(Clearwisdom.net) I am afraid of offending others and always want to maintain good relationships with fellow practitioners and ordinary people too. But I noticed the importance I place on friendship was alloyed by a pursuit to get help from a few good friends should the need arise.
Accordingly, such rainy-day planning did not pan out in reality. As I experienced various troubles, those "good friends" didn't help me. For example, I had a very good non-practitioner friend. I had helped her many times before, but when I needed her, she didn't want to help me. She even changed her phone number to avoid me. Furthermore, I have two fellow practitioners that are my good friends, whom I have helped many times. But when I needed them, my request for help was rejected.
To my surprise, some fellow practitioners who were not my "good friends" were quite helpful during my difficult time. Some barely knew me, but they helped with my personal finances and cultivation issues.
Later on, after my xinxing improved, my family, job and personal finances all improved. In retrospect I realized my understanding of friendship was tinged with hidden pursuit. Besides, sentimentality is by no means reliable. We are cultivators. Only when we have righteous thoughts, can Master help us. Nothing else really matters.
When Master helps us, oftentimes the help is from other dimensions. When such help is reflected in everyday society, we see sometimes all of a sudden our job hunting succeeds, or managers treat us very well, or many fellow practitioners give us a lot of help, or everyday people or colleagues are very friendly to us, and so on. If we judge our situations from the vicissitudes of life in this maze, then we may consider Master's protection based upon our xinxing improvement as "help" from ordinary people. Isn't this handling the issues from the perspective of human notions?
In fact, we should let go of selfishness and treat everyone kindly. We shouldn't be attached to forming "small circles" of friends, let alone doing so among practitioners. We should handle everything according to Dafa. Master takes care of us. Dafa is all encompassing and enables us to overcome any tribulations.
I wrote this sharing because I also see the same problem in many other practitioners. They don't treat others equally. If they think someone can help them or is "useful" to them, they treat them differently.
This behavior reflects lack of understanding on the Fa regarding friendship. An ordinary person may try to form a relationship or use connections and influence to get things done. However, it is incorrect according to the principles of cultivation. As cultivators, if we want to change anything, we should focus on cultivating diligently. No external pursuit will do.
