Communicating with Compassion

(Minghui.org) I have practiced Falun Dafa for 22 years. When I was once reading Minghui Weekly, a thought flashed through my mind: “You must learn how to talk nicely.”

I was always criticized because of the tone of my voice. Although my intention was good, people did not appreciate the way I tried to get my message across.

It all stemmed from the indoctrination of the Chinese people by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Actually, not being able to communicate with compassion makes it hard to get along with others.

After I realized that, I gradually learned to speak in a nice way. It took me over 12 years to improve my speech through cultivating my xinxing. Both my family and fellow practitioners have witnessed this improvement.

Looking Outward Instead of Inward

Practitioner Ms. Chen's [alias] cultivation state wasn’t good about 10 years ago. She was deeply attached to sentimentality. Her husband had left her, and her daughter lived far away, so she became very emotionally attached to her cat.

Practitioners were very worried about her. We tried to get her to improve her cultivation state. I reminded myself that in order to help her, I had to approach her with kindness.

We studied the Fa, and then began to share. We were sharing with a calm mind, but soon began to argue until we became agitated. We raised our voices and quarreled.

Ms. Chen managed to calm down first. When she saw that I was mad, she said: “A 'Buddha' came to help, but how does she behave herself?” She left the room to prepare lunch. I felt so disappointed and in no mood to have lunch. I went home in tears.

I understood from the Fa principles that I had to look inward instead of outward. However, I was only cultivating on the surface. I saw that I did not know how to be diplomatic, yet I still tried to find excuses for myself.

I had a lot of attachments back then. I lacked compassion, and could not look at things from others' perspectives. I thought, how could I possibly help others? I was solely looking outward.

Misunderstanding Creates Problem

There was another case where my attachment to myself resulted in hurting others. Practitioner Mr. Hu [alias] was part of our study group. This practitioner had trouble pronouncing certain characters properly. I took the initiative to correct him.

Every time his turn came to read, I corrected him. I felt that I was being very strict for the sake of being responsible to him. I even composed a list of words which he had trouble with and put the Chinese phonetics above.

After I did this a few times, he stopped coming to our study group. Another practitioner tried to encourage him to come back, but he did not return.

Did my action drive him away? I took him for granted thinking what I believed was the right thing to do, I forced my opinion on others. My tone was blunt and I did not speak with kindness, ignoring the fact that what I perceived as mispronunciation might just be his native dialect.

Being Short-tempered and Easily Agitated

Being short-tempered and easily agitated was also a big obstacle for communicating diplomatically.

One year in August, the place where we printed truth-clarification materials was very humid. A number of blank DVDs were once left uncovered for some time. When we were going to use them, they were unusable. It seemed the humidity had damaged them.

A few days later, when I went back to the room, I saw the DVD box left open again. I was furious.

Alone, I couldn't control my temper, and slammed my hand down on the table. I knew that letting my temper flair up was not right, yet I could not control myself.

Ms. Ran [alias] worked with me to make the materials. When I saw her the next day, I showed her my bruises. She was very surprised, and asked what happened. I accused her of leaving the blank DVD box open again. She said: “You got to be kidding me?”

How could I be like that? She didn't do it on purpose. When I saw the problem, I should have kindly reminded her to be more careful so we would not lose more DVDs. My bad temper caused me to suffer, for the bruises did not fade quickly.

Teacher said:

“...only when you have an attachment will you be affected inside; if you don’t have an attachment, it will be like a breeze passing over you—you won’t feel a thing. If you hear someone say that you want to commit some horrible crime, you’ll just find it amusing. (Master laughs) You will think, “How could that be possible?” and will laugh it off. You won’t take it seriously at all. Since you don’t even have that thought, those words can’t touch you. If you don’t have that kind of thought, they can’t touch you. When you are affected inside, that means you do have [an attachment]! And if you really feel strongly that you have been treated unjustly, then [your attachment] is rather large. (Applause) So shouldn’t you cultivate yourself?” (“Fa Teaching Given at the 2014 San Francisco Fa Conference”)

When I felt unbalanced, my words did not sound peaceful either, and they ended up hurting others. On the surface, I appeared to lack diplomacy, which did not seem to be a big problem. Deep down, it was a manifestation of so many hidden attachments.

After I eliminated the attachments, I could enter into tranquility more easily. I am not so easily moved as before. I am also less likely to become agitated.