Teaching Students from the Basis of Saving Sentient Beings

(Clearwisdom.net) I was a good computer teacher before the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) persecuted Falun Gong. And I was very proud of myself. My teaching was interrupted during the CCP's persecution. Under Teacher's help, I came back to my teaching position.

After resuming my teaching, I had a blind self-confidence that whatever I did was always right and thus requested all students to follow my directions completely. My strict and rigid approach did not create a harmonious relationship with the students. Viewed from Dafa, my intention of making my students good students was based on selfishness and I did not consider whether the students could accept my way of teaching. It was a great fortune for them to be a student of a Dafa disciple. But was that fortune just to let them obtain good computer skills? No. What they have been waiting and expecting for thousands years was to understand the truth about Falun Dafa, to quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations during this historical moment, and to obtain a wonderful future. To make this happen, I need to have the purity and benevolence cultivated from Dafa, and use my every word and action to harmonize my students.

Looking inward made me realize that I did not have enough benevolence to deal with my students. And I did not cherish them from the perspective of whether they could understand the truth and be saved. I just followed a non-practitioners' methods to teach my students. For example, I emphasized such ordinary people's notions as the absolute authority of the teachers and "a teacher for a day is a father for a lifetime." These notions are a non-practitioner's sentiments. I had only the sentimentality of a teacher for his students, but lacked the proper benevolence of an enlightened being.

Obviously, this sort of sentimentality would not change the students fundamentally, nor could it save the students. When I first started my class, I had a thought that I should not give them a bad impression, so I tried not to criticize them. When they made mistakes, I just let them go. Later, I felt that it was too dangerous to clarify the truth to students in class. I gradually became intolerant of any improper behavior in class and kept criticizing my students. I rarely considered their feelings.

Teacher says in "Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Singapore":

"Shan[*] is really powerful. It's only that when a person in everyday people's society tells someone about a good thing, he usually attaches his own notions, and even worries it might harm him in some way, and he wants to protect himself. Many things are mixed into what he says, so it doesn't sound quite right and is impure, and often even has emotion in it. If what you say truly comes from your kindness and is without any personal agenda, your words will really touch others.

[*]Shan: 'good,' 'kind,' 'compassion,' 'benevolence' (as in the Shan of Zhen, Shan, Ren)"

Teacher's words are so to the point! Since I was required to communicate with people while carrying out my teaching responsibilities, why couldn't I make my every word convey this enormous benevolence? If I could do it, what result would follow? Whenever I criticized the students in class, actually I did so with many selfish notions, which were a mixture of fame, self-interest, and sentimentality. In the past, I only focused on improving my communication skills. But I had missed the fundamental point all along.

At that time, Teacher's "Fa Teaching at the U.S. Capital" in 2007 was published. Teacher's Fa in this lecture greatly expanded my capacity for benevolence. Teacher said, "The focus for you right now is simply to find ways to do better, to be more efficient, to have a greater impact, and to save more people." Once I was clear on the Fa, I set my underlying goal as saving students this semester. And I found that there were so many ways to communicate with the students! That's because I acted on the basis of saving sentient beings. Dafa then gave me the wisdom to save them. I had no other thought than to act for the students' sake, using righteous thoughts and righteous actions to influence them. I also edited historical writings from the Minghui website, the Chinese version of Clearwisdom.net, to include on my web pages to rectify the students' thoughts and actions and to lay the foundation for them to accept Dafa. Collecting the home phone numbers, email addresses, and instant messaging accounts from the students became my primary truth clarification approach. Since I could do well the three things in my relations with the students, I quickly established a close, friendly relationship with them.

Of course, the friendship between teacher and students was established in class first. If a Dafa disciple who is a teacher strictly follows Dafa's standards and truly tries to save sentient beings, his class will certainly be a good class. And if he approaches his teaching duties from the basis of validating Dafa and saving sentient beings, every teaching challenge will be resolved easily.

Please point out to me if I have any omissions.

April 9, 2008

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2008/4/10/176220.html

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