The Power of Compassion

By Wei Li, a Practitioner from China

(Clearwisdom.net) Once in a dream, I saw myself put my right hand inside my chest to grab hold of my heart, but my hand was not big enough to reach the other side of my heart. Then I put my forearm inside my chest, and still could not reach the other side. At that time my cultivation state was very good so I felt content with myself. This self-satisfaction sowed a seed of attachment because every time when I thought about the dream, I was elated. I thought the capacity of my heart was boundless and this type of thinking kept watering the seed of the attachment.

One day the seed sprouted and I was confronted with the attachment. While I was recalling my dream, I again thought to myself, "Since the capacity of my heart is so big, I must not have any more hatred towards the world." Immediately after this thought emerged, I bit down on a piece of broken glass that cut into the edge of my tongue while eating a pancake. My wife later admitted that she purposely put a broken glass in the pancake. As a practitioner, I knew I had to look inside and see where I fell short. When I calmly asked myself why this happened, I instantly realized that the incident was the result of my own attachment, as I believed my heart could not have the attachment of hatred. The old forces dared to persecute me, a Falun Dafa practitioner, using the excuse to test my attachment. To me the test itself was nothing, but what my wife had done, made me very sad. My eyes filled with tears. My wife is lost deep in the maze and she was deceived by the lies of Jiang Zemin and his accomplices. She was also an influential person, which made it difficult for me to clarify the truth to people around her. Usually these people are the ones I am supposed to offer salvation to. Whenever I try to clarify the truth of Falun Gong and the persecution to my wife, she does not want to listen. I knew clearly that the old forces arranged all this in order to test me, and pushed my wife to commit a sin. It is just like Teacher mentioned, the old forces have never taken the lives of human beings seriously. After the incident I clarified the truth to my wife whenever I had time. However, she did not want to listen. She asked me, "How much [fortune] can 'Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance' bring you?" In actuality, that was her way of saying to me that she did not want to talk to me any more and that she didn't want to listen. For a while, we were at odds with each other. As a result, when I clarified the truth to the people around her, there was a lot of interference and the result was not good. I began to worry.

Several days ago, I suddenly thought of Teacher's lecture "Teaching the Fa at the 2004 Chicago Conference," which stated,

"How I look at things is different from how you or the world's people do. When a human being sees someone make a mistake he finds it almost unforgivable. But I don't look at things that way. I look at an entire being overall, and even when there's just one thread of hope, I'll give him hope."

I thought to myself, what great mercy Teacher shows toward sentient beings. I should follow Teacher's example.

Then I enlightened to an understanding that the sentient beings in this world are like puppets and the old forces made very detailed arrangements for them, particularly the people around practitioners. Human beings cannot act or decide on their own initiative. If my wife knew how much sin one commits in persecuting a Falun Gong practitioner, would she still do it? Was her main consciousness aware when she put the broken glass in the pancake? Wasn't it arranged by the old forces? Don't we need to negate the arrangements by the old forces? Therefore I sent out one thought, "I will not hate you for the bad things you have done to me. I do not consider it your fault. I will not acknowledge what you have done because I will only remember your merits and the good things you have done for me. After I sent out this pure righteous thought, immediately I could feel and see the positive effects. When I talked to my wife again, her attitude had changed and the people around us also came to realize the compassion of practitioners. Their responses were compassionate and I felt that they had hope. This time when I talked about "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance" to my wife, she did not oppose it like she did in the past. Reading her eyes, I sensed she was still thinking, "Are you really this compassionate?" However, as a sentient being who is deeply lost inside the maze of delusion, and who does not believe or understand it, she still understood the compassion of a Dafa practitioner.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/8/16/81868.html

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