(Clearwisdom.net) One day a seven-year-old girl came home with a wound on her face. When her mother asked what happened, the girl said that the other children had beaten her up.
"So did you fight back?"
"No, I didn't."
"Why not?" asked the mother, thinking that her daughter would see it as an example of 'loss and gain.'
Surprisingly, the little girl replied, "If I hit them back, wouldn't they feel pain?"
Her mother was very touched because she realized that while her own forbearance stemmed from a selfish desire for personal benefit, her child's forbearance was based on compassion for others. Her child thought of others instead of herself, a kind of forbearance that meets a higher, purer standard.
As Dafa practitioners, we all know that Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is the most basic characteristic of the universe. The Tao School emphasizes the cultivation of Truthfulness while the Buddha School emphasizes Compassion. Falun Dafa, however, requires the cultivation of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance all together. In Essentials for further Advancement, Teacher clearly points out that "Forbearance is the key to improving one's xinxing" ("What is Forbearance"), and that one's Gong level is as high as one's xinxing level. From this standpoint, Forbearance is the most important element that determines the progress of our cultivation, and Forbearance has different manifestations at different levels. "Compliance is cultivation." (from "Solid Cultivation" in Hong Yin, Master's collection of poems, unofficial translation).
