My Understanding of Compassion

By a Falun Dafa practitioner in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province

(Clearwisdom.net) I often read articles about compassion on the Minghui/Clearwisdom website. Today I want to share with my fellow practitioners my understanding of compassion.

When having conflicts with non-practitioners, I could be very tolerant and would never argue with them. However, when having conflicts with fellow practitioners it was a different story. My compassion disappeared or maybe no compassion developed in the first place, and sometimes I even flared into a rage. From the Fa principles I knew that I was not right. I wanted to conduct myself in line with the requirements set by the Fa. I had always tried to restrain myself, however, whenever a conflict arose and pounded my notions, I could not restrain myself. Afterwards I would feel very sorry that I failed to use the opportunity to upgrade myself and regretted my bad attitude toward Teacher's disciples.

On October 8, I suffered the symptoms of a severe cold all out of the blue. I felt acute pain in every joint, every cell and every inch of my skin. I also suffered from a high fever and diarrhea, and my cheeks were burning. At the time I thought evil beings were persecuting me, or the old forces were taking advantage of the loopholes in my Xinxing. I instantly sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate them and looked inward at myself for my loopholes and attachments. I found that it was the attachment of slackness. Every day I finished doing the three things as a job to be done, and failed to take saving sentient beings as my sacred mission, creating my own mighty virtue. When I found this attachment, all my symptoms disappeared. However, I still felt that I had not found the root cause.

On the following day when I read Lecture Two of Zhuan Falun "The Issue of Pursuit," I suddenly enlightened to what Teacher said,

"That is not out of compassion, as one's attachments to fame and self-interest have not been given up at all. This person is unable to develop this compassion one bit. "

The reason that I failed to develop compassion towards fellow practitioners was that I still had attachments of fame and self-interest that I needed to let go. When a conflict occurred, instead of looking inward at myself I would blame the other practitioner(s) and would always request fellow practitioners to do things in accordance with my understanding. If they did what I wanted to do I would feel very happy, otherwise I would criticize them or even fly into a rage. When I helped other practitioners, I had the attachment of seeking fame, and wanted other practitioners to thank me.

Looking inward at myself further, I found that I still had the attachment of self-interest, the attachment of wanting to change others but not myself, the attachment of jealousy, a strong attachment to ego and the mentality of looking down on practitioners that I thought were inferior to me. How dangerous it was! I still had that many attachments to let go. That was why I felt tired and my cultivation so hard. Teacher warned us that cultivation itself is not painful. However, I held on to humanness with one hand and wouldn't let go, and held on to Buddhahood with the other hand and wouldn't let go. Therefore I failed to reach the requirements of the Fa at different levels.

On writing to this point I suddenly recalled a dream I had had a few years back. In the dream many people were climbing a mountain. Three quarters of the way up, there was a side road. The pass we were taking was very steep and the side road looked comparatively flat. Therefore I chose the side road. However, taking this side road one must cross a creek. After crossing the creek my shoes were wet. The people I traveled with asked me not to take the side road, saying that it would not lead me to the top of the mountain. I looked at my shoes and went back to the original path that would lead us up to the top of the mountain.

As for the path of my cultivation, Teacher reminded me a long time ago in my dream. In our cultivation we should not seek comfort since there is no easy way in cultivation. Cultivation is painful and the pain will help us to eliminate our karma. We must eliminate our karma at a faster pace so that we will be able to return home with Teacher.

I felt no words would be able to express my gratitude to Teacher who has almost depleted everything of his for our cultivation. I was really worried when I found that I still have that many attachments that I need to let go.

At that time one sentence that Master had spoken came into my mind:

"If you've fallen don't just lie there, get up right away! " ("Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference")

Yes, I must do well where I fell and hope those practitioners who have the same problems can do well together with me so that we can return home with Teacher.

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