(Minghui.org) The most profound lesson I've learned this year is to be more forgiving and tolerant.
Last summer, the local police simultaneously arrested dozens of practitioners in our area. Although I knew that I should negate the persecution and stop the evil from persecuting our fellow practitioners, I always felt like I wasn't doing it wholeheartedly. Before the arrests, I discussed some issues with Practitioner A, who was also one of the arrested practitioners, such as phone security, how to manage funds donated by practitioners, and other things. But she didn't agree with my views, which caused a rift between us.
When the arrest happened, my first thought was that she hadn't handled well the issues we discussed, and so she was persecuted. Because I couldn't forgive her, I unconsciously accepted the persecution as “inevitable.”
Practitioner A opposed the persecution with righteous thoughts and was allowed to return home. She soon recovered and threw all her efforts into rescuing other practitioners who were arrested. Whereas for me, I couldn't stop harping about whether Practitioner A correctly saw where her shortcomings were. I was worried that if she continued doing Dafa things without realizing her mistakes, she wouldn't be able to do things well in future projects.
I discussed my thoughts with other practitioners, and they told me that practitioners cannot possibly do every single thing perfectly, but just because they can't do it perfectly, does that mean they shouldn't do it at all? It's better to do something – even if mistakes are made along the way – than to do nothing at all out of fear of making mistakes.
I thought hard about what the other practitioners said, and I came to realize my own attachment: I was unforgiving, intolerant, and unaccommodating, and because I expected perfection, I couldn't accommodate the slightest mistake made by myself or others. I often focused on my past mistakes and the things that I couldn't do well, which would make me feel discouraged. I would gripe inwardly about other practitioners' shortcomings, and was disdainful of ordinary people whom I didn't like the looks of. I would also get angry at people who held views that didn't agree with mine.
In my regular life, this inability to forgive often made me unhappy or upset, but I never thought it was a big deal until my fellow practitioners were arrested and detained. By being unable to forgive them and by alienating myself from them, I had unconsciously become an accomplice to the evil! I finally came to realize the seriousness of this attachment.
The truth-clarification projects that Practitioner A was doing were things that I myself wouldn't have the courage to do. Why couldn't I see this as a strength of hers and learn from it, instead of criticizing her shortcomings? Of course, it's fine if I compassionately remind her of her shortcomings, but I shouldn't expect her to change overnight and show a dramatic improvement.
Master looks after every Dafa disciple and arranges his or her cultivation path. Despite our many attachments and karma, Master has always treated us with boundless forgiveness, and allowed us the time to go through a cultivation process. What right do I have to be unforgiving of other practitioners? If other practitioners pointed out my attachments and expected me to overcome them immediately, would I always be able to clearly realize my shortcomings and accept their criticism immediately? If we only care about pointing out others' mistakes, how can we possibly cultivate?
In that respect, being unable to forgive others stems from an attachment to self and an inflated sense of self-importance. Master has spoken about the vastness of the universe and the glory of living beings. Every person is a particle of the universe, and was made because of the Fa and by Master's choice. How can we judge other living beings with our shallow, limited, human perspective?
After understanding this, I again talked with Practitioner A, who gradually came to realize her attachments after being persecuted. She did not become down-hearted and didn't obsess about correcting her mistakes, but instead sincerely did her best to help the other practitioners who were detained and save sentient beings.
And during the process of validating the Fa, Practitioner A continuously improved in her cultivation. For example, the police came several times to look for her and even threatened her father. But because she was busy with rescuing other detained practitioners, she didn't have the energy to take care of the police, and she didn't send righteous thoughts to stop them from coming. She placed rescuing her fellow practitioners as top priority. But after she had finished taking care of the situation with her fellow practitioners, the police stopped coming. I think that, because she had been doing things with complete selflessness, the evil couldn't find an excuse to persecute her. A was able to do this because of her strong foundation from studying the Fa extensively.
As for me, I have always been stuck in my own little circle. I still do things based on my feelings, and I often feel like my “cultivation state” is not good. I often tell myself that I should try to study the Fa better and “readjust” my state. But Fa-rectification waits for no one. Many projects need to be done as soon as possible, without any extra time to “readjust our state.”
From A's example, I witnessed the demeanor of a true Dafa cultivator, and I've gradually come to understand what it means to “...attain the righteous Enlightenment of selflessness and altruism.” (“Non-Omission in Buddha Nature” from Essentials for Further Advancement)
I'm now trying to expand my perspective by cooperating better with other practitioners, and cultivate myself with a higher objective – saving sentient beings. I feel that I'm gradually becoming more tolerant, and I'm doing better at distinguishing and eliminating thoughts that acknowledge the persecution. After cultivating for over ten years, only now have I truly come to realize the egotistical attachment to self that I have been defending, and that I must now get rid of.
These are my recent thoughts on cultivation. Please point out any mistakes in my understanding.