(Clearwisdom.net) For some time, when I clarified the truth the effect was not good. It always led to controversies with others and sometimes we even parted in discord. Of course there were also some objective reasons from external circumstances. Formerly, we only clarified the truth about Dafa which was a little simpler. But now we have touched upon the essence of the evil party, and therefore the evil wants to disturb and interfere with us. But I think as Dafa disciples, we should not use this as an excuse for not doing well in clarifying the truth. We still need to upgrade our xinxing. Through looking within, I noticed that I have several attachments which I will discuss here.
The first one is my heart for competition. Normally, when clarifying the truth, we should not enter into an argument with others, but we should truly wish other people well. In the process of clarifying the truth, if the person I was talking to used provocative speech, my competitive heart would become aroused. Among ordinary people I was a good speaker and quite eloquent. So I had the attachment of competition in this respect. Therefore when I met the same kind of person as I, we would have an interaction which looked as if we were having a debate. Sometimes, when we argued and then changed the original subject, we still continued to debate. So this definitely influenced the effect of my truth clarification.
The second attachment was my heart of pursuing results. Each time I clarified the truth, I wanted to persuade that person and transform their way of thinking. When I noticed that the other party still persisted in holding on to his or her original opinion even after I had explained quite a lot, I started to lose patience and feel upset. Sometimes I even irritated the person. In fact, for everyone who has heard the truth, each time they hear the truth some of bad notions can be dispelled. The effect may not be obvious immediately. Therefore we just do the things we should do and we must not be influenced by the outer expression of others. Pursuing results too much is also an attachment.
The third attachment was my communication style. My friend mentioned to me that every time I spoke to others my tone of voice always sounded commanding. It seemed as though I was lecturing people and in addition, I was impatient when listening to other people. I always interrupted others when they were speaking, and therefore these people did not want to listen to me. Before he told me about these deficiencies, I had never realized that other people thought of me that way. After that, I reviewed what he said and took it to heart. I found out that besides me, a lot of other Dafa practitioners had the exact same problem. We have learned the principles of the universe, so regarding ordinary people's things we usually expressed contempt and intolerance, which would in turn drive people away. At this point, I realized that it was not only the problem of not conforming to the way of ordinary people to the greatest extent but also a problem concerning elation and zealotry.
After I realized my attachments, I also read some articles by fellow practitioners about their truth clarification. Finally, I summed up several new understandings. The first was that we need to send forth righteous thoughts both before and during the process of truth clarification. A lot of people who did not know the truth are interfered with by the evil factors in other dimensions. Therefore, utilizing righteous thoughts in order to eliminate the evil was the key point in helping them understand the truth. We are cultivators, so we all understand that when we clarify the truth the effect will not be completely expressed in this dimension. Sometimes we feel that what we say is quite persuasive, but the other party still does not accept it. Sometimes several simple words may lead people to agree to resign from the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) and its affiliated organizations immediately. The second realization was that our basic starting point must be correct. We do not want to just tell them, but we want people to really understand the truth. Our basic standpoint should be that of saving people; it's not about how we feel. Once we realize this, the heart of competition will no longer exist and we can be calm and conscientious. We will not be influenced by the other people's expressions, and will not get involved in senseless arguments. We can also manage the direction of the conversation. The third understanding was that we need to pay attention to our speech by using a polite tone and speaking as softly as possible. Avoid using bitter words and carefully watch the other person's expression to determine what he or she might be thinking. If we can determine that person's attachment, we can use a different approach and build better communication. Of course we need to use different approaches with different people and we cannot force our opinion upon others. We have to take the viewpoint of the opposite party and take their feelings into account. In fact, if we cannot do this then that is a problem and lack of benevolence. The more benevolent our hearts are, the more people we can save.
"Mercy can dissolve heaven and earth, bringing about spring, Righteous thought may save people in the world" (Hong Yin II, provisional translation)
After I had figured out the problems mentioned above, I thought that this time there should be no problem for me to clarify the truth. But what upset me each time when I wanted to talk to my classmates or friends when they got together and had a party, was that I never achieved the three items mentioned above. At the beginning, I was able to keep a peaceful mind and have a calm and sensible talk with them. Yet as the topic got hot and we had deep discussions, I talked very rapidly, became completely argumentative, and forgot to maintain righteous thoughts. One time I was almost kicked out by others. They said, "If you two still want to continue the quarrel, you can leave, but we want to have peace and quiet now." I was really upset. Offering salvation to sentient beings is truly a holy thing to do, but I was not successful. Why was I not able to find and get rid of the problems?
Maybe Master was watching me when I was feeling so sad, and he pointed out this section of Fa to me:
"But sometimes, because we don't keep up our Fa-study, we handle like an ordinary person some of the things we do to spread the Fa and save sentient beings. This makes a lot of the sacred things we do not so sacred, it prevents us from doing them well, and it also causes people in society not to understand us sometimes. So it not only prevents you from improving, but also causes Dafa some losses." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Boston")
It turned out to be a problem of not enough Fa-study. During that time I had a great deal of homework from school and I also was busy doing Dafa work. Therefore, I seldom calmed down and studied the Fa. I did realize this problem at that time, but did not break through it. Because I did not break through this problem and did not study the Fa, I did not do well the three things of Dafa. No wonder the effect was that bad; it was like an everyday person doing Dafa work.
The interference regarding my studying the Fa was that each day I wanted to hurry up and finish the other things I had to do and then hasten to study the Fa. But the result was that those other things used up most of my time, so I had little or no time to study the Fa. In fact, I knew that if I peacefully studied the Fa first, the other things would be accomplished with half the effort. I did not know why, but as soon as I wanted to study the Fa, the inspiration of doing other things would appear in my brain, and thus I would do them immediately, and it took me the entire day. Previously, I always thought it was inspiration given by Dafa. I never worried about interference that could prevent me from studying the Fa. I never thought about eliminating it, and therefore I never overcame it. In fact, there are various forms of interference with our Fa-study, so we must have a clear understanding of it, and we must remember that nothing should interfere with our Fa-study. Today I am writing it down in order to eliminate all the evil factors that want to stop me from studying the Fa. As long as we can truly and calmly study the Fa, I believe that clarifying the truth will then be accomplished naturally.
Additionally during the recent period, we all felt that it was difficult to peacefully study the Fa. When we read the Dafa books the impression was quite superficial. I thought it must be time for me to memorize the Fa. During different phases, the Fa has different requirements for us. Do not let the concepts of human beings confuse us and delay our steps. Many practitioners started to memorize the Fa during the first few days. They then felt that it was impossible for them to succeed and gave up. In fact, memorizing the Fa is also something we need to do without having a desire for accomplishment. Therefore, do not pay too much attention to whether or not you can memorize it and recite it. Continue memorizing the Fa paragraph by paragraph and the effect will be better than just reading it. Memorizing the Fa is not easy but it can be done.
February 23, 2006
