(Clearwisdom.net) A fellow practitioner once told me this story. A practitioner became homeless due to the persecution of Falun Gong, and on one extremely cold day, she was on her way to a temporary resting place in a different city that other practitioners had found for her. She had neither eaten nor had anything to drink the entire day. She was cold and hungry and didn't know where she would be able to stay the next day. But she kept in mind one quote from the Fa:
"Just by staying unaffected you will be able to handle all situations." ("Teaching the Fa at the Conference in the Midwest-U.S.")
She kept reciting these words until she left the bus. She was barely able to move forward. At that moment, she saw Teacher appear in front of her. Teacher held her right hand and looked at her with encouragement, expectation, and care. She suddenly felt warm, and all the feelings of exhaustion disappeared. Teacher brought her forward, one step at a time, on the snow-covered ground.
As long as we have the Fa in our hearts, Teacher takes care of us at every moment, whenever we have trouble, suffer persecution, or cannot let go of our human attachments. How many of us really believe this one hundred percent? If we could truly believe this, we will have reached a different plane of thought, indeed.
While we were lost in the delusion that is ordinary society, the truth was hidden from us before. Before we became Falun Dafa practitioners, we were just like everyone else. We did not believe in gods and fought for fame, self-interest, and human sentiment, and we gladly went on doing it. The things we did in our past caused the deterioration of our moral values to a dangerous state. When we truly started to practice Falun Gong, Teacher opened up our long-sealed wisdom so that we could distinguish good from evil. We possess the supernormal abilities that the great Fa gave us long ago. But why are we still sometimes stuck at the level of "Seeing is believing; no seeing, no believing" ("Why One Cannot See" in Essentials for Further Advancement ) and cannot move beyond this trap that the old forces arranged for us?
Once, while I was printing out Dafa materials, I was studying the Fa. When I finished the printing, I saw a little boy run down from the printer, kneel down in front of me, and listen to me reading the Fa. At that moment, I realized that the beings in other dimensions are longing to assimilate to the Fa. We, as practitioners, are so lucky. We have plenty of time in this human world to study the Fa and do the exercises, but we are not diligently cultivating because we are so mired in our human attachments. Another time I was sending forth righteous thoughts for my fellow practitioners who had been persecuted and were detained in a hospital. For an instant, I didn't want to continue. Suddenly, I saw many dirty, evil beings crawling around in the hallway. The scene I saw helped me focus on sending forth righteous thoughts until all those evil beings were eliminated. I felt that my inborn enlightenment quality was very poor. After cultivating for so many years, I'm still a "low-level practitioner" ("Why One Cannot See" ub Essentials for Further Advancement ). I still couldn't firmly believe that the Fa grants us boundless power.
Some practitioners enjoy reading stories about reincarnation and others are interested in what practitioners see with their celestial eyes. The reason for this is that they like to strengthen their belief with what other practitioners see. Teacher has told us everything about the highest level Fa. If we cannot assimilate to the Fa during our cultivation, could we ever reach Consummation that way? A fellow practitioner told me: "If a policeman tells me that he will arrest me if I continue practicing Falun Gong, I believe he will." But he couldn't totally believe what Teacher said: "Disciples' righteous thoughts are strong, Master has the power to turn the tide."("The Master-Disciple Bond" from Hong Yin II) Why is that so? It is because the eyes "clearly" see the evil of this world, but didn't see Teacher. So, wasn't he deceived by this false image? If a disciple cannot completely believe in Teacher, then how can he or she negate the persecution and save sentient beings?
"With things that manifest in the human realm it's hard to tell what's true and what's false, the true state of the cosmos isn't allowed to show itself, and the special states of Dafa disciples that set them apart from the world's people cannot be completely displayed. After all, it's cultivation in the maze--it's about cultivating in that kind of state and breaking free from it." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Atlanta Fa Conference")
- If we saw a demon standing behind the policeman who is torturing Dafa disciples and controlling this policeman with its stick, we will realize how pitiful this person is. How could we then still have the attachments to fear and revenge?
- If we could see that our own world is getting dark and wasting away and that the beings in our world are being destroyed, would we still be afraid of this false manifestation of the evil and not dare to clarify the facts to people?
- If we could see the beings from other dimensions kneeling down to take the informational materials about Falun Gong from us, wouldn't we cherish each and every piece of this material?
- If we could see those giant snakes attacking us in other dimensions, would we still find it so hard to send righteous thoughts at night?
- If we could see our own bodies being tortured by the demons of lust and struggling on the edge of hell, would we still make such mistakes and have prohibited sexual relations?
- If we could see an ordinary person teetering on the edge of elimination because he refuses to see the truth, would we still be moved by this person's bad attitude and start an argument?
During our cultivation, such tests are constant, and it is up to us to see through the falsehoods with our wisdom. Practitioners have been following Teacher's requirements to do the three things well in clarifying the facts about the persecution of Falun Gong and offering salvation to human beings. But, do we truly know what the truth is? The truth is, when we are clarifying the facts to people, an enlightened being with boundless radiance, having all of the Buddha Fa's divine powers, is eliminating the evil communist spirit that is occupying an ordinary person's mind and body. We do this with the greatest compassion, which can melt steel, to help the being recover its inborn nature and to help the countless beings make it to the new cosmos.
The old forces have arranged illusions to stop practitioners from offering salvation to human beings. Everyday people have been lost in the delusion of ordinary society. When practitioners tell them that they will be destroyed if they don't withdraw from the CCP, their human notions try to prevent them from accepting the facts because their true selves have been buried for so long. If we cannot use our wisdom that we have gained from cultivation to break through this, we will not be able to clarify the facts effectively. We have to follow Teacher's words, and only then will we remain unmoved by human notions and thus save sentient beings with the greatest patience.
These are some of my personal understandings. Please kindly point out anything improper.