A Simple Illustration of "Non-Omission"

While I was on a bus recently, I saw a woman carrying a bag of soy milk. For some reason the plastic bag suddenly began leaking in several places, and the woman had no way to make it stop. I had a plastic bag with me, but it had holes that were even larger and more numerous than those on the bag that was leaking. I hesitantly handed the bag to the woman and said, "Here, I have a plastic bag. It has holes too, but you can try it." She took my bag and wrapped it around her bag of soybean milk. It turned out to be quite effective in stopping the leakage. After a while some milk began to leak out again, but the amount was much less than before. I thought that if we had had a third or fourth plastic bag, even if each one had holes, together they could have stopped the leakage completely.

This made me think of our cultivation. As cultivators, each of us will have omissions before reaching consummation. However, if all practitioners would support and harmonise with one another, we would certainly achieve non-omission as a whole. This would leave the evil no loophole to exploit. Unleashing our tremendous strength as a whole, we would thoroughly disintegrate the evil!

Whenever we see our fellow practitioners' shortcomings or attachments, we should kindly point them out, harmonise with each other, and provide mutual support. We must not complain, accuse, or become indifferent. Whatever we see or encounter becomes part of our cultivation practise and contributes to our own improvement. But our shortcomings and attachments will be even worse than those of others if we fail to support and harmonise with them when the situation requires it. If we become attached to selfish thoughts, like fear of losing face, and fail to harmonise, then we are committing an additional wrongdoing.

This is my simple understanding. Fellow practitioners, please point out my mistakes and let us support and harmonise with one another to help our improvement and elevation as a whole.