(Minghui.org) Master told us,
“Because of disciples’ differences in understanding, some disciples always go from one extreme to the other. Whenever they read the Fa I have written they take extreme actions, thereby causing new problems. When I tell you to change your human understandings, I am not asking you to maintain a human way of understanding Dafa. Yet neither should you be irrational or eccentric. I want you to be clearheaded in understanding Dafa.” (“Take the Middle Way” in Essentials for Further Advancement)
I have been thinking about the issue of “taking the middle way” and “... cultivate while conforming as much as possible to the way of everyday people’s society.” (“Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Singapore”) I would like to present my personal understanding.
Some fellow practitioners take it to mean that we should conform to the way of ordinary people in everything and at all times. It leads these practitioners to pay too much attention to their appearance and behavior in ordinary society. Some of them study the Fa and do the exercises at home. They behave well in front of their family members, but they do not come out to clarify the truth.
For example, a practitioner blindly pursues to be a good person in her family, does all the household chores, takes care of each and every detail of the children's lives, such as babysitting her grandkids, and enjoys herself very much while doing so.
Such practitioners spend the majority of their time and effort on taking care of their families. This causes their time for cultivation to be limited, which eventually leads to their cultivation being hindered. Is the goal of cultivation to become a good person in ordinary society?
When these practitioners' family members opposed their cultivation, they cannot effectively tell their families about their cultivation and what Falun Gong is. Instead, they blindly endure the opposition and conflict. Therefore, they cannot transform their families into an upright cultivation environment.
At the other extreme, some practitioners take their cultivation as the most important thing in their lives. They become indifferent to family members and family matters. They care most about their own cultivation, regardless of whether their families can understand and accept the truth.
Being Rational and Not Going to Extremes
In such cases, their family members would not accept the truth regardless of how the practitioners clarified the truth to them. Eventually, it leads to tremendous troubles in all aspects of their cultivation because ordinary people can only judge a practitioner by his behavior in ordinary society.
Master said,
“So things are not merely as you envision them as you go about cultivating. Though you are to regard cultivation as primary, you can't think no other things are important, thinking your family is unimportant, society is unimportant, etc., and that nothing else is important. Balancing all of those parts of your life well is the path that you are to walk. I've said that in your cultivation you should conform to the way of ordinary society to the greatest extent possible.” (“Teaching the Fa in Canada, 2006”)
Everything has two sides. Regardless of how good you think something is, it will cause a result contrary to your expectation if you go to extremes. Even if you think you have a certain strength or merit, if you go to extremes with it, it may turn into a shortcoming and weakness. You can achieve satisfactory results only when you do things with rationality and calm and without emotion, because wisdom emerges when rationality and calm dominate.
This is my limited personal understanding. I hope fellow practitioners will rationally point out anything improper.
Category: Improving Oneself
