No Longer Repelling Criticism, Learning to See from Others’ Point of View

(Minghui.org) I grew up in a rural village and consider myself to be relatively introverted, but I was always the top student at school. From primary school through college, the schools and classes that I attended were all for “cream of the crop” students, and I have always been a member of the class cadre. I was frequently awarded titles such as Outstanding Student Leader. After graduating from college, with the recommendation of the school, I found a prestigious job. After working for a few years, I was solely in charge of a research project. Being the leader of the project, I was awarded the National Science and Technology Progress Third Prize.

After cultivating in Falun Dafa, I have a healthy mind and body, my work is even more successful, my character more cheerful and my relationships greatly improved. There were many times that I was awarded the title of Outstanding Worker. For several years, I have received respect and compliments from many people. In this way, my self-esteem and self-confidence became very strong, and I got into the habit of only wanting to listen to nice words and not allow others to criticize me. I especially cared about having the respect of others.

Before cultivating in Falun Dafa, despite my young age, my body was already plagued with illnesses such as migraines, hives, neurasthenia, and gastric ulcer. After I began cultivating in Falun Dafa, all these illnesses went away. After the start of the persecution of Falun Dafa by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), I was illegally sent to a forced labor camp for more than three years. During that period of time, I was tortured and violently forced to renounce my faith. As a result I suffered a relapse of my gastric ulcer.

After coming out of the labor camp, I resumed Falun Dafa cultivation practice.However, soon I was again illegally taken to a detention center and persecuted many times. My stomach ulcer eventually developed into a gastric perforation, forcing me to be hospitalized for surgery. After being discharged from the hospital, I seriously reflected on my own cultivation. I realized that having the attachment of harboring complaints and hatred was one of the important causes of my many tribulations. The attachment came about because I only wanted to hear people say nice words to me and I never allowed others to criticize me. Therefore, I made up my mind to sincerely cultivate myself and get rid of these human attachments.

My Performance at Work

There is a colleague in my office who is usually not very serious about his work. He lived in the same building as me and we had once worked together in the same department, so we were pretty familiar with each other.

One day, he met me in our canteen and started to criticize me, “Are you feeling so full of yourself? You…” A slew of dirty words spewed forth, and the people in the canteen all looked at us. I laughed and said, “You are here for lunch, too!” And he let loose another barrage of rough criticism. I did not make a sound and just smiled. He then walked out of the canteen. I went to the counter to get my food and sat down to eat. However, in my heart, I kept wondering, “Why is this person so uncivilized? He uses such dirty words to berate people!” I had a small thought of complaining about him.

A few days later, this colleague and several other coworkers stood chatting at the main entrance of our building as I returned home from work. He saw me and started berating me again. Dirty words followed. This time, I stopped pushing my electric bike, stood there, and smiled as I listened to him. He even spoke to the others as he berated me. I did not waver but just smiled back at him.

I looked within myself for the reason this situation occurred. Why did he berate me? Did I do something wrong? After thinking about it in depth, I discovered that I had thoughts of looking down on this man. I felt that he was not serious about his work, but only liked to boast to people and he was also a bit profane. I'd said bad things about him behind his back before. I also had not been willing to talk to him very much. I realized I needed to show him respect and treat him better from now on.

There was another day when a leader, who was my former colleague, met me at the entrance of the staff canteen. He suddenly pointed at me and chided me loudly, “You do not do any work at all! You are just wasting the company’s resources! Tell me what work have you done?! What purpose is there to keep you in the company?!” Another round of harsh criticism was occurring!

I was dumbfounded and thought to myself, “This man has been transferred to another department, therefore, we no longer have a work relationship between us. So he would have no idea whether I do my work or not. Thus, he should not say such things about me. I just stared at him blankly and remained silent. Just then, he may have felt a bit embarrassed and quickly pointed to a veteran leader behind me whom he is familiar with and said, “I am talking about you.” I replied with an ‘Oh’ and quickly entered the canteen.

After that, I thought about what I could have done wrong that would have resulted in a situation like this. However, I could not find any particular reason. Just as I was writing this article, I suddenly recalled when I was working with this person in the past, I was in charge of mass surveillance but I basically did not care much about things. Later, due to a fault at work, he was reprimanded by the department leader. Maybe he blamed me for not doing my due diligence in supervising the work as I did not remind him about it, causing him to be reprimanded. So he thought that I was irresponsible. Actually, I have always done my best at work. Recently, I have been trying to catch up on my Fa study and exercise practice so I relaxed a bit in my work. Now, Master brings this matter to my attention. He is most probably reminding me to be diligent in my work and continue to fulfill my job requirements well.

It is actually a bit funny to talk about this. My name is pronounced in the same way as one word that is being used in our daily lives. Therefore, someone made use of my name to make fun of me. After entering the workforce, people called me Little Mou (my surname, which is quite rare) or brother Mou. I could accept that. However, when people directly called me by my full name, I would be a bit unhappy about it. If the person who called me by my full name was not someone close to me, I would be really unhappy, thinking that the person did not respect me. Sometimes, I would show an angry face or just ignore them. Occasionally I would even not cooperate with them while working.

I have now gotten rid of these attachments of not allowing others to talk bad about me. I no longer waver no matter how others address me. I am already able to face it with a smile and not take it to heart.

My Performance in My Family Life

One day, I splashed water on the bathroom floor while washing my hair and forgot to wipe it dry with a mop. When my wife entered the bathroom and saw it, she started scolding me and said I was worse than a shameless person. I thought in my heart: I just did not wipe the floor dry, how did I end up being someone worse than a shameless person? However, I suddenly realized that I was indeed wrong in this situation. A similar incident happened in the past and she had also chided me about it. I indeed did not remember her words well. Therefore, I immediately went to the bathroom to wipe the floor dry. I thought that I will need to do this well the next time.

One day, I went out to attend a wedding in the afternoon and when I returned, my wife asked me if the weather outside was cold. I replied that it was not cold, so she did not wear extra clothes and went out. When she returned, she said, “It has been over 30 years and I have never heard a word of truth from you before. The weather outside was very cold but you said that it was not cold.” I replied, “It is really not cold outside! I rode the electric bike back home and did not feel cold.” She then made some calls and told her sister and our daughter about this matter. After my son returned home, she told my son about it too. My daughter and her sister both said that it was cold outside while my son said that it was not cold. I looked within and thought: she is more afraid of the cold. When I replied to her, I did not put myself in her shoes and think about her feelings. Although it did not feel cold to me, it may be cold for her. From this, I thought back that throughout all these years, I seldom thought about her feelings. This may have created a relatively deep impression on her. In the future, I must think more about her feelings when I speak and do things and put myself in her shoes.

For a period of time, when I was at home, no matter what I said or did, my wife always scolded me for things. Initially, I just forced myself to tolerate this and did not argue back. Sometimes, it was obvious that she was the one in the wrong but she still scolded me anyway. Sometimes, I will argue back in my mind and sometimes, I even felt like giving her a slap. I knew that these evil thoughts were not mine so I warned myself to abide by Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. At the same time, I also sent forth righteous thoughts to get rid of the bad notions that were in my mind and the evil beings that controlled her. By doing so, her scolding words would be lighter to my ear.

Later, I learned to look within. I recalled something Master said:

“Or take something commonplace, such as your expressing that you want to do something or see something done in a certain way. What you say might result in someone being unwittingly hurt or undermined.” (The Eighth Talk, Zhuan Falun) 

After understanding this point, I realized that I always used my own opinion to judge what is good or bad. I always decided on what or how I wanted to do things without taking my wife’s feelings into consideration. Unknowingly, this actually harmed her. Therefore, after that, in family matters, I no longer directly decided what or how to do things by myself. Instead, I used a discussion tone to make suggestions. After that, no matter what she said, I was able to remain steady and face her with a smile. As a result, my wife no longer reacts with bad words when I speak or do things.

When I do face-to-face truth clarification, the attachments of fear and not being willing to let others talk bad about me still appear sometimes. Therefore, I still need to be diligent in my cultivation.

The above are my limited cultivation experiences. Kindly let me know if there is any room for improvement.