(Clearwisdom.net) A local fellow practitioner told me today about an out-of-town practitioner, B, who had been imprisoned for three years out of her five-year illegal sentence. Thinking about her rightful place at home, Practitioner B went on a hunger strike in prison and eventually became just skin and bones. The prison was afraid of taking responsibility for her possible death and had to release her. However, her family and her relatives refused to take her in because of her condition. She had no alternative but to go ask for Practitioner A's help.
Practitioner B had outbreaks of foul temper and was sometimes incontinent, in addition to creating a mess. Nevertheless, in allowing Practitioner B into her home, Practitioner A did not mind and still took good care of her. After a period of time, Practitioner B returned to normal, even forgetting what happened should someone ask her.
After hearing about this, I thought of cultivation. On the surface, Practitioner B returned from prison and freed herself from the evil persecution, but that actually wasn't really the case. If Practitioner A had not looked after her, helped her study the Fa, sent forth righteous thoughts with her, and treated her with compassion, it is hard to imagine what might have happened to Practitioner B. We have learned from the Fa that we must treat sentient beings kindly, let alone fellow practitioners. Practitioner A has done what Teacher requires, whereas I haven't. I was awakened and finally began to comprehend this today.
I am not kind to my fellow practitioners, I am always willing to believe it when they don't do well, and I think that they should do better. Whenever I saw a fellow practitioner not doing a good enough job when trying to help, what I said on the surface appeared to be to helpful, but I was really criticizing and the results weren't positive. Instead, what I said ended up pushing the practitioner further away, creating a bad effect that even the evil could not achieve. That really isn't compassion.
Some time ago there was a fellow practitioner from our area who was persecuted in a forced labor camp for three and a half years. After she returned home, I had the opportunity to get in touch with her. What she talked about was everyday people's things. When I said that we should all look inward, she scolded me immediately. I didn't know how to continue conversing with her. Finally, I said in a low voice that it would be better to study the Fa more after losing so much time in the labor camp. After that, whenever I saw her again, I felt I had nothing to say.
As far as this incident was concerned, I found that I lacked compassion for my fellow practitioners. I didn't consider the problem from her perspective, which caused interference between us, because I was unable to see her good side.
Thus, I found my problem: I was not able to act positively when trying to save fellow practitioners. This was related to my holding a negative view of them because I did not have enough compassion for them. I realized that being unable to be kind to fellow practitioners is the same as not doing overall coordination as Teacher requires.
