(Clearwisdom Net) Teacher says in Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Boston, "A Dafa disciple should put the Fa first in everything he does--whenever you evaluate something you have to consider the Fa first."
In the past, I only superficially understood the meaning of "put the Fa first." In my opinion, each and every one of my thoughts was for Dafa and so I should insist that others do what I thought to be the best way of doing things. Only then could I achieve the best results and safeguard Dafa better. Otherwise, I wasn't maintaining the principles. This human way of thinking often brought conflicts and disputes in working with others. As a result, we missed the opportunities that had been arranged by Teacher for us to improve. It also brought damage to Dafa.
Recently, we have been sending forth righteous thoughts in front of the Chinese consulate 24 hours a day for 9 successive days. The practitioners around me had some disputes at the location. I wasn't involved, but I calmly thought over what happened and looked within myself. When I found my problems, I suddenly understood the deeper meaning of "put the Fa first."
Teacher says in Dafa Is All-Encompassing, "... the Fa is all-powerful, and with everything it is perfectly all-encompassing." When we have a righteous mind and pure heart, that is, to do things without any attachments and have a firm belief in Dafa and Teacher, the perfectly all-encompassing power of Dafa will be revealed. On the contrary, when we stubbornly hold to our own ideas and struggle to do things well, usually we cannot do it well at all. In fact, when we stubbornly hold to our own ideas and argue with others, we value our own ability more than Dafa, or we fail to realize that how Dafa accomplishes things is different from how everyday people do. In order to accomplish extraordinary things, we ought to follow extraordinary principles. This requires that whenever we "evaluate something we have to consider the Fa first."
"Do but pursue not, Often stay in the Dao." ("In the Dao," Hong Yin)
My understanding of this is that only when we melt into the Fa will we have the all-encompassing power of Dafa. As long as we do not stick to strong personal attachments and keep the calm, peaceful, and benevolent mind of a practitioner, we will always do Dafa work well. In fact everything is done through the great power of Dafa. Teacher is helping us do it all. The key to melting into the Fa is to replace human principles with the Fa principles. In order to do that, we have to continuously study the Fa.
November 6, 2002