(Minghui.org) I have found that two common attitudes exist in differing degrees among the practitioners who do in person truth-clarification when they run into difficulties: they either push the issue away or go around it. They don't seize these opportunities to improve in cultivation. I would like to give some examples from my cultivation experiences.
If an ordinary person won't accept what we tell them about the truth behind the persecution, or declines a flier or a truth-clarifying calendar, sometimes practitioners might think they had done their best and that person declined, so practitioners didn’t look within. We know that nothing happens to practitioners by accident. If we insist on our ways of clarifying the truth, and refuse to let go of things we are attached to, we push away opportunities to improve.
These problems have existed for a long time with me, because I was afraid, attached to myself, didn’t have the capacity to be responsible to all sentient beings, and had selfishness and the desire for self-protection. I would often just stop after explaining the facts, instead of completely negating the old forces. I forgot that the best way to stay safe was by completely believing in Master and the Fa.
I think Master saw my problem and arranged a practitioner to clarify the truth with me. She carries out any task as long as it will validate the Fa, no matter how difficult. She always silently harmonizes the arrangements and rarely pushes anything away. She keeps a few thousand banknotes with truth-clarification messages stamped on them at home, and she will exchange a few with fellow practitioners each day. She bears the risk to provide other practitioners with tools to clarify the truth, like USB drives with truth-clarification information on them.
Through learning from her, I have overcome some of my fear and selfishness, and I am improving in my cultivation.
We often go around problems instead of proactively solving them. For example, two practitioners paired up to clarify the truth but got in a conflict after some time. Instead of looking within to solve the issues, they split up and paired with other people. Another example was when a Fa-study group had a new member who was irrational or made many mistakes while reading the Fa, some practitioners stopped going to the Fa-study.
I recently heard of an incident that one practitioner carelessly went to another practitioner’s home and loudly asked her to log the names of people who she had helped quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliated organizations. Her loud voice annoyed the practitioner's son, who reprimanded the careless practitioner. After hearing about this incident, my first thought was to avoid this careless practitioner.
But the practitioner I clarify the truth with had a different opinion, and asked me what the correct attitude would be based on the Fa to deal with this careless practitioner. I had to agree that the correct way was to look within. “I have fear and want to protect myself, so I want to avoid her,” I admitted.
The fellow practitioner said she also had fear, but how would Master want us to deal with it? Perhaps that careless practitioner is irrational and wants to show off, so do we have the same problems? If we do, we should get rid of them and also share our thoughts with the careless practitioner to help her improve.
I hope fellow practitioners can remind each other to look within during conflicts so we can walk steadily on our paths of cultivation.