A New Understanding of Cultivation After Reading “Wake Up”

(Minghui.org) I’m a doctor. In the past two decades, I participated in many truth-clarification projects and my daily life evolves around it. But after reading Master’s new article “Wake Up” recently, I re-evaluated whether everything I did was based on cultivation and developing compassion, I was shocked to see how far off I was.

For example, I began to translate articles for the Minghui website recently. However, my motivation was my dissatisfaction with other practitioners. In the past, I only worked on the proofreading part, but I noticed that the translation team was becoming less productive and they tend to pick shorter articles. I didn’t like it and I decided to translate articles myself to improve the situation.

I also wondered whether the reason why local practitioners rarely read Minghui website is because we didn’t have many good sharing articles. On the surface, such thought seemed to be fine, but in my heart, the reason why I thought this way was because I wasn’t dissatisfied with the local practitioners and our cultivation environment. I felt that they weren’t cultivating diligently and were improving very slowly. Now I realized that I was looking outward. I was complaining. It’s far away from having compassion.

It was the same when I worked in the media in the past. I always had thoughts such as “everyone only pursues profit and fame, and no one pays attention to the improvement of their skills”; “they don’t understand what the direction of our media is”; or “articles with poor quality wouldn’t have much power in changing people’s heart.” In the end, I felt I couldn’t see the hope. I quit the job and started to run a social media channel myself. In the beginning, I was gaining popularity quickly. But when I compared myself with Master’s new article, it’s obvious that I didn’t have much compassion, because the basis of my argument was complaint.

There was no exception when I participated in Shen Yun's promotion. While what I did seemed to be effective, I always despised other practitioners and had the tendency to show off myself. I had little compassion.

Now I realize that my successes made me look down upon other practitioners even more. I was absorbed in self-satisfaction and didn’t make progress in improving myself.

The reality is, that what’s on my mind manifests itself on the surface. My inner side which is not so kind was exposed clearly in my social media programs. While I was defending certain politicians, I was also exposing how other politicians colluded with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). I thought I was fulfilling the responsibility of the media. But now I realize my resentment of the programs to expose those politicians. Such mentality was becoming stronger and stronger, further pushing compassion out of me.

I believe this is what Master is worried about in the new article. Master said, “A Dafa practitioner’s responsibility is to bring people out of peril, but if you carry on like this your compassion is going to completely wither away! How is that anything like someone who leads a spiritual life?” (“Wake Up”)

I looked within after I quit my job in the practitioner-run media and gradually let go of my attachment to politics. Earlier this year, a minority Party leader in my country who was close to the CCP was targeted in a terrorist attack. When I saw his painful face, I didn’t resent him like before, but thought of the reincarnations he had gone through and the suffering he endured in history, in order to be saved by Dafa in this lifetime.

At the same time, a practitioner from our study group had an opportunity to talk to that Party leader. She didn’t have compassion for him but criticized him for being close to the CCP. After that, she had severe pain in her lower back. The pain was so intense that she couldn’t move at all and had to lie in bed. When I went to visit her, I shared my thought that we shouldn’t take part in ordinary people’s politics and we should have compassion for all beings. She accepted my point and the pain soon went away. 

While sharing with practitioners recently, I realized attachments such as vanity, jealousy, the showing-off mentality, and excitement are all generated in social interactions, especially when individuals compare themselves against others. It’s the direct product of one’s attachment to self. 

Although it might be a little too late, I have made up my mind to follow Master’s teaching in the very little time left. I must remove my resentment and cultivate my compassion. I need to wake up my divine side and treat every practitioner, every ordinary person, and every being, with compassion.