(Clearwisdom.net)
Be Compassionate When Taking Security Precautions with Fellow Practitioners
A fellow practitioner once asked me something about making truth-clarifying materials, but I did not tell him what he wanted to know for security reasons. I then didn't feel very well but did not know why. Later, when I by chance asked another practitioner about making truth-clarifying materials, he was very unhappy about it and maintained that he was taking precautions. I felt very uncomfortable at the time, but I also felt that he had not done anything wrong as he was being responsible to Dafa.
Recently, when I was meditating, I suddenly enlightened to the situation. We were both wrong, as both of our hearts were taking precautions against others and there were elements of distrustful antipathy instead of compassion. I asked myself, "What made us unwilling to tell fellow practitioners things about the truth-clarifying materials production site?" One reason was to be responsible for the site, which was also to be responsible to the Fa, but another reason was for the benefit of the fellow practitioner. If he does not cultivate his speech well or is forced by the evil to speak out about the materials production site, then he might obtain a large amount of karma.
When we choose not to tell fellow practitioners such information for these two reasons, this is demonstrating great compassion towards the fellow practitioners. We were doing things in the safest way, according to security guidelines. However, we did not treat our fellow practitioners with special respect. I realized that the reason that I felt uncomfortable was because I was "distrustful" instead of kind and respectful. It was not the taking of precautions that made me feel badly, it was my lack of compassion.
Stop Blaming Myself
I have made mistakes that I regarded as very serious during my individual cultivation. Afterwards, however hard I tried, I was unable to start to cultivate diligently again, which puzzled me. Later, I decided that this situation was created by the evil that controlled my thought karma and that I had simply failed to conquer it. I was determined not to let it control me and not to acknowledge it. I wanted to do well and I can do well; I must be able to conquer the evil. Since then, I have stopped blaming myself. I have seen other practitioners also continuing to blame themselves for a long time about past mistakes, and I have been very worried about them. While it is true that we made mistakes, it is not that we no longer have chances to cultivate. Master is giving us opportunities. If we give up the opportunity, then we will indeed be trapped by the evil.
Master said:
"I told him that he was wrong, and then he got stuck in a state of self-blame. He has gone to the other extreme and become attached to it. Demons then also took advantage of this incorrect thinking of his and are interfering with him." ("Lecture at the Australia Fa Conference," 1999, draft translation)
In "Teaching the Fa at the 2004 International Fa Conference in New York," Master said:
"The evil will capitalize on your emotion to aggravate its persecution of you and will cause your desires and attachments to be particularly strong, to the point where you can't handle yourselves well and will take an evil path. Master has seen that. If you can walk your path well and cultivate well, that sin will belong to the evil. But if you still don't walk your path well, that sin will be your own."
In "Touring North America to Teach the Fa," Master said:
"Their surfaces are manipulated by evil beings and have been driven to do some bad things--which is because they have attachments that have been taken advantage of by the evil beings--so I will extract Dafa disciples' original natures. Meanwhile, both the old forces who arranged that Dafa disciples' surfaces would be manipulated to do bad things, and those evil beings who've been used by the old forces to directly persecute Dafa, will be stripped of their Attainment Statuses and be stripped of all their abilities. They'll be thrust into the parts of the human bodies of those Dafa disciples, who were persecuted by them, which are made up of karma and all kinds of postnatally-acquired notions, and that part of the human body will be eliminated in the metabolic process--that is, the part that was taken advantage of by them--and after they are thrust into it, they will go down to hell together. This is because the bad things are really done by the old forces using the evil beings and manipulating people's karma and notions. They cause such disciples of mine to return the same way they came, but to not bring anything back; meanwhile, when they return, the gigantic cosmic bodies they represent will be empty and will no longer have all the beings that used to be there. Since they didn't cultivate well, everything will have turned bad and been weeded out, and it can only be re-created."
The Mighty Virtue of Dafa Was Bestowed upon Disciples
When the Fa-rectification cultivation started, I had a strong attachment of fear. As a result I thought to myself, "Master said that, once the tremendous wave of Fa-rectification is passed, those beings against Dafa will be eliminated, so we need to clarify the truth to save the sentient beings. But I won't be safe if I do that. Why can't we save or eliminate the beings with the wisdom and mighty power of Dafa? Then we don't have to clarify the truth and save people by taking the risk?" Because of this thought, I was always watching and was unable to truly cultivate diligently during Fa-rectification. By comprehensively studying the Fa, I gradually came to understand that there is a reason why we have been called "Dafa disciples." This title is about being responsible for the Fa, and it is the most honorable title in the universe. To put it more clearly, the Fa has the power and the wisdom, but this power and wisdom were bestowed upon us by Dafa, and, accordingly, have allowed us to let us become a particle of it.
In "Teaching the Fa at the 2004 Chicago Conference," Master said,
"Such a path has been arranged for you because there are such factors in the cosmos, which have been given to you, and you are entrusted to walk that path." "You have failed to live up to the great trust placed in you by the cosmos, and that's no minor thing."
The Fa Principles Permeate All, from the Top to the Bottom
When I am clarifying the truth of Dafa, non-practitioners often ask me, "One will be saved if he says Dafa is good. Why?" Recently, many people are also asking, "One will be eliminated if he says the Communist Party is good. Why?" I was unable to explain it clearly using human reasoning, because I was unsure whether people could accept it if I talked about something at too high a level.
In Zhuan Falun, Master said,
"...it indicates that this person can be saved and can distinguish good from bad...."
I enlightened to the understanding that it is the prerequisite for whether one can be saved or not. If one cannot distinguish good from bad, he is unworthy of being a human, as humans have standards that must be followed.
I enlightened to the understanding that "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance" is the essential moral standard of the human world. If, after understanding the truth, a person still denies it, then he or she is absolutely not a good person. In plain language, if one defames the best and likes the worst, one is no longer worthy of being a human and will just be one of those to be eliminated by the Fa. This standard reflects the greatest compassion towards sentient beings.
From the deities' perspective, one's attitude towards Fa-rectification is the standard to judge whether one will be eliminated or not. People may not be able to understand if we explain it this way. However, the Fa permeates the human level, and we can help sentient beings to understand.
Master said,
"Dafa can save people and can create everything in the cosmos. It has Fa-principles for different levels. The Fa-principles at each level are connected to the entire Fa, from top to bottom, from inside to outside and from microscopic to macroscopic; they're all inter-connected. The principles are also independently connected within each level. So speaking from any perspective, this Fa is harmonious, can be discussed clearly, is indestructible, and everything can be perfectly explained based on the principles. Because it created the cosmos, it can certainly demonstrate with perfection the fact that the Truth is omnipresent and omnipotent." ("Lecture on the Fa at the U.S. Midwest Conference," 1999)
Changes and Our Reaction
When clarifying the truth, we noticed that some non-practitioners around us had changed their attitude towards Dafa. These changes affected our desire to forge ahead diligently and save sentient beings. This told us that many of us still had the attachment of pursuing a result and that we were pursuing changes in ordinary people's attitudes towards Dafa. The old forces took advantage of this omission and interrupted us. Actually, we should focus on what we are supposed to do and not pursue a result. We do feel regret about the sentient beings who do not understand the greatness of Dafa. However, we should not confuse willfulness with Compassion, and be happy when we see a positive result and frustrated if we don't. Would Buddhas and Bodhisattvas be like this?
What I would like to emphasize is that our idea of seeing "no change" is just our human feeling about not getting the desired reaction on the surface from sentient beings. We don't really know if they changed or not. At a deeper level, every non-practitioner represents a world with countless lives in it. Maybe many lives were saved when listening to our truth clarification, yet with Fa-rectification moving forward, many more lives still are waiting for you to tell them the truth one more time for them to be saved. As a result, the non-practitioner on the surface kept changing his attitude. The change does not mean that the lives that heard the truth were not saved last time, it just means there are more lives to be saved.
The Righteous Me
For a period of time, I was extremely busy with Dafa work. In order to ensure my Fa study time, I decided to change my habit of going to bed at midnight (after sending forth righteous thoughts) and getting up at 5 a.m. in the morning. I wanted to use one hour of sleep for Fa study.
Before obtaining the Fa, I had a strange problem: if I went to bed after 1 a.m. or got up before 4 a.m., I would get a fever. It was a test for me to change my sleeping habits. I told myself, "I am a Fa-rectification period Dafa disciple, I am not the old me anymore, the fever problem I used to have should not occur any more." I thought to myself that if the fever occurs, it must be the evil's interruption and I will not acknowledge it.
In the following days I suffered a minor fever, but it quickly went away since I completely denied it, telling myself it was the evil's interruption and not my true situation. Although I reduced my sleep time, I felt very energetic. However, I did not understand why I still had minor fevers. Later, I enlightened to the understanding that it was my thought of "If the fever occurs, it must be the evil's interruption and I will not admit it" that indirectly acknowledged the existence of evil forces and gave them room to interfere.
Many incidences we have encountered have raised similar issues. We must change our old notions and truly treat ourselves as gods. My understanding is that if we treat ourselves as human beings, we are human beings; if we treat ourselves as divine beings, we are divine beings. As a divine being in cultivation, we should clearly know what is our true self and what is not. For example, one day I had the thought, "My situation is not good today." Suddenly I realized that such a thought is incorrect. As a divine being, how could I have a situation that is not well? Any situation that is not well must be the evil's interruption. As soon as I was clear about this, my situation changed immediately, and I felt strong righteous thoughts. As another example, I suffered a joint pain for three years and could not sit with my legs crossed. Later, a fellow practitioner reminded me, "Just think of the pain as someone else, not you, and that you are a god." I sat with my legs crossed with such a thought, and the joint pain disappeared. I suggest that fellow practitioners read the Clearwisdom article, "Control Every Single Thought and Negate the Old Forces' Arrangements." (http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2005/5/19/60944.html)
Every single thought we have may bring many changes, some of which we do not even know about. I think we must pay attention to this issue as a whole body: we are divine beings! The stories in Part One of my article such as " Silently Accepting Interference," "The Death of a Chick," " The Door in the Human World versus the Righteous Thoughts of a God," and "Separation" also informed us about similar issues.
Above are my personal understandings at my current level. I shared them here to assist fellow practitioners in their cultivation. In the process of writing the article I felt I enlightened to more than I could completely express here. Please kindly point out any mistakes.
