Handling Misunderstandings as a Cultivator

(Minghui.org) For a long time, I didn't want to write an experience-sharing article as I didn’t feel confident that I could express myself clearly. I only wanted to improve myself by reading other practitioners’ articles.

When I was meditating one day, the thought of wanting to write an article about practitioners who had deviated from the Fa appeared in my mind. With this one thought, I felt that I already had a well-written article in my head. When I turned on the computer, however, I began to doubt my writing skills again.

I was able to push aside the doubt by writing whatever I could. I didn’t expect the “article” in my head would show me one sentence after another, but it did! Surprisingly, I was able to finish writing the article without stopping.

Going through the process of writing that article gave me a new understanding of cultivation. But, I still lacked self-confidence because my writing was poor and my cultivation too unrefined.

I worried that an article written by a poorly educated person like myself would waste my time and others’. So, I didn’t write any more articles for several years.

It wasn’t until I exchanged my understanding with a practitioner regarding sickness tribulations that she told me I should write it down. I immediately replied that I couldn’t write very well and dismissed the idea.

Several days later, I remembered that another practitioner had suggested I record myself first and then type out what I said.

One day, I finally found the courage to turn the computer on and write an experience-sharing article. I didn't expect to complete it in one go, but I did. This gave me a lot of confidence. I want to tell fellow practitioners who only read the Minghui website to please pick up a pen and put your experience into writing. As long as it is based on the Fa, it will be beneficial for practitioners to read and improve as a whole. With so many human attachments, you will find some of them in the process of writing. So even if your article doesn’t get published, at least you will have identified your attachments and looked within to improve yourself.

Other Misunderstandings

Due to my work schedule, I wasn’t in contact with practitioners very often, so there weren’t many opportunities to communicate with them. Minghui Weekly was my way of “communicating” with practitioners. For every article I read, I reflected on how good the author’s cultivation state was and compared it with my own to find my deficiencies.

I felt that fellow practitioners who experienced sickness tribulations should recognize their mistakes and enlighten to their misunderstandings.

I also noticed that in other types of tribulations, many practitioners only looked at the surface situation, which led to misunderstandings. A few years ago, for example, we were all happy for two practitioners who got married. But soon after, words of disappointment were expressed on both sides. When I heard about it, I knew there was something I had to improve on, but at that time, I still didn’t know how to look inward.

This habit of criticizing or complaining about fellow practitioners had been going on for a few years, leading to misunderstandings. Practitioners should recognize this problem and eliminate it.

Using Human Notions to Help Others

For practitioners who have become friends, it’s easy for them to confuse the relationship when they share about cultivation issues. Instead of helping each other overcome a test according to the Fa, they try to resolve the issue like everyday people.

There was a practitioner whose cultivation environment at home was not good. She had a lot of problems. The other practitioners could only listen to her, they couldn’t openly and honestly talk to her or give her any suggestions. When they did, she would say that the practitioners didn’t know how difficult her situation was or see things from her perspective. Instead, it made her feel pressured. For many years, she had difficulty overcoming the same tribulation and couldn’t improve herself.

I have tried to communicate with this practitioner several times unsuccessfully. I didn’t try to understand her way of thinking, so she distanced herself from me. Later, only three practitioners were able to contact her, listen to her complaints and try to help her out with ideas.

In fact, our starting point to help this practitioner was wrong. Doesn’t any difficulty a practitioner encounters become a step on the ladder that leads to Godhood? The other practitioners’ intentions were good, but how should they help? It’s not wrong to listen to the practitioner’s complaints, but it depends whether their understanding was based on the Fa or not.

After listening to the complaint, one practitioner conceded that she understood how that practitioner felt. But she thought that practitioner also didn’t have a solid foundation of cultivating well. She mainly sympathized with the practitioner in a friendly manner and came up with various ideas while occasionally reminding her to study the Fa and do the exercises more. Both these practitioners, however, had not let go of certain events, so they also fell deeply into the misunderstandings of ordinary people without knowing it. There wasn't a pure relationship between the two like that between divine beings in heaven.

Fellow practitioners are all very kind and understanding of others, but if they really want to help someone, the most important point is to help that person look inward. The practitioner helping has to pay attention to their thoughts, look within, and eliminate sentimentality toward the other practitioner in the process. I think this is of key importance, but it is not practiced by some practitioners because many only view the conflict superficially and take sides.

The result is just like “choosing a team” in Communist Party culture. The practitioners trying to help are divided into two teams, with each team only understanding one side of the conflict. This was originally a family conflict and misunderstanding, but now it had become a misunderstanding into which many practitioners were drawn. The evil is happy to see this. This may also be a reason why our region as a whole has not done well in validating the Fa.

Cultivating Our Speech

I hope that practitioners will think about this issue calmly. It is necessary, now more than ever, to eliminate any human notions that create such misunderstandings. I feel that if I can't improve myself in the process, I’d rather not help others, so as not to let the misunderstanding get bigger.

Whether a practitioner has symptoms of an illness or a xinxing conflict, it is not helpful for more people to just be sympathetic. Too many practitioners adding their own attachments or human notions will make it more difficult for that practitioner to calm down and study the Fa. If the practitioner can’t look within, then they will have more misunderstandings strengthening their thought karma.

In these situations, I’d like to suggest to practitioners who hear someone complaining: please pay attention to cultivating your speech and not pull in more people to make things even more complex.

Every cultivator’s thoughts and words carry energy, and we may make some wrong comments without knowing the whole picture. We should ask ourselves, “Will this be good for myself and the whole group? Does it interfere with other practitioners?”

We are practitioners, so let us focus on cultivating solidly. We should focus on how to speed up our own improvement. Do we have the time and energy to get involved in our own or other people's family conflicts? We should not involve ourselves in those “misunderstandings”!