(Clearwisdon.net)
Because of my job I was going to leave city A to go back to city B where I had been persecuted. Some practitioners knew that I would be leaving and said they didn't want me to leave. Some wanted to give me money for travel expenses, some wished to invite me for a farewell dinner, some bought me special products from the area, others just wanted to talk or to bring me a present. Some of these practitioners were regarded as cultivators with great righteous enlightenment.
I clearly understood that a cultivator should not take advantage of others even in small ways, so I refused to accept most of the gifts. However, I felt cared for by the practitioners and my heart was at ease. I was moved by emotion among practitioners. When the practitioners later on told me about their conflicts, I began to complain about the injustices they had to bear and expressed my sympathy for their situations. My heart was moved. All of my attachments appeared, including the attachments of being too engrossed, showing off, and looking outward.
Fortunately, I had build a relatively good cultivation foundation. After calming down, I realized right away that I needed to look inward unconditionally for why the other practitioner treated me this way. Since my sentimentality regarding practitioners was strong, I found that if a practitioner was kind to me I would be kind to him/her. If another person was not nice to this practitioner, I would not be nice to that person. In fact my attachment to sentimentality caused this wrong thought. If I am compassionate, I should treat everyone the same. I wanted to help my fellow practitioners, but I was seeking to do so from the point of view of an ordinary person. Driven by this emotion, I regarded the wrongdoing of a practitioner as something correct. In fact I was entrapping him or her. I understand now that letting go of sentimentality does not mean being cold but being compassionate to fellow practitioners. Then our environment will serve to elevate our level. We will be able to find the differences in our cultivation states and thus be responsible for ourselves as well as for fellow practitioners.
