(Minghui.org) This article is to alert fellow practitioners to pay attention to how they talk about other practitioners.
A few months ago, I addressed the shortcomings of practitioners in nearby City A during our local group Fa study. I thought I had recognized a pattern of problems among them, and believed they were caused by their attachments to having fun and showing off.
I talked about their shortcomings, claiming that they did not do well. I said that they had not found the underlying reasons for their problems, so the old forces took advantage of their loopholes.
On returning home, I felt sleepy and took a short nap. I had a dream in which I saw a dark and very deep cave of the 20th layer of hell. This image scared me into waking up. I asked myself what I had done to be shown that dream.
I looked inward. When I calmed down, I recalled that I criticized fellow practitioners in City A, and understood that the dream was related to that. When I talked about these practitioners, it seemed that what I said was fine. However, behind what I had said were attachments to resentment, jealousy, competitiveness, and “self.”
When practitioners in City A had faced difficulties in the past I felt that they blamed practitioners in my city for their troubles. Ever since then, I had a negative opinion of them. They had hurt my feelings and it made me uncomfortable. I wasn't able to let go of my attachment to resentment, so I criticized them to other practitioners.
Sharing my thoughts resulted in spreading my resentment to more practitioners. Although I said that we should look within, I felt that I may have influenced more practitioners. This may have resulted in more practitioners holding a negative opinion against practitioners in City A. Didn't I create a division between our local practitioners and the practitioners in City A?
Practitioners in City A needed more righteous support and assistance from other practitioners. Instead, I helped to create conflicts. How could the practitioners who were influenced by me send forth pure righteous thoughts? It was me who aroused the attachment to blame among our group. Was I not doing a bad deed?
I felt uneasy as this was a serious issue. I wanted to solve the problem and realized that I should eliminate the negative effects I had created as soon as possible.
I wanted to visit the local practitioners who heard my negative comments one by one, but it was late in the evening so I sent them each an email. I apologized and admitted to having certain attachments. I sincerely hoped that they would not be misled by my inappropriate comments.
Afterwards our local practitioners replied and told me that they understood the issue. It didn’t cause more losses. Master had helped to warn me and saved us from making more mistakes.
I took the lesson I learned to heart. I understood the importance of eliminating the attachment to jealousy and competitiveness. It's no small thing if our attachments affect other practitioners and create conflicts. This is a sin and can bring damage to how practitioners cooperate together.
This matter happened several months ago, and I did not initially think about sharing it with fellow practitioners. Recently, however, a similar issue came up when another practitioner who spread a negative opinion about someone did not realize the seriousness of what he did. I told him about my experience, and he was shocked. He promised to make up for his mistake.
I then decided to share my experience. We should look within no matter how uncomfortable we feel when facing conflicts. We must cultivate our speech and not spread negative comments among practitioners. Do not create obstacles for our cultivation, and make up for any losses we have caused.