Other People’s Chopsticks

(Minghui.org) Two recent incidents prompted me to reflect on my cultivation.

One day at lunch time, I set the table and called my parents to eat before I walked back to the kitchen.

My mother shouted back, “We are short one pair of chopsticks.”

As I put the food on the table, I noticed my mother holding the chopsticks that I set in front of my father's plate, who was sitting opposite her. I said, “Mom, your chopsticks are under your nose!” She said, “Oh, I didn’t see them.” She handed the chopsticks to my father.

I suddenly realized that when I encountered cultivation issues, there were times when I was like my mother: I only looked at other people’s “chopsticks” instead of my own. That is, I did not look within.

Watering Her Plants

One sunny morning, I put my wool blanket on the balcony to air out. When I went out to collect it at 2 p.m. that afternoon, I felt water droplets on my face. I looked up at the flower pots on my upstairs neighbor’s balcony. I thought: The neighbor upstairs is watering her plants. Luckily I collected the blanket, or else it would be wet again. In the past, the elderly lady wet my laundry a few times when she watered her plants.

When I turned around, I saw that the lid on my basket was wet. The basket is on the other side of the balcony. So there must have been a brief shower. I thought, “I'm sorry that I blamed the elderly lady.”

Our human logic that formed after birth is stubborn and sometimes scary. It is able to distort reality without our noticing it, as we believe our way of thinking is correct.