[PureInsight.org] I have had a strong fighting spirit since I was a child, which also led to difficulties in guarding my character during cultivation. In the process of digging deep into my own attachments, I discovered that I have a mindset of fighting with others at every turn.
One Example
In one project, I felt that a fellow practitioner was not cooperating enough in a certain step and even complained about my small mistakes with a bad attitude. I thought at that time that when this fellow practitioner first came to the project, she always said, “Thank you very much” and seemed to be very cooperative and willing to contribute to every aspect. It seems that as time went by her “true face” was exposed. It seemed that she was just pretending when she first arrived, but her true nature was that she was afraid of trouble, impatient, and uncooperative.
In fact, my thinking is that of fighting with others, pitting myself against others. If I dig deeper, my deep-seated concept is that people are selfish, do not consider others, are afraid of trouble, try to be lazy, behavior and mind are different, can do anything to benefit themselves, etc. Following this concept, people are in an antagonistic relationship, due to conflicts of interest. Even if they are friendly, they are mostly just pretending to improve interpersonal relationships.
This concept is very similar to the evil communist party’s theory of class struggle. Therefore, I do not try to understand others or consider others’ perspectives. Instead, I am accustomed to using the “fighting” method to argue when things do not work out. The way to solve the problem is not a win-win type, but a life-and-death type.
With this concept in mind, I interpreted this fellow practitioner’s behavior as a manifestation of her selfish nature of being deliberately lazy and uncooperative. Later, whenever she responded slowly, I would think that she was trying to be lazy and ignored my request again, so I would have to point it out to her someday, etc.
Once, I asked her to change the arrangement. She was so slow to reply, but in the end, she changed it on time. I was thinking about this matter at the time and felt that the fellow practitioner was actually very busy and did not reply to me, but she did what she should do. It was not as uncooperative as I thought. Then I thought about how the fellow practitioner had a bad attitude when she complained about my mistakes. Maybe because she was so busy or not in a good mood. Don’t we all have times when we cannot keep our xinxing?
Why do I have to think the worst of people, use a mentality of fighting with others to push people to the limit, and want to make small problems bigger?
When I thought about it from the perspective of understanding the fellow practitioners, I suddenly figured it out. My dissatisfaction with the fellow practitioners was completely resolved. The notion that the fellow practitioners were lazy and uncooperative was also eliminated.
The Gap with Fellow Practitioners
In the past, I heard a fellow practitioner say that her mother-in-law complained about her behind her back here and there. When the fellow practitioner mentioned this, her tone was calm, smiling, and she spoke lightly. I was surprised at the time because if it were me, I would definitely feel hatred. How could I be like this? This shows the difference in our characters between me and this fellow practitioner.
There is also a fellow practitioner whose parents-in-law believe in Christianity and are opposed to Dafa. They even appeared at school (run by some fellow practitioners) saying they wanted to know what the children were learning.
When this fellow practitioner mentioned her parents-in-law, she said that they were very kind people, but they did not understand the truth. When she talked about her parents-in-law, she spoke in a calm tone without any resentment. This is a shock to my heart. If I were to meet such parents-in-law, who do not accept Dafa and interfere with their grandchildren, who are domineering and powerful, then they would really be enemies. How can I treat them peacefully? And she says that such parents-in-law are kind? This also shows the huge character gap between me and my fellow practitioners.
These different thinking patterns of fellow practitioners impacted my heart, and I realised that these thinking patterns of being kind to others were very different from my own thinking pattern of fighting against others.
Improve
In the past, it was common for me to argue with people, whether it was with my family, fellow practitioners, or colleagues. In those years, I just felt that my fighting spirit was too strong, I had a bad temper, and I liked to get angry. I realised it but could not change it for a long time. I was also very distressed. I felt that it was not easy to endure it. I could not hold back my anger when something happened and the anger cannot be suppressed.
It is only in recent years that this problem has been corrected, and I basically no longer quarrel with others.
At home, I used to argue with my husband for a long time. Sometimes it was very fierce. I felt that the marriage could no longer survive. We would quarrel whenever we disagreed. We had opposing views on many things and were tit-for-tat with each other.
At that time, I felt that my husband was too stubborn, impatient, and had a bad temper, and it was difficult for me to tolerate him. Later, I discovered that the root cause of the quarrel was not temper, but ideas. At that time, I had too many negative ideas about the other party, which led to dissatisfaction and resentment. If people carry a lot of dissatisfaction and resentment, it would be strange not to quarrel.
Later, through thinking, I saw many of my husband’s positive qualities, such as his sense of family responsibility, hard work, kindness, ability to endure hardship, etc. Therefore, my view of him changed from dissatisfaction to gratitude, and naturally, I stopped quarreling.
Although I still see that my husband has temper problems and sometimes, he speaks with a bad attitude, this no longer makes me dissatisfied. I just feel that everyone’s personality is not easy to change. This is his own problem and has nothing to do with me.
Change Mindset
Although I have given up arguing and getting angry, it does not mean that the thinking of “fighting with others” has been completely eradicated. From many small things, I found that I still have this thinking habit. Therefore, I will also have negative thoughts towards others. Sometimes I do not realise what the problem is because my thinking pattern has become a habit.
Once I was dissatisfied with someone because of something. My husband said that he felt that my key problem was that I always thought the worst about people. He said that he usually thinks the best of people and always thinks others have good intentions. Moreover, even if he knows that there are good intentions and bad sides to other people’s motives, he is not picky and does not require others to be 100% kind to him.
He said that some people around him often complain about others as if there are no good people in the world. In fact, they are accustomed to thinking the worst about people’s motives, so all they see are bad people.
In fact, everyone has problems, and it is normal to see other people’s problems. I also later learned that we should not look at people with a hatred of evil and that we should be able to tolerate people’s shortcomings.
I realised that I have high standards of people since I was a child. At that time, I always felt that the children in the class were hypocritical and unkind. I was intolerant of some of their problems and took them too seriously, so I did not like them. And formed this concept of being picky about people. In fact, everyone has his or her own problems. We need to be tolerant of others, but we cannot be so strict with them.
Master said in Teachings Given on Lantern Festival Day, 2003,
“Dafa disciples should handle everything positively. Don’t look at the negative side of other people. You should always look at their positive side. Actually, did you know that back when I was teaching you Dafa, during the classes a lot of human thoughts were sent out from the audience down there? The thoughts sent out by some people were really bad, but I didn’t look at any of that. I just look at your positive side, and thus I can save you. If I were to always look at your negative side, how could I save you? The more I looked at it the angrier I’d get, and then how could I save you?”
I also realised that according to traditional concepts, treating others with understanding, tolerance, and kindness will resolve conflicts, and even if there is a big conflict, it can resolve the past. There are too many traditional stories in this regard.
Because everyone has a kind side, even if they have done something wrong, if the other party can really understand and ignore past grudges, people will be moved and will sincerely want to change themselves. This is a good way to resolve conflicts; and if we deal with problems according to the evil communist party’s class struggle thinking, think in the worst light of people, and spare no effort to suppress some problems after grasping them, it will intensify the contradictions, stimulate each other’s evil sides, and intensify the situation.
In fact, the former is in line with the characteristics of the universe of “kindness” and “forbearance”, while the latter deviates from the characteristics of the universe.
After careful analysis, I realised that some thoughts that are consistent with compassion and tolerance are as follows:
• Try to think the best of other people’s motives and believe that others have good intentions.
• When others do not perform well, you should understand and be considerate if you feel that others may have difficulties.
• Be tolerant and kind to others even if you know their intentions are bad.
Some thoughts that are inconsistent with compassion and tolerance are as follows:
• Thinking the worst about other people’s motives and thinking that others have their own intentions.
• Be dissatisfied, antagonistic, or even resentful of the inconvenience or discomfort caused by others’ mistakes.
Conclusion
I have observed that some practitioners always hope to get rid of their anger problem in their words, but they are unable to control their temper. Based on my own personal experience, I feel that temper is the superficial cause, while concepts are the deep-seated cause. It is best to go through your thoughts and ideas carefully and reverse the ones that are not in line with Falun Dafa. Starting by being kind to others, therefore, it will be helpful to achieve peace of mind.
I also found that it is easier to start from small things than from big things. Moreover, big things and small things actually involve the same people’s hearts and concepts. Therefore, strictly speaking, small things are not small.
Above is my understanding, please kindly correct me if I am inappropriate.
Chinese version: https://www.zhengjian.org/node/286002