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The Mentality of Pursuit vs. Faith
By a Practitioner in China
(Clearwisdom.net) Many of our fellow practitioners have heard the story about Jesus crossing
the sea. Jesus once took his disciples to cross the sea, and many disciples were
in the same boat. Then Jesus fell asleep. A storm arose when disciples were
rowing the boat, and it was as if the boat was sinking. The disciples were
waiting for Jesus to hurry and wake up; however, Jesus did not wake up. Some
disciples were terrified, so they woke Jesus up. After Jesus got up, he walked
to the front of the boat commanding the wind and the sea to stop the storm.
Then, the wind and the water became calm and tranquil. With a very serious look
on his face, Jesus turned and said to his disciples, "Where is your
faith?" Now, we are the Dafa disciples, and Teacher's Law Body and Fa-guarding
righteous gods are watching over us. Our standard of conduct and morality should
be higher than that of the disciples of Jesus. The disciples in this story who
woke Jesus up were the ones who had the least faith. Jesus was just by their
side, yet, they were still worried and feared that the boat would sink. They
wanted to wake Jesus up to solve their problems. In "Lecture at the Conference in Singapore", Teacher says, "If you call your master every time you run into a problem, isn't that
another attachment?" For the past few years I have seen on our website
practitioners' experience in asking Teacher for such-and-such as they had the
mentality of pursuit. For example, when practitioners clarified the truth,
were in tribulation or sick, or when their family members were not doing well,
etc., it was because of their mentality of pursuit that they asked Teacher for
help. On the surface, this is not having a strong confidence in our righteous
thoughts. Fundamentally speaking, this is not having a strong faith in Teacher
or Dafa. Teacher's Law Body is just by our side, and Teacher's help does not
come about through our pursuit. Isn't this our mentality of dependence?
Truth-clarification materials of Dafa definitely have the inner meaning and
power of Dafa, and as long as practitioners' righteous thoughts are strong,
they will be able to display the power they are supposed to have. I remembered seeing an ancient story on the Pure Insight website. A person by
the name of Yuan Zishi had a vicious thought of killing a friend. A cultivator
with his Third Eye open saw several dozens of wicked ghosts following him. Yuan
Zishi thought about the consequence of killing his friend who owed him money. If
he killed him, there was nobody to provide for his wife and elderly mother so he
set his vicious thoughts aside and he harbored thoughts of kindness. The
cultivator then saw hundreds of gods of good fortune following him. Think about
it, when an everyday person has a kind thought without seeking to gain, the gods
went to protect him, imagine how much more this would apply to practitioners. Of course, Teacher says, "The Fa has different requirements for cultivators at different
levels." ("Non-Omission", Essentials For Further Advancement).
For certain practitioners who are being persecuted, they have strong
attachments and fear which leaves them very little righteous thoughts so they
asked for Teacher's help under those circumstances. This shows that their
Buddha nature has come out again. It is not that the mentality of pursuit is
in sync with the standard of Dafa practitioners, instead, this is a
transitional process of improving one's character. Therefore, the standards
are different. Under general circumstances, however, we should not seek
Teacher's help unless we are facing very serious, special problems. The above is just my own personal understanding; please correct me if there
is anything improper. |