Relinquishing Selfish Thoughts While Clarifying the Truth

By a Falun Dafa Practitioner from Beijing

(Clearwisdom.net) I have been trying to clarify the truth to people on all kinds of occasions, but the results are sometimes good, and sometimes unsatisfactory. Not long ago my classmates and I had a social to celebrate our 10th anniversary of graduation. I understood that the social was indeed arranged for me to clarify the truth to more people.

Before the social, I was sending forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil factors blocking my classmates from learning the truth. Besides getting myself ready to clarify the truth face-to-face, I also burned a disc of the software for breaking through the Internet blockage for each of them. In the gathering, the focus topics of most people were about practical benefits and personal gains. But most of them were able to accept the truth about Falun Gong, and were happy to receive the software disc. However one of them was brainwashed by the CCP so severely that he spoke loudly to try to justify the CCP's evil behavior. Finally I said, "I have said what I should say, it's up to you to listen or not." Upon hearing this, another classmate of mine said in a half joking manner, "Yes, you have said what you should say. You will be not responsible at all if something bad really happens to him."

I was stunned to hear this, and suddenly realized a problem that has been long lasting in my heart when clarifying the truth. My clarifying the truth does not come from the compassionate heart of saving sentient beings, but from the thought that I will have to be responsible for my friends and relatives if they will be eliminated because of not knowing the truth. This heart of being afraid of responsibility is actually a heart of selfishness. So there is no wonder that words coming out of this heart cannot move people.

Having realized this, I now understand better why the process of clarifying the truth is also cultivation. In the process of clarifying the truth, not only our compassion and patience can be improved, but also some attachments that are hidden deeply can be revealed.

Before, when I did not do a good job on truth clarification, I usually thought it was caused by my attachments such as the heart of competition, heart to win, eagerness to succeed, self-righteousness, and so on, but I have never thought about the heart of selfishness that I do not have to be responsible in the future (if I have done the job of clarifying the truth to others). The heart of selfishness is covered by the seemingly noble behavior that "I am clarifying the truth to save sentient beings". Actually Master told us before that if we talk from the pure heart of considering others without our personal factors, other [people] will be moved to tears (not the exact words). Sometimes when I cannot get the satisfactory results, it is caused by my impure thoughts.

However this does not mean that all the people can change their minds the first time we clarify the truth to them even with our righteous thoughts. Chinese people have been deceived by the CCP for too many years, and it is hard for them to think with normal logic, so we cannot be too eager to get satisfactory results.

A relative of mine who lives out of town comes to visit my family from time to time. I clarified the truth to him a long time ago, but he always uses excuses to reject quitting CCP organizations. I got impatient after talking to him four or five times, and did not want to talk to him any more. Later I happened to mention to a fellow practitioner about this, and she said to me, "Do you remember the part in Exodus that God gave the Egyptian king ten opportunities? A bad person like him was even given ten opportunities, not to mention the sentient beings we are facing right now who are not average human beings. Master treats all sentient being with the greatest compassion and gives disciples opportunities again and again. Shouldn't we be more patient with others?" I was touched by her words and thought to myself, "For those really stubborn people, do I have enough patience to clarify the truth to them at least ten times?"

To conclude, I would like to quote Master's words in the "Teaching the Fa at the 2005 Manhattan International Fa Conference" to encourage fellow practitioners and myself,

"...think about why so many high-level beings dared to take such a perilous risk and come to the Three Realms. They are gods, so how could we not save them? Didn't they come to obtain the Fa? If you look at it from another perspective, wasn't their bravery in coming here a way of validating the Fa-rectification and placing their hope in the Fa-rectification? That's why I have said that we cannot leave them behind, and that we must save them and think of ways to save them! Even though they may be confused at the moment, or they may have lost their capacity to recognize truth or reality, owing to their concepts being warped by the Party culture over time, we still have to find ways to save them."

August 11, 2005

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2005/8/12/108201.html

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