(Clearwisdom.net) Lately I have had lots of problems with my bicycle. Just as soon as I had its front tire repaired, the back tire went out. I decided these were hints that there were "leaks" in my cultivation practice. Sure enough, I identified many loopholes in my cultivation following these two incidents. Yesterday I parked my bicycle in front of my home before I went out for a walk. When I returned home, I found it in the middle of street and it looked as though it had been slammed hard. The bicycle seat was broken and the bike lock was misshapen. It did not look like an accident. It looked as though someone that hated my bicycle did it for revenge.
No one has any personal vendetta against me. Who would hate me so much as to vandalize my bicycle? This reminded me of a nightmare I had a while before, in which something was after me with a knife. I grabbed the knife and killed it. In the nightmare, I thought I would be killed if I didn’t kill it. When I woke up, I was very disturbed. I had no idea that I was capable of killing in my dreams.
I then remembered that I had clarified the truth to a student about the Chinese Communist Party a few days before. I told him that the CCP had committed unpardonable crimes. He disagreed, saying, "You must be patient and allow the CCP to mend its mistakes slowly." I explained, "Killing is a crime. It must not be understated as a ‘mistake.’ Heaven will punish each and every killer." I was astonished when he flew into a rage, as though I were criticizing him personally.
I concluded that evil beings from other realms must hate me because I am exposing their evil nature and eliminating them. But I, as a Falun Gong disciple, am supposed to be impervious to their hatred of me, and I am supposed to eradicate all lives in other realms that obstruct the Fa-rectification for the sake of mankind. Why was there such a huge conflict between us if I was impervious to them? It was as though I had lowered myself to their level and fought them like my enemies.
After some contemplation, I identified the existence of my rage and hatred toward these evils and wicked spirits that I didn’t know existed. My family and I were victims of the CCP’s persecution. So many Falun Gong disciples have suffered from the CCP’s torture. My wife and children were taken away from me as a result of the CCP’s persecution. Reports of the CCP’s persecution against my fellow practitioners often brought me to tears. The shocking discovery of countless practitioners being killed for their organs enraged me. I realized that I had responded to the CCP’s crimes with an everyday person’s emotions. I failed to keep each and every one of my thoughts on the Fa and had a visceral reaction to each report of the CCP’s persecution. Sometimes I would even clench my teeth in anger. These strong emotions had severely compromised the effect of my truth-clarification work.
Teacher had repeatedly hinted at my problem through everyday people’s words. For example, I was often told, "Why do you hate the CCP so much?" At the time I thought, "I am not exaggerating my feelings. The CCP is indeed wicked and hateful." I decided that they responded this way because they had been unfortunately deceived by the CCP’s lies but didn’t know it. It was not until these problems occurred that I realized I ought to search inward. That was when I finally found my problem.
According to the Minghui Editors, "Because these evil beings had gathered such an enormous amount of karma and venomous elements, it took Master nine months to destroy it using his powerful energy potency. However, because the evil elements and the karma were so immense, they also caused serious damage to Master’s body. Master’s hair has turned gray; this is something we can see. As for the other harm that has been done to Master’s body, Master doesn’t mention it out of concern that it would cause his students to have hatred toward the evil beings and subsequently affect the students’ cultivation. Such a compassionate and venerable Master -- in the course of rectification of the Fa, Master has exhausted everything for sentient beings." ("Article Review: Our Compassionate and Venerable Master")
I learned that hatred toward evil lives will hamper our cultivation practice. "Master doesn’t mention it out of concern that it would cause his students to have hatred toward the evil beings and subsequently affect the students’ cultivation." I thought, "If we knew that, while we were enduring tribulations, Teacher was enduring many times more in order to protect us from the enormous amount of karma, we might have suffered so much agony that we would collapse and would be unable to continue our cultivation practice. That is why Teacher never described how much he has suffered for us. Imagine how disrespectful we are when we have a difficult time passing tests and even complain!"
In addition, such hatred toward the evil will also hamper us from doing the three things well. When our mentality is not pure enough, our righteous thoughts will not be powerful and we are likely to be mistaken as seditious when we clarify the truth. When we try to persuade people to withdraw from the CCP and its affiliated organizations, they might think we are just trying to get them on our side and might not feel we are trying to save them.
I remember that some time ago a fellow practitioner said to me, "We must have [the CCP] pay the debt of blood with its blood." Now that I think of it, that comment also originated from hatred. Besides, the evils’ crimes of damaging the Fa and ruining the sentient beings’ futures cannot be easily paid for with blood. Teacher has already taught us how we should regard these evil lives in "Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference." Let’s review the following passage of the Fa to reinforce our memory and to do better from now on. Teacher said:
"But when you’re sending righteous thoughts, the vast majority of those that you're handling are the worst beings in each dimension, including the unsalvageable, wicked policemen of this world. So when it comes to those ones, especially those messed up beings in other dimensions that are harming the human race, I think we can’t be lenient and don’t need to be kind to them. But we don't want to be bad toward them either, and even less so should we use wickedness to subdue the wicked. Those that harm the world’s people, harm sentient beings, and interfere with Dafa just can’t exist anymore, and we just have to erect our palms and get rid of them. Of course, as Dafa disciples, you cultivate kindness, and you don’t have a vicious or wicked side. But when it comes to something that should be eliminated, you just have to eliminate it. No need to be angry, either--you don’t need to be mean toward them or mad at them. We stay compassionate and send righteous thoughts to purge those that shouldn’t exist. That’s how it should be." ("Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference")
