(Clearwisdom.net) Recently in our local area several young practitioners in their forties died from illnesses. Their deaths have had a certain negative impact on saving sentient beings. I would like to share my understandings.
Practitioner A lost his eyesight due to the brutal torture he suffered in a forced labor camp. He persisted in studying the Fa and practicing the exercises after he was released, and he quickly regained his eyesight. He did the three things, but he was not very diligent. He ultimately died from illnesses.
Practitioner B served two forced labor terms. The second time he endured extremely cruel torture. When he was near death, the forced labor camp feared the consequences and let his family take him home before he completed his term. Afterwards, he was very diligent for a while and actively did the three things. However, he also recently died from illnesses.
Out of fear, Practitioner C gave up practicing Falun Dafa after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started the persecution of Falun Dafa in July 20, 1999. She became a Buddhist. However, neither Buddhism nor the hospital could save her from her illness. She returned to practicing Falun Dafa. With Teacher's compassionate care, she realized that what she did was wrong and indicated that she would practice cultivation steadfastly. Nevertheless, she still lost her life due to her illnesses.
After July 20, 1999, Practitioner D practiced Falun Dafa at home off and on because he was scared. He also died from illnesses. When he was receiving treatment in a hospital, he asked his family to send for practitioners. He expressed his wish to return to practicing Falun Dafa. To this day I still cannot forget the look on his face at the time: the sorrow and regret, not wanting to give up Dafa, yet feeling helpless.
When the practitioners mentioned above were in need of the support of righteous thoughts while they were in tribulation, I went to see them all. My realization was that Fa-rectification cultivation is serious. In this special environment of clarifying the truth and saving sentient beings, we should not neglect to improve our personal cultivation. We should not consider it interference or persecution whenever we encounter a conflict. When there is interference, we do need to eliminate it. Meanwhile, we should evaluate things according to Teacher's Fa, search inside ourselves, look for human mindsets, attachments, or postnatal notions, and eliminate them. We should rectify all unrighteous and deviated elements and assimilate with Dafa.
Teacher said in Zhuan Falun, "Whenever there is interference of one kind or another in qigong practice, you should look for reasons within yourself and determine what you still have not let go."
My understanding is that in our daily life we should be strict with ourselves. In our cultivation, when we need to improve ourselves while staying at a certain level, the conflicts in our family, society, or even among fellow practitioners are tests for us, just like admission tests for students. We should face them calmly and should not avoid them. We must use Dafa as our guide to search for our attachments and cultivate them away accordingly. Otherwise, we will encounter new tests before we even pass an old one. Too many attachments enable the evil to survive. Consequently, the attachments were exploited by the evil and brought losses to Dafa. This is a deep and difficult lesson.
Teacher has already made arrangements for our Fa-rectification path and has also taught us the Fa. It is up to us how we walk the path Teacher has arranged for us and how we attain righteous enlightenment with selflessness and altruism in the new cosmos. On the issue of how to help fellow practitioners who experience tribulation, some practitioners think that those practitioners can only count on themselves. So many people in the world need us to offer them salvation, how can we spend so much time on those practitioners? The believe that external factors do not play a major role and that it is up to a fellow practitioner to make it through a tribulation.
I'm not saying these practitioners are wrong. I think practitioners who experienced tribulation did have human attachments or some historical background, and their loopholes were therefore exploited. If we evaluate things according to Teacher's Fa, our cultivation form in human society has been arranged by Teacher, and Teacher is looking after us. We are not afraid that we have attachments. We will constantly recognize them and cultivate them away as we study the Fa so that we can meet Dafa's standard. The old forces and all the evil elements are not qualified to use excuses to test or persecute Dafa practitioners. Moreover, when the evil persecutes a single practitioner, isn't it a persecution against our one whole body?
Teacher said, "When two people have a conflict and a third person sees it, even that third person should think about whether there are any problems on his part--'Why did I happen to see it?'" ("Teaching the Fa at the Eastern U.S. Fa Conference")
Shouldn't every practitioner look inside himself? When you went to a fellow practitioner's home to study the Fa and send righteous thoughts, did you think it was troublesome? Did you use the Fa to gauge the practitioner's shortcomings, or feel anxious and helpless when you saw the practitioner could not elevate to a higher level? If every practitioner who went to help was even a little bit like that, could the fellow practitioner elevate to a higher level?
I had this kind of experience. When I saw a fellow practitioner was not able to elevate to a higher level and was painfully enduring something he was not supposed to endure, I said to myself, "Fellow practitioners have had very clear discussions with you, and Teacher has taught the Fa so clearly. Why can't you just move up?" When I got home, I said to Teacher, "Teacher, what should I do? I did not live up to Teacher's expectations or my fellow practitioner's expectations." I remember the look on the fellow practitioner's face, how he hoped that I could help. As I write this article, I can't help but shed tears of regret. I feel sorry that I let the practitioner down.
I looked inward and realized that I had a selfish mind. I did not consider those practitioners' troubles as mine and was not compassionate to them from the bottom of my heart. I thought that I had already gone to visit them and other practitioners would go see them, too. I did not put a lot of thought into it, and I failed to deal with their tribulations with righteous thoughts.
From this experience, I realized that not only should we be compassionate to sentient beings, we should also be compassionate to fellow practitioners around us and cherish them. We are all particles arranged by Teacher to assist Teacher in the Fa-rectification of the human world, and not a single particle should be omitted. When there are conflicts in practitioners' coordinated efforts to validate the Fa, we should not criticize or blame each other, nor should we create gaps. We should evaluate things based on the Fa and kindly point out fellow practitioners' shortcomings. Through experience sharing, we can rise together, meet the standard of the Fa, form an indestructible whole body, disintegrate all evil elements in other dimensions that interfere with the Fa-rectification, save more sentient beings, and be worthy of Teacher's boundless grace.
The above is my understanding at my level. Fellow practitioners, please correct me if there is anything improper.
