(Clearwisdom.net) Among everyday people I am probably a friendship-loyal, face-saving, sensitive kind of person. I would go out of my way in order to help others more materially, even extending the help to the extreme. As far as cultivating my character is concerned, my focus hasn't been on the Fa. I thought that the fellow practitioners I had been helping were no where near having a mind of gratitude. As time went on, since I haven't been cultivating myself based on the Fa, I was gradually losing control of improving character and endurance, so my attachments of jealousy and fighting all crept into my mind.
One day, all of a sudden, I began to brood over conflicts with fellow practitioners. The more I thought of something, the angrier I became. So, out of the blue, a banner on the wall appeared in my eyes, with the words, "Taking the interests of the whole into account," causing my head to clear up a little bit. But a moment later I still determined in my mind that it was someone else's fault. Later on, I started to pay attention only because Teacher asked me to. Gradually I came to realize that what was going on with me wasn't right, but I couldn't figure out why. I was fully aware that as long as there were no frictions among fellow practitioners, the evil would be scared to death. Teacher said in the "Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Vancouver, Canada, in 2003":
"We should say that the Canadian students have done a great job, and this is reflected in a lot of different things. Your doing a good job of cooperating has been the key, and there haven't been many cases where you let personal attachments affect how you validate Dafa. And there haven't been too many cases among you where you insist on your own opinions to the point that you can't let go. There hasn't been much friction among the students. You've cooperated with each other fairly well, and that's how you've created such a good situation in terms of validating the Fa."
With Teacher's continuous hints as well as fellow practitioners' help, I reluctantly began to try to measure with the Fa what I had done and the reason that I wasn't able to control my character. The basic problem was, in my understanding, that my attachment of selfishness caused me to be unable to control myself or to calm myself down when conflicts took place among fellow practitioners. If I were to look at things on the basis of the Fa to deal with problems and judge my own shortcomings, all the problems would have been avoided. I would have no longer groped around inside the box created by my own ignorance, and I would have been able to walk on the path arranged by Teacher. Negative emotions and feeling wronged are due to human affection created by personal selfishness.
I recall a time that a fellow practitioner called about the arrest of another practitioner. So the few of us intensely focused on sending forth righteous thoughts in order to save that arrested fellow practitioner. Immediately I checked out the police station's phone number in order to expose the illegal arrest on the Internet. At that time I was thinking, if I were arrested what would I expect fellow practitioners to do? Teacher said,
"The next person's things are your things, and your things are his things." ("Teaching the Fa at the Washington, D.C. Fa Conference")
Meanwhile, I got a call from another fellow practitioner that the arrested fellow practitioner had been released. The whole duration of his arrest didn't even last three hours.
At that time we didn't actually do much except that every one of us was wholeheartedly focusing on righteous thoughts in dealing with the matter without thinking of ourselves. Because of our concerted effort, Teacher helped us overcome this tribulation.
Therefore, if we could uphold our righteous thoughts, forming an indestructible body, the evil would disintegrate right away, the persecution would end immediately, and we would save more sentient beings.
These are my personal understandings. Please kindly correct my errors.
November 25, 2007.
