We live in a troubled era created by a very huge collective karma of sentient beings. The sufferings of the sentient beings in this era are tremendous and they will trigger our inner sense of compassion. But most of the time, such compassion is lacking of wisdom. Compassion which is lacking of wisdom is not the true compassion. The compassion of the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas is beyond our comprehension. Most of the time, we end up with our own misinterpretations of what compassion is, when it is not.
I feel that the most crucial point about spiritual cultivation is the cleansing of our lust, hatred and ignorance. Cultivation is about self reflection. Ask ourselves, “What did I do when such thing happened in the past?” “How has my attitude changed over the years?” If we mellow into a more tolerant attitude towards a similar event over the years, and could finally laugh it off completely, we know that we have improved in our spiritual cultivation. Those are the signs of diminishing lust, hatred and ignorance in us.
Before you became a cultivator, you might be easily agitated by a very trivial matter. After you cultivated for a period, you might realize that suddenly you don’t seem to feel perturbed by the same matter anymore, although you might still feel a little agitation, you could finally just drop the matter. When you drop the matter, you have in fact improved in your cultivation. Next, when the same matter happens again, you will just not be bothered and don’t feel like commenting anymore as it seems too trivial to you now. When you are emotionally not affected at all, you have made further advancement in your cultivation. Finally, all things will appear trivial to you that you are no longer affected by them in anyway. These are the signs of spiritual advancement. When you are finally ready, you can then help the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in carrying out the enlightened activities of helping other sentient beings. Om Mani Padme Hum.
