Cultivating Great Compassion Can Save More People

(Clearwisdom.net) Regarding compassion, Master stated it thoroughly in the Fa, and fellow practitioners' understandings are also quite good. I am going to talk about compassion through my experience in cultivation.

Master stated in Zhuan Falun,

"Under all circumstances, we must be good and kind to others, not to mention to our family members. We should treat everyone in the same way. We must be good to our parents and children and be considerate of others in all respects. Such a heart is thus unselfish, and it is a heart of kindness and benevolence." (Lecture Six)

"If you are free from this sentimentality, nobody can affect you. An everyday person's mind will be unable to sway you. What takes over in its place is benevolence, which is something more noble." (Lecture Four)

"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." (Lecture Two)

"Shouldn't we have compassion as practitioners? When our compassion emerges, we will probably find all living beings and every person suffering. This will happen." (Lecture Seven)

From Master's lectures, I understood what compassion is and how to develop a heart of compassion. The amount of compassion a cultivator has reflects his cultivation state. My cultivation path is the process of cultivating compassion. During the period of individual cultivation it seemed fine, but after the persecution began, the part that was not cultivated well surfaced.

I am going to discuss two points. First, I did not have enough compassion towards sentient beings. After the persecution began, even though I participated in Fa-rectification activities, because I still had attachments to fame, personal benefits and sentimentality (qing), and still had loopholes, I was persecuted. I walked a tortuous path for a while and left a blemish on my cultivation path.

I did clarify the truth and offer salvation to sentient beings, but because of lack of compassion, my state was not good. I made differentiations in clarifying the truth. I preferred to do it with my relatives and friends, and even traveled thousands of miles to see them, but I did not like to clarify the truth to strangers. I had the attachment of fear while clarifying the truth. I was afraid to affect what I thought were my personal benefits, and afraid of persecution. I had the attachment of just doing things to build up virtue. I was complacent in clarifying the truth. I felt that I had done a lot and might fall short of the best, but thought that I was better than the worst. I had the attachment to leisure and could not endure hardships. During truth clarification, I was easily affected by ordinary people and was not able to achieve good results. When I met resistance, I was easily discouraged. I believe my state had everything to do with my lack of compassion. I did not put saving sentient beings as the number one task. Instead, I had to measure it and consider whether it would affect what I thought were my personal benefits.

Second, I did not have enough compassion toward fellow practitioners. This was manifested in several areas: I resented fellow practitioners who were not diligent, and I focused on their shortcomings. I felt that the gap between us was too much and I did not want to exchange experiences with them. As a matter of fact, each and every practitioner has his or her strong points. Master saved us all from the inferno, so what is the point of comparing who is better? When I delivered Master's latest articles, I got upset when I had to try several times to reach fellow practitioners. For those practitioners who were not diligent in their cultivation, I would think, "If such an enormous Fa cannot affect them, what can I do?" For those practitioners who deviated from their path, I did spend a lot of time finding them, but the results were not good. Even when they came back to the Fa, they still were not diligent. Yet I did not look inward. It is actually because I do not have enough compassion. I was not very forgiving with fellow practitioners. If there were disagreements or conflicts, I still felt distance between us and did not want to cooperate with or accommodate them.

These are the shortcomings in my cultivation. With such an enormous Fa, couldn't I change? However, I do not study the Fa enough and my enlightenment quality is poor. Although I have developed a bit of compassion, it is far from the standard that Master set for us, and it affects our saving sentient beings and lets Master down. When I have strong compassion during truth clarification, the results are better. With the limited time left, let us do the three things well and treat all beings compassionately. Cultivating great compassion can save more people.

Please kindly point out any shortcomings in my understanding.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2008/4/10/176138.html

 Yearly Archive   Printer Version