(Clearwisdom.net) One morning, I woke up early, looked outside and saw everything covered with pure white snow. On the way to work, I was thinking about my elderly neighbor, an 80 year-old woman who lives next door. She usually sells some small goods, and I wanted to help her clear away the snow in front of her shop. When I was about to help her, I saw that a young person had cleared the snow for her. This saved my time and I only needed to clear the snow in front of my own door. As I was just starting to clear the snow, a neighbor came over and began to help me. I have lived here for three years, and prior to this, everyone always minded their own business. Although this incident may be insignificant, I needed to write about it.
I think that a cultivator's thoughts are very important. In the past, I did not realize this. Through this matter, I reflected that if I merely have the thought to help others, even before I act, if the thought is there, others will immediately come to help you. We are cultivators. In everyday life, our thoughts are mostly filled with benevolence, but a little bit of fear remains. For example, the first thought in any situation, is to think of our own advantages or benefits. In our cultivation journey today, we should treat everything with benevolent thoughts, including Clarifying the Truth.
Sometimes, even before Clarifying the Truth to people, we already have a preconception that it may not be easy for this person to accept the truth, or that this other person may accept the truth much more easily. However, if we clarify the truth to everyone with righteous thoughts, then every person has a chance to be saved. Therefore, righteous thoughts are very important for us. Even if a certain person really cannot be saved at the time, we can at least clean his or her mind and give them additional opportunities. This is my understanding, based on my level.
Enlightened beings always have benevolent thoughts and think of others. Our purpose in cultivating is to reach a high level, so we should purify our thoughts and maintain benevolent thoughts. What should we do if we still have lots of impure thoughts? The answer is that we should study the Famore, and pay attention to every human notion. We should do this at every moment, so that we will develop a habit of it, and eventually we can eliminate all of our human attachments completely. Through cultivation, we can replace our thoughts from human notions with benevolent thoughts. In fact, once we eliminate our selfish hearts, our benevolent thoughts will rise up and naturally dominate our minds. This cannot be pursued, but will arise from a natural elevation of our minds.
Compassion is an enlightened being's essential attribute. Once our hearts are filled with benevolent thoughts, then our human notions will diminish and disappear. We hope to save all sentient beings through the influence of our benevolent thoughts. Let us fulfill our prehistoric vows of saving sentient beings, assist Teacher with the Fa-rectification and follow Teacher to return home.
