PureInsight | May 3, 2004
[PureInsight.org] Trouble is one of those concepts that could also be expressed as "apprehension" or "difficulty" and is usually an effort on someone's part that is rather inconvenient, such as, "I went through a lot of trouble to set up this Dafa activity and no one wants to help out." But, is that really trouble or an opportunity for learning and growing? Sometimes those inconvenient things are actually a necessary step to achieve a greater goal. As the saying goes, "no pain, no gain."
All of us deal with a myriad of minor troubles all day long, and sometimes with big ones, too. On those occasions it is useful to recall the things Master has taught us in His Lectures, such as when He said,
You need to treat all of the troubles you encounter as cultivation practice, because they are definitely cultivation practice.
(From "Lecture at the Conference in Switzerland")
How we deal with trouble is part and parcel of our unique personalities that we have each acquired since our original birth. It is interesting to look back at the words of Lao Tze on balancing these personality traits.
"In terms of social virtues, the water nature corresponds to wisdom, the fire nature corresponds to courtesy, the wood nature corresponds to compassion, the metal nature corresponds to righteousness, and the earth nature corresponds to trustworthy-ness. In a balanced personality, these five natures should be able to produce and control each other.
Wisdom should be able to produce compassion. Compassion should be able to produce courtesy. Courtesy should be able to produce trustworthiness. Trustworthiness should be able to produce righteousness, and righteousness should produce wisdom.
Wisdom should control courtesy. Courtesy should control righteousness. Righteousness should control compassion. Compassion should control trustworthiness and trustworthiness should control wisdom.
When these five natures produce and control each other thus in a continuous circle, then no element of personality predominates; they all interact, balancing each other, resulting in completeness of the five natures.
Those who know this truly understand the ultimate design; then, when they are told of the subtleties of the five mysteries, they can understand them on their own."
(The Spirit of Tao, Thomas Cleary translation, Shambala Press, Boston & London, 1993)
These mysteries are taught in much more detail in Master Li's supreme cultivation text Zhuan Falun, which he encourages us to read frequently and to learn and absorb, so that when troubles do come our way, we know how to deal with them.
