Ming Zhi L.

Greetings to my respected Master, and greetings to all fellow practitioners,

In the period 1995-1996, I was suffering a couple of month from coughing, and the increase in life experience lead to the germination of wanting a peace of mind, getting rid of the secular, to achieve the state of remaining indifferent whether granted favors or subjected to humiliation. I began the journey of the pursuit of truth. In the summer of 1996, I was lucky to obtain Falun Dafa. The ideas and level of hopes I wanted to reach at that time was way too low compared with the level and realm of the Dafa disciples could achieve in the Falun Dafa tempering. Thanks to Master purifying my body and mind, letting me understand the truth of the universe, the characteristics of the universe - Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance. To meet the requirements of Dafa, we must cultivate and practice, eliminate all kinds of everyday people’s attachments and desires, improve our mind, and sublimate. Over the years of ups and downs, I met, saw, heard, thought of many things, and I have many attachments in all aspects. The following is part of my practice and experience to share.

1.) Putting down self, striving to cooperate, and eliminating jealousy

I had in the process of growing up, excellent academic performance, was always the first place or two in the academic competitions. It was the cause to the formation of a superior, strong ego. This sense of superiority made me want to guide others. In fact, that was due to a lack of social experience. I viewed myself highly, thinking my ideas and my doing were all right. Others’ were not. As a matter of fact, it has proved that I am far-sighted, but also have many regrets over a lot of things. Because of ego, it reflected that I am not keeping calm at times, and again, love to express my opinions, spoken with emotions. Although the fellow practitioners and colleagues, at different times and occasions, have pointed out that, and suggested that I need to speak the facts only, but do not take emotions, make no assertions, let others draw the conclusions. So far, I have gradually learned.

I am confident, but conceited, but also could not bear the sight of this and that. It is the so-called "Clever people may be victims of their own cleverness." It is a good thing to have strict requirements to oneself, but it is bad when often requiring others to do so. I got angry easily when encountering others’ words and deeds that were not sincere, following the formality, not achieving what I expected. Regardless of the situation, I spoke out without hesitation and without considering others' feelings. Being too serious and demanding, it was easy to hurt others, and it was not easy to my life. Digging into that, it was due to the idea that it would be good for me to tell others, with the hope of others changing; on the other hand, I sincerely wanted others to treat me the same way, bluntly pointing out my shortcomings, to help me improve myself. Master teaches in Zhuan Falun, ”Some people say, ‘I just want to discipline bad people.’ I would say that you are best off becoming a policeman." I gradually realized in Dafa that everyone is constrained by heavenly rules. "Whoever practices cultivation will obtain gong", whoever commits karma will have tribulations. Also, the environment will change when one cultivates and practices well.

Having seen a lot of unreasonable, inefficient practices, others' selfishness, perfunctory Dafa activities, I was with the responsibility to the collective, often criticized, accused the coordinator, fought for right and wrong, inadvertently proving myself, did not try to cooperate and thought to look inwards in the first place. In the long-term friction, attachments got stronger and stronger, voice higher, temper bigger, and anxiety stronger. I did not care when others pointed out that my tone was not good, since I thought that I was really kind to say what I said. Therefore, I did not pay attention to my tone for a long time. I looked inwards only when stumbling. Master said: "You should always be benevolent and kind to others and consider others when doing anything. Whenever you encounter a problem, you should first consider whether others can put up with this matter or if it will hurt anyone. In doing so, there will not be any problems." I gradually realized that when encountering anything that I could not bear the sights of, I would not say anything, would not touch on others, but needed to cultivate myself. Cultivation and practice in Dafa is to assimilate oneself to Dafa, not to request others to conform to. It is not to use Dafa to change others! Practitioners are on different levels, have different enlightenment of Dafa, therefore enforcing others to do anything will make others uncomfortable. As the saying goes, humans are not perfect, and human makes errors. I should pay more attention to my own cultivation and practice to high standards, not to use high standards to inspect others. I paid more attention to first thinking about doing something, whether others can put up with. I learned to treat people nicer with a calm tone. With the improvement of my xinxing, the environment also followed suit. I became tolerant to the sight of others and things and cherished the predestined relationships between people. Benevolence came out, and I looked for others' strengths and advantages.

The attachment to self is the source of jealousy. Some jealousy could be seen at a glance, some are not easy to detect, such as hating injustice like poison, feeling things unfair. These are everyday people’s ideas, and it indicates I did not have a deep understanding of the Fa. The world of all people is arranged by high level beings, according to their karma, how would it obey earthly reasoning? For instance, my company recently painted a large number of parking lots close to the west entrance reserved for GM cars and left only 10% of parking lots far away from the entrance to non-GM cars. If I went to the office a little late in the morning, I did not find an empty spot and had to park very far away and walk a long way. I felt unfair and unreasonable, because about one third of the reserved parking lots were not occupied all day long. So my everyday people's thought was coming out. Master mentioned in Zhuan Falun, "this jealousy is somehow related to the absolute egalitarianism that was once practiced: after all, if the sky falls, everyone should die together; everyone should have an equal share if there is something good"; when I enlightened to it, I stopped complaining. In order to have a parking space close to the west entrance, I went to work early and there was no more parking problem for me. The parking location is a privilege, not a right. I am not entitled to a closer spot. I am happy that I learned to look inwards in the conflicts.

The Master told us in Realms:
"A wicked person is born of jealousy.
Out of selfishness and anger he complains about unfairness towards himself.
A benevolent person always has a heart of compassion.
With no discontentment or hatred, he takes hardship as joy.
An enlightened person has no attachments at all.
He quietly observes the people of the world deluded by illusions."

Through this Fa, I understand that resentment is from jealousy, and I realized that, although one may keep learning Fa, but if one does not cultivate genuinely, does not follow the Fa in one’s daily words and deeds, and viewed the usual encounter as accidental, that is the indication of not knowing how to cultivate and how to look inwards. If one is not aware of one’s attachment, it is difficult for one to change from the bottom of one’s heart.

Teacher told us in Non-Omission in Buddha-Nature: "I also want to tell you that your nature in the past was actually based on egotism and selfishness. From now on, whatever you do, you should consider others first, so as to attain the righteous Enlightenment of selflessness and altruism. So from now on, whatever you do or whatever you say, you must consider others—or even future generations—along with Dafa’s eternal stability.” When we can be more and more selflessness and altruistic, the part of selfishness becomes weaker and weaker. The formed ego is unknowingly slowly removed. When we are enlightened, the formed ego and the selfishness will be gone.

2.) Learning to tolerate, tolerating others

"Forbearance is the key to improving one’s xinxing. To endure with anger, grievance, or tears is the forbearance of an everyday person who is attached to his concerns. To endure completely without anger or grievance is the forbearance of a cultivator." [What is Forbearance (Ren)?] I understand that a practitioner needs to be able to tolerate from passively to unconsciously and actively.

"As a practitioner, the first thing you should be able to do is to not fight back when you are beaten or sworn at – you must be tolerant." In the family and society, when I can envision the bad influence and the results of things, and others cannot and are very stubborn, I will try to explain with a goodwill. If that does not work, then I step back. I realized that people have their own fates, it becomes an attachment if I insist changing it anyway.

My personality of hating injustice like poison, that mentality can easily to lead to the attachments of competitiveness and resentment. I want to be fair and reasonable on all aspects, and so on. It was hard for me to forgive others. When conflicts occurred, I did not look inwards. For example, I often get excited and anxious during telling truth to stubborn Chinese people. I sometimes blame myself why can’t I control myself? Why can’t I talk calmly? In Be Levelheaded, Master teaches that, “I have told some practitioners that extreme thoughts are caused by thought-karma". Therefore, I began to consciously eliminate the thought-karma, paying attention to eliminating the competitive mentality. As long as an argument with a fellow practitioner took place, I first stopped and suppressed the heart to defend, listened to the idea of the others. The level, the realm and the point of view of each person to a problem is different. Others may have a great idea. It is true that when dealing with everyday people, who do not listen to the truth, I need to stop first, and must not resent them. Aren’t those do not know the truth very poor?

"Really, you should not hate that person. If you hate that person, aren’t you upset? You have not followed forbearance. We practice Zhen-Shan-Ren, and you would have even less compassion to speak of." I understand that increasing the capacity of the heart is essential to improving xinxing. Now every time a chance emerges to improve xinxing, it is natural for me to look inward, rather than doing it afterward, passively. I will check if my thoughts, speech, and actions are based on considering others. If it does not conform to the Fa, I will make timely adjustment. There is no need for talking, correcting, reasoning, what’s needed is simply tolerance! Even if others are still the same, tolerance is unconditional, which is to achieve the standard for practitioners. I really feel I am cultivating and practicing now, and sublimating. Looking back, they are two completely different realms. It is not to tolerate passively, ignoring it, pretending not to see and hear it, being good to one another without conflicts of interest, but to raise one’s level. Nothing can interfere with me, nothing can move my heart.

"Looking, but caring not to see—
Free of delusion and doubt.
Listening, but caring not to hear—
A mind so hard to disturb."

[Abiding in the Dao, Hong Yin]

Although my understanding is still very shallow, but after all, I know the standards to discern good and bad. Encountering anything, I will first consider if this is in line with Dafa, and I use Dafa to constrain myself. I can now tolerate what I could not in the past. I can bear sights of things I could not in the past. I feel relaxed and happy. The world has great wonders. The only thing for me is to assimilate to Dafa and return to my true self.

If anything is inappropriate, please point it out compassionately.