| Published: Saturday 18th February 2006 |
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By a Falun Gong practitioner from Jilin Province, China
Over the past few years of the evil persecution against Falun Gong in China I have managed to rescue jailed fellow practitioners several times. I have since realised that rescuing fellow practitioners after they have been seriously persecuted is far from enough. To validate the Fa1 and end the persecution, we should study the Fa together and communicate with them more frequently so that we can resolve any loopholes in our characters in a timely manner. Over the past year or so, I have coordinated both self-consciously and unconsciously among practitioners. I would like to share my experiences with you.
(1) Break through Individual Xinxing2 Cultivation and Return to Fa-rectification.
There were fellow practitioners who mistook their being tortured as passing "illness karma" (This does not apply to the new practitioners). There were practitioners who tolerated the evil using the excuse that they were eliminating their attachment to emotion. Thinking this, they ignored their spouses' prolonged negligence in their family's and children's lives. There were practitioners who could not validate the Fa, but instead, emphasised tolerance by passively enduring unreasonable harm and unfair treatment in order to maintain superficial harmony, and so on. After we searched together for insufficiencies in our xinxing, we understood that only when we insist on adhering to Master's3 requirement about the three things can we fundamentally deny the persecution. Being persistent or emphasising one or two things will not fulfil Master's requirements. The way to improve is to quickly organise these fellow practitioners into different Fa study groups, remind them in these small groups to send forth the righteous thoughts, and assist those who send forth the righteous thoughts. However, time management is important so that nothing will interfere with our doing the three things ourselves. Local practitioners' Fa validation should not be interrupted by any individual phenomenon.
(2) Understanding the Fa from the Fa. Stay Diligent Together and Oppose the Persecution.
In comments on a student's article entitled, "Shed the Human Mindset", Master said,
"Some students really haven't regarded studying the Fa as something important, and often look at situations that arise among Dafa students with an ordinary human mindset; and it's not limited to blindly admiring certain people. The display of this human mindset truly, in fact, bespeaks of the [difference between] a cultivator and an ordinary person."
Since the persecution started, Falun Dafa students have all suffered to certain degrees. With improvements in the Fa rectification process, some practitioners have had the idea of helping fellow practitioners who are in need. However, sometimes they cannot walk straight on their own cultivation paths because of their ordinary human mindset. For example, a practitioner was released from a labour camp after signing a guarantee statement. Afterwards he suffered hardship in both his health and his life. Some practitioners hastily helped by lending him money to build a house.
I do not oppose helping fellow practitioners. However, I believe that after resolving the immediate needs in life, we should help fellow practitioners oppose the persecution by finding its true source. It is most important to help our fellow practitioners to understand the Fa based from the Fa, to find the attachments within the practitioner, such as validating him/herself, fear, distorting the Fa, and so forth. We should encourage our fellow practitioners to walk out to oppose to the persecution. A few thousand dollars is a lot of money. We should not use the limited and precious resources and energy to resolve individual living difficulties.
Falun Dafa students should righteously validate the Fa by clarifying the truth to save sentient beings and expose the local officials' persecution. We are not asking for sympathy or pity from ordinary people, but to give the persecutors a chance to atone for the crimes they have committed, and to save them. I understand that Master has used this persecution to allow Dafa students to validate Fa, and to establish Dafa students' dignity and virtue through the process of opposing the persecution.
We might also interfere with the orderly cultivation path if we help to resolve fellow practitioners' difficulties with an embedded human mindset. Recently there were practitioners looking for helpers during the harvest season, which ended up like routine work. More than 50 or 60 practitioners were involved, and it took several days to finish the job. We as fellow practitioners, whether we have participated or we have only heard of such incidents, should all think about it (except for extraordinary situations where both practitioners or a couple are jailed.)
(3) Recognise Situations and the Nature of the Persecution with Righteous Thoughts and Righteous Understanding
"People only have that little bit of hardship of their own. There is only that little bit of trouble among them. They have a lot of attachments that they still can't give up! It remains a question of whether they can understand your Dafa itself while they are in the midst of confusion and tribulations. It involves such an issue, so there will be interference and tests." ( Zhuan Falun)
Even today, when a practitioner is arrested, the first thought some practitioners have is that there must be a problem with the practitioner or with the coordinator. The overall consciousness is weak, indifferent, and even cold toward rescuing the fellow practitioner. Even I myself will forget about it a few days later or have no feeling. The unrighteous thought of fear of being involved and the issue of personal security will emerge. There are also cases where we treat the persecution with an ordinary person's mindset and believe that this is a persecution from ordinary people and thus try to resolve the problems with ordinary people's ways such as looking for personal connections, paying fines, and so forth.
We are the final resort for all sentient beings. How can we rely on ordinary people to resolve problems? If we do not pay attention to revealing the truth constantly, ordinary people will create karma or encourage the evil by arresting Dafa students. We exist for Fa rectification, not to supply energy to the negative forces. When the persecution occurs, we should calm down and search within our xinxing. Is it because we did not do the three things well that persecution will occur? The evil has interfered with us as a whole. Any one practitioner being jailed is a loss to us as a whole. Master said it in "My Version of a "Stick Wake-up,"
Being patient and tolerant with fellow practitioners will strengthen the righteous field. We should send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate these so-called "tests," and guide the families of the fellow practitioners to request the return of their family member with honour and righteousness. (4) Overcome Practical Conflicts and Achieve Uniform Ascension There is a practitioner couple in our local area. Sometimes, the husband is not diligent. Because of fear, he is unwilling to participate in group study sessions. He will also, from time to time, interfere with his wife's efforts to validate Fa. After communication with him through fellow practitioners, there has been little progress. He has an excellent job and his wife is in business. They do well financially, yet he watches his money closely. Once, his wife mentioned that he's quite stingy about money and then started to collect coins, thinking there would be little chance of him finding out. Once she had finally collected around 1,000 dollars and was ready to contribute to expenses during Fa validation. However, her husband inadvertently found out, and he beat her. The wife's description aroused my ordinary thinking and I felt that her husband did not behave as a practitioner. After calming down and becoming clear in my own mind, I realised that I was led by a superficially false image and the insufficiency in the wife practitioner's xinxing, such as jealousy and emotion. Actually, when we judge the person in this dimension, we have forgotten the evil in the other dimension. The husband practitioner has not been diligent in cultivation, and thus the evil strengthened his ordinary mind. The old forces intend to eliminate practitioners unable to meet their standards. How can we be jealous about our fellow practitioner and blame him resentfully? No one can reach the edge of the Fa. Whenever we look down on our fellow practitioners and think highly of ourselves, we are falling. After we found out our individual faults and insufficiency, we learnt that the husband practitioner has persuaded many people to renounce their membership in the Chinese Communist Party. Every Falun Dafa student can save so many lives! (5) Correct and Improve Self Constantly to Consummate the Fa Through interactions with fellow practitioners, I discovered many insufficiencies within myself. 1. Validating one's self, one's opinions, and the strong desire for fame - When fellow practitioners did not agree to my suggestions or when they could not cooperate with me, I tended to think that they could not collaborate as a whole. I treated the holy Fa-validation as a job or as ordinary people's self-protection. When a fellow practitioner revealed his or her own xinxing test to me, I was very pleased with myself because they trusted me to help find a fellow practitioners' attachments. If fact, I was subconsciously dividing the fellow practitioners and establishing my personal authority. Actually, the Fa is within each and every one of our fellow practitioners' hearts. We should not have any thought of who cultivates well and who doesn't. The thought itself is an idea of protecting one's self and can cause conflicts. 2. Overbearing attitude, not thinking of others - During my coordination, fellow practitioners felt I had pressured, ordered and instructed them. I was being self-conceited and arrogant. Both consciously and unconsciously, I felt that I understood more than they did. After studying the Fa and reading the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party4, I realised that it was the poisonous reflection of the evil spirit of communism. I was able to recognise the source, but did not eliminate it completely. I thought that a coordinator's purpose was to help others. Now I realise through retrospection that I myself am the true beneficiary. This is the way to expose my attachments so that I can cultivate and get rid of them. 3. Recognising the danger while being relaxed, and putting our effort to validating the Fa - Many fellow practitioners have understood the Fa incorrectly because of their state of relaxation. With such a mindset, we will develop the attachment of time. We would like the persecution to end as soon as possible, and we will thus not put in any more effort. The state of relaxation can also destroy our previous efforts in cultivation and make us fall from a very high level. Recently, I have had very little communication with fellow practitioners due to the misleading state of relaxation. Locally, there was a phenomenon of deviating from Fa. I had a few words with nearby fellow practitioners. However, I did not immediately communicate with fellow practitioners who are in charge of contact because I was afraid of trouble. After I realised the seriousness, when I was on the way to find them, the police were taking them away. Even though there are many other factors, I truly see the danger of my lax mind, which not only makes us irresponsible to our fellow practitioners, but also makes me feel content about the already established environment and not want to further cultivate myself through hardships or eliminate my attachments. I realised that to be a truly functional coordinator means to be a diligent cultivator first and to follow through on Master's Fa-rectification process. We are the examples for sentient beings in different situations in different periods, levels, and states of the new cosmos. How can we have the same cultivation path or the same manner in Fa-validating? As long as we do not deviate from the Fa, we should not request fellow practitioners to have the same opinions about how to understand Fa, how to validate Fa, or how to collaborate. Fellow practitioners will return home by following their own Fa-validating paths. Fellow practitioners, let's stay diligent to reach the great consummation! Note: 1. Fa: Law or principle; the teachings in Falun Gong
2. Xinxing: "mind-nature" (lit.), "character," or "thought."
3. Master/Teacher: Respectfully referring to the founder of Falun Gong, Mr. Li Hongzhi.
4. Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party: Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party is a series of essays published in late 2004 that reveal the true nature of the Communist Party. The Nine Commentaries have led millions of people to renounce their membership in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and come to gain a clearer understanding about the wrongful persecution against Falun Gong. "A book that has shocked all Chinese around the world. A book that is disintegrating the Communist Party." http://ninecommentaries.com
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