like part of us getting hurt, and our first thought should be to help and rectify the situation by immediately sending out positive energy, so the body can continue with what it should do. A body of practitioners that is as firm as stone will make the evil beings who try to manipulate practitioners rapidly dissolve.

I wrote this for discussion. Because of my limited level, there may be some mistakes. Please point them out. Finally I would like to end with a poem from Master:

A Righteous God

With righteous thoughts and righteous actions

He is diligent without letting up

Eliminating demons that damage the Fa

He is good to all beings
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.ca/mh/articles/2004/11/1/88113.html

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