Conflicts Are Good Things in Cultivation

(Minghui.org) 

In Teaching the Fa at the Conference in New Zealand, a student asked Master Li the following question and Master answered:

“Question: My demon-nature is quite strong, and the setting around me isn’t good. How should I deal with this?

“Teacher: I think both of those things are related to your cultivation. It’s either to help you eliminate karma or to help you improve your xinxing. So you have to look at them in the right way. Some people are in terribly difficult situations, but those are guaranteed to be good for you, since you are cultivators. The reason you think they aren’t good for you is that you haven’t shed your human side. You feel that you are being treated unfairly, and you think that this person shouldn’t treat you like this, and instead he should treat you better. Yet from a practitioner’s perspective, if everyone treated you so well, how would you cultivate? How would your attachments be exposed? How would you improve? How would you eliminate karma? Isn’t that the question? So you shouldn’t have a resentful or resistant attitude when you encounter challenges like these. You have to look at them in the right way since you are a cultivator.”

I feel like I've always been like that student described. I was not able to understand the Fa from the Fa. Whenever conflicts arose, instead of examining myself for my fundamental issues, I tended to look outward and believed that others had strong demon nature. Now I understand that we must look at every conflict we encounter with a positive mindset and treat them as opportunities to identify our own shortcomings. 

For instance, my father has a very bad temper and I felt quite pained and bitter about the way he treated me. I believed that fathers should be kind and sons should be respectful, so I used this standard to judge him. I was really baffled by this situation. But from the viewpoint of personal cultivation, without conflicts, how would my karma be transformed and how would I improve?

Conflicts are indeed good things for practitioners because during conflicts our xinxing can improve and our karma can be transformed.

Master said in “Expounding on the Fa” in Essentials For Further Advancement, 

“Whenever a tribulation comes, you do not see it with the side of your original nature but view it completely with your human side. Evil demons then capitalize on this point and inflict endless interference and damage, leaving students in long-term tribulations. As a matter of fact, this results from an inadequate understanding of the Fa by your human side. You have humanly restrained your divine side; in other words, you have restrained the parts that have been successfully cultivated and have prevented them from doing Fa-rectification.”

I had always felt bitter when I encountered conflicts and did not truly look at them as good things. This held me back from improving in my cultivation. Now I understand that everyone we face in conflicts is waiting to be saved. We should treat every conflict as a good opportunity to improve ourselves and transform our karma.

I also understand now that these conflicts can happen in any setting, such as at work or at home and that I must follow Dafa’s requirements strictly. I will do my best to cultivate well.