By a practitioner from China

(Clearwisdom.net) Recently, a serious problem appeared with a small group of practitioners, including myself. Some of us unintentionally used accusations and blame, like everyday people, when dealing with problems, which resulted in estrangement among practitioners. We all knew such states of mind were not right, but we fell into a twisted trap of "searching for attachments" and could not get out. Some practitioners have not realized the seriousness of the problem, and they still believe that he or she is helping others to get rid of so-called attachments. The problem has manifested itself intensely on some occasions.

The following is the lesson I learned when my attachments resulted in hurting fellow practitioners.

I was listening to one practitioner commenting on another. The comments were something like, "She has this attachment and that attachment, she did not do well in this or that..." At the beginning, I only listened quietly. After hearing it for a while, however, my own emotions were stirred up. I also started commenting on the problems of other practitioners. One time, while discussing a certain practitioner, I said something like "he does not behave like a practitioner." When that practitioner heard what I said about him, he was very hurt. I felt guilty when I found out about it later. I have learned that because of my own attachment to doing things, I often treated cultivation matters with an everyday person's mentality, and I did not cultivate speech rigorously as required by the principles of Falun Dafa.

No matter what a righteous god is facing, his heart is not moved by it. Would he care who is good and who is not? Would he be moved by gossip or how others treat him? His heart only contains benevolent compassion for all sentient beings. We are all practitioners cultivating in the Fa; only Master knows how well a practitioner truly cultivates. We should not carelessly judge others, or the effect can only be damaging. If our words and actions are not assimilated to the principles of Dafa, we cannot form an indestructible unity. The estrangements among practitioners will be taken advantage of by the evil.

In front of other practitioners, I always showed off the part of myself that I thought I had cultivated well. I used that to justify my own understanding on something, or to cover up my own attachments, or to make remarks regarding other practitioner's this or that. When others agreed with me, I felt pleased with myself. Otherwise, I felt uncomfortable. One time, a practitioner pointed out my attachment to computer technology. I nodded in acceptance, but my heart turned inside. I could not concentrate when studying the Fa or remain calm when practicing the exercises. I kept thinking that if I don't learn how to operate a computer, how could I make truth-clarifying materials quickly so that more people can see them? (In fact, what the other practitioner saw was my ever-growing attachment to doing things.) Then I thought to myself, "Whether it is true or not, when a fellow practitioner points out a problem I have, his intentions must be good." When I had that thought, I suddenly felt my heart lighten. I felt only that this practitioner still needed to be more compassionate toward fellow practitioners. Since that time, I no longer feel uncomfortable when we exchange understandings, and I can remain calm when being criticized. I also no longer feel I'm being alienated.

For a period of time, the selfish behavior of everyday people often made me uncomfortable. I felt pity for them. One day I suddenly remembered that they are everyday people. I realized that I was using the standard of a practitioner to judge their actions, and that's why I felt uncomfortable. I also recalled what Master said in "Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A.":

"Actually, did you know that those Great Enlightened Beings have a lot of things in the heavens that they too need to coordinate and discuss with each other? Buddha Sakyamuni said that there are as many Tathagatas as there are grains of sand in the Ganges River. Or to put it another way, of the Fa Kings in the heavens, the Buddha type of Gods alone are as many as the grains of sand in the Ganges. And that's just a small number--what he talked about was just what he could see from his realm. Then what about other Gods? Buddhas are only one type of God in the cosmos, and they don't number that many. And, there are countless Gods of all different types, there are so many of them that it's impossible to count them, there's an infinite number of beings. Now, if they were to argue when they do something, that'd be big trouble, since every Enlightened Being has his own set of truths that he has validated and enlightened to from the Fa-truths of the cosmos, and he's formed a set of his own things with his understanding of the cosmos. For example, Buddha Sakyamuni's own set of things is called "Precept, Concentration, Wisdom." So, since each Great Enlightened Being and each being in the cosmos has his own set of understandings of the cosmos like that, if they were to start arguing wouldn't that be disastrous? That kind of thing doesn't exist where they are.

"So what's their state of mind? It's tolerance, an extremely immense tolerance, being able to accept other beings, and being able to truly think from other beings' perspectives. This is something a lot of you haven't achieved yet in your cultivation, but you're gradually catching on and achieving it. When another God proposes an idea, they aren't eager to reject it, and they aren't eager to express their own ideas and they don't believe that their own ideas are good. Instead, they look at what the end result of the other God's proposed approach will be. The paths are different--everyone's path is different--and the truths that beings validate and enlighten to in the Fa are different, too, but the results might very well be the same. That's why they look at the results, and if the result of a God's idea can achieve the goal, if it can truly achieve it, then all of them will go along with it. That's how Gods think. Also, if there's something lacking in it they'll unconditionally and quietly supplement it to make things more complete and perfect. That's how they handle things."

Because cultivation states and levels are different for everyone, their paths of cultivation also differ. Therefore the appearance and severity of attachments also appear differently. Some practitioners often see others' shortfalls in this and that. They worry for others, and they feel uncomfortable. In fact, that is due to the lack of tolerance and putting too much emphasis on one's own opinions. It also results in lack of compassion for others.