Thoughts on an Old Chinese Proverb

Zhuo Chen

PureInsight | September 23, 2002

There is an old Chinese proverb, "What a waste of a human skin." Ordinary Chinese folk will often rebuke people who exhibit atrocious behavior and are immoral. In common Chinese folk language, a human skin is a metaphor for clothes, or a human body.

Master Li stated, "The concept of the 'human skin' is different from the skin that human beings know. Gods consider everything of the human body at the outermost surface that's made up of molecular particles, including its bones, blood, internal organs, and so on, the entire human body structure at the surface, or to put it another way, looking at it from the microcosm, the human that's made up of molecular cells at the surface, everything that's visible to the human eye when the body is dissected, Gods refer to this whole structure at the surface as a 'human skin.' They aren't referring to the skin of human beings." (From "Touring North America to Teach the Fa.")

Through studying the Fa, we know that in the past the beings on earth did not have the image of today's human beings. This human skin of ours is copied after Gods' own images. Teacher said, "I'll tell you, it's because the Fa was to be taught here, and sentient beings who listen to the Fa need to have an appearance that's worthy of listening to the Fa. Bringing a bunch of animals here to listen to the Fa would be an insult to the Great Fa, and that's just not allowed." (From "Touring North America to Teach the Fa.") Approximately ninety percent of today's humans came from high levels for the sake of the Fa. The most tragic thing is that as Dafa is being spread in the human world, there are countless people out there who let Dafa pass them by, or even have committed atrocious crimes against Dafa and Dafa practitioners. Haven't they wasted their human skin?

In this context, this old Chinese proverb, "What a waste of a human skin," no longer as a metaphor for reprimand, but as an expression of deep sympathy and sorrow.

Of course, the righteous Fa will continue to be spread in the human world and future generations will be able to obtain the Fa. It is my greatest hope that those who have heard the Fa but were unable to attain the Fa during the Fa-rectification period will obtain the Fa in the future. I sincerely hope that they will be able to cultivate and achieve consummation. They must not waste their human skins!

Translated from:
http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2002/9/7/18432.html

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