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Do Not Go to Extremes with Anything By a Falun Dafa practitioner from China
(Clearwisdom.net) Teacher said: "Because of disciples' differences in understanding, some disciples
always go from one extreme to the other. Whenever they read the Fa I have
written they take extreme actions, thereby causing new problems. When I tell
you to change your human understandings, I am not asking you to maintain a
human way of understanding Dafa. Yet neither should you be irrational or
eccentric. I want you to be clearheaded in understanding Dafa."
("Take the Middle Way" from Essentials for Further
Advancement) As I understand it, Teacher asked us not to go to extremes in our
cultivation. Confucianism has similar requirements. Confucius said, "Going
to an extreme is no better than not doing enough." Falun Dafa practitioners
cultivate compassion. However, we should not go to extremes in being
compassionate either. Otherwise, it will deviate from the essence of true
compassion. Teacher said in Zhuan Falun: "Not only shouldn't you be angry at him, you should thank him from the
bottom of your heart--really thank him." ("The Fourth Talk") Some practitioners went to an extreme with this sentence. When they were
bullied, they would thank those bullies. They seemed to be compassionate.
However, their thanks made the bullies angrier. At brainwashing centers, vicious
people from the 610 Office and those who became enlightened along an
evil path took advantage of the practitioners' omissions. They came up with
confusing logic to criticize practitioners for not being compassionate. Some
practitioners didn't have correct understandings of the Fa and
therefore thought what those people said made sense. Consequently, they tried to
be "compassionate" all the time. When malicious police officers beat
them, they reminded the officers not to get too tired from beating them. Those
officers had lost their conscience. They either thought the practitioners were
trying to butter them up in order to avoid the beating or that practitioners
didn't have much courage for saying that. They then beat the practitioners even
harder. Was it eliminating the evil? Was it validating the Fa? Of course not! Falun Dafa doesn't encourage practitioners to return virtue for unfairness.
Even Confucianism suggested that people should return virtue for virtue and stay
righteous when being humiliated. I think Confucianism is the manifestation of
Teacher's principle of "Take the Middle Way" (from Essentials for
Further Advancement) in this everyday people's society. When the police beat
you and yet you wash their clothes for them and give them money for staying
late, aren't you encouraging them to be malicious? Some practitioners might not
agree with this and would say that the policemen gave them virtue when they beat
them. However, I think this statement shows their attachment to receiving
virtue, which shows they were lacking compassion. True compassion has certain
boundaries. Excess "compassion" is not true compassion but becomes
fake. Of course, I'm not saying it's totally wrong to try to return virtue for
unfairness. In some cases, returning virtue for unfairness might awaken those
people who haven't totally lost their conscience. We should also not go to extremes in our daily lives. When we get too close
with our boss, the boss might humiliate us. When we get too close to our
friends, they might want to keep a distance from us. We cannot go to an extreme
with love either. Uncontrolled love would spoil kids and eventually do them
harm. This is the principle of "When something reaches the extreme it
reverses!" ("The Third Talk" from Zhuan Falun) Teacher has
explained to us the principle of "Take the Middle Way." We are Falun
Dafa disciples. We cultivate in this everyday people's society. Our living our
lives is part of cultivation. Therefore, we cannot go to extremes with anything. Posting date: 5/8/2007 |