Greetings esteemed Teacher! Greetings fellow practitioners!
I'm honored to share my limited understanding of righteous thoughts and righteous faith with you, and my cultivation experiences when faced with demonic tribulations.
In July 2004, I coordinated the very first "Uncompromising Spirit" art exhibit in Washington, D.C. Because it was the beginning of the worldwide art exhibit, everything had to be developed from scratch. We had to name each painting, arrange the display most aesthetically and develop effective advertisement and introductory materials.
One evening I felt that I finally had come up with a workable plan. I thought I'd sleep over it and put it down on paper the next morning. However, I woke up with stomach cramps at about 2:00 a.m. It was quite uncomfortable, but I decided to ignore it and sleep some more. However, it became worse. I felt as if a ton of stones were stuffed in my chest. I sat up to send forth righteous thoughts.
Yet I was very clear-minded. I knew that demons from other dimensions were interfering. They tried to stop the art exhibit. I remembered a story I heard two days earlier about a fellow practitioner's mother in China. To flee from the building where she was imprisoned, she jumped out of the window and injured her pelvis. She thought, "I refuse to acknowledge the injury on my left pelvis because it is forced upon me by the evil. The injury on my right pelvis may result from my own karma. I must endure it." As it turned out, her left pelvis healed completely, while her right pelvis remained injured.
At that time, I asked Teacher to reinforce my righteous thoughts. I also refused to acknowledge the evil persecution against me. I woke up my husband who is also a Falun Gong practitioner, and asked him to send forth righteous thoughts for me. However, he told me it was my body adjusting and I should endure it, instead of eliminating it. His words made me feel even worse. I no longer had the strength and time to argue with him. I stood up and tried to practice the exercises. Suddenly my entire body was hit by excruciating pain. I couldn't even stand up straight. I had labored breathing and my body was bathed in sweat. Stiffness of my body and intense pain grew stronger by the second. I was certain that a powerful force from other dimensions was trying to kill me.
While I continued to deny the evil's persecution, I struggled to get downstairs to the room where we had placed a giant-size photo of Teacher. Then, I called a veteran practitioner who had cultivated diligently. I asked him and his wife to send forth righteous thoughts for me. At the moment when I had asked for help, I felt as if half of the stones had lifted off my body. While sitting before Teacher's photo, I felt that the entire weight had been lifted off me. Sitting in front of Teacher's photo, I felt enveloped in a wonderful energy field. It happened so quickly and ended so miraculously. I stayed in that room until morning. I no longer experienced the symptoms and the art exhibit ended with success. The situation was like what Master said in Hong Yin II: "When disciples have ample righteous thoughts, Master has the power to turn back the tide" ("The Master-Disciple Bond", provisional translation subject to improvement)
Even the most powerful demon is powerless in front of Teacher.
This experience taught me a valuable lesson. We must support fellow practitioners suffering from demonic tribulations. We must give genuine righteous support and help them eliminate demonic interferences. We must not pass judgment, because it will only worsen their tribulations.
I helped and coordinated one major Dafa project last year. After the project finished, I felt as if drained of all physical and mental energy. At work, I stared blankly at my computer. Then, one day I received an email accusing me. My heart was moved and felt being wronged and unfair. At that moment, I felt many bad things were pushed down from other dimensions. Then I immediately began to sneeze. The next day, I experienced bad flu symptoms. My entire body was in pain. I was unable to leave my bed. It was as if I was discharging a lot of karma. It was as if the old forces were testing my will and faith. I sent forth righteous thoughts and listened to Teacher's Fa lectures, but I did not get better. I thought, "I shall never acknowledge the evil's persecution" At my worst moment, I was ready to take medicine. But, I immediately remembered that medicine has no power over karma. Besides, my body has been cleansed. I must not use medicine to pollute my body. The third evening, a practitioner called and heard my husky voice. She told me that lately many practitioners had been suffering the same symptoms. She suggested that it was the evil specter of the CCP attacking me. She suggested that I target it when I sent forth righteous thoughts. I immediately followed her advice. The next morning, I felt better. I got out off bed. That evening my voice returned and I attended the TV interview.
In several months after this project, I felt physically and mentally exhausted. In the past I could drive to and from New York City the same day. Now, I couldn't even drive one-way by myself. I felt partitions between practitioners increasing. I felt the evil specter in other dimensions were very powerful and created a lot of tribulations. My physical strength was affected. I got speeding tickets. It was very hard to proceed with the Dafa work. I felt as though I was under the evils' spell. The demons in other dimension used our attachments to drive a wedge between practitioners. They stopped us from forming the powerful one-body. At that time, besides intensifying studying the Fa, doing the exercises and sending righteous thoughts for adjusting myself, I felt I had nothing to deal with them.
A fellow practitioner told me that I didn't have enough faith in Teacher and overestimated the evil. She told me that the evils are completely powerless in front of Teacher. I searched within and realized that I felt unfairly treated and I grieved because I wanted to protect myself from harm. I was worried about my reputation. Now, I understood why the evils could exploit me. Teacher said,
"Amidst the complex environment of everyday people and its interpersonal xinxing frictions, you are able to rise above and beyond¡V¡Vthis is the most difficult thing. It is hard in that you knowingly lose your vested interests among everyday people. Amidst your critical self-interests, are you moved? Amidst interpersonal mindgames, are you moved? When your friends or family suffer, are you moved? How do you weigh them? This is how difficult it is to be a practitioner!" ("Whoever Practices Cultivation Will Attain Gong" in Lecture Eight of Zhuan Falun)
As a matter of fact, I checked inwards while I felt the negative thoughts from some practitioners, I found myself also holding negative thoughts towards them. I did not go beyond the level of Inter-generation and Inter- Inhibition. Later, I heard the other practitioners also suffered a lot. I felt sad about this. Back then, if I could think more from the others' point of view, if I had more tolerance, if I could endure more while being wronged, if we could share more understandings on the Fa, if I dealt with the problems with a cultivator's mentality, instead of a working mentality, there would not a loophole for the evil to take advantage of. What happened is because my cultivation state did not catch up with the Fa-rectification's requirement.
In retrospect, I felt that I behaved when faced with demonic tribulation exactly as Teacher said in "A Dialogue with Time":
"[...] they always compare themselves with humans and with their own past, but fail to examine themselves with the requirements of the Fa at different levels."
Often, I avoided conflicts because I didn't want to be responsible for a rift between practitioners. I would feel bad about it. Therefore, I deferred to practitioners, forgot about their actions and tried to avoid conflicts at all cost. I also did Dafa work like an ordinary person, limiting my understanding on the superficial levels of things and arguing if they were correct or not. I did not take every opportunity to cultivate solidly like a genuine cultivator. I failed to look within and find where I was not within the Fa. I failed to follow the Fa and upgrade my cultivation level. I have missed many opportunities to cultivate myself.
That project presented many opportunities and a great cultivation environment. Different people may have the different feeling towards the same thing. This created a cultivation environment to target our attachments for us to upgrade our cultivation levels. If only we could see past the superficial right and wrong, we would be able to see our own inadequacies and the Fa's requirements.
Teacher has pointed out some of our collective problems in cultivation practice in recent Fa lectures. The Fa-rectification has very high expectations for all of us. We must fulfill all responsibilities, do every Dafa project well and complete our mission. We must respond to conflicts and difficulties like cultivators and cultivate ourselves well. Many of the problems we encounter are caused by practitioners who have not caught up with the progress of the Fa-rectification. It is Teacher's compassion why we have the honor of participating in Dafa projects to save sentient beings in his Fa-rectification. The Fa gave us our abilities to fulfill such an important mission. Teacher gave us these abilities for us to upgrade our cultivation levels while applying these abilities.
This April Hu Jintao visited Washington, D.C. In the week after his visit, I experienced symptoms similar to hay fever. I sneezed repeatedly and had itchy eyes every morning. I immediately spent more time on studying the Fa, practicing the exercises and sending forth righteous thoughts. A week later, the symptoms disappeared. I heard that other practitioners experienced the same symptoms. We believed that they were caused by evil elements from other dimensions. When top CCP leaders travel overseas, they bring with them many evil elements in other dimensions. When we sent forth righteous thoughts, we could eliminate these evil spirits.
A practitioner in Washington, D.C. told me his experience of sending forth righteous thoughts near the head evil of the CCP in Malta in July 2001. At that time Malta police asked everyone to move back repeatedly. Instead of fighting for a few meters of distance closer to the head evil, they cooperated with the police. There were only six Falun Gong practitioners. They put the banners on the ground, sat down and sent forth righteous thoughts. Together they emitted a powerful energy field that affected the public around them. When the head evil was passing by, these people raised the banners for them. Dafa practitioners' powerful righteous thoughts led everyday people to eliminate the evil and clarify the truth together. It was a touching moment.
Based on our past lessons and experiences, coordinators in Washington, D.C. decided not to shout slogans this time. We would quietly sent forth righteous thoughts so that the Chinese people hired to welcome Hu Jintao would witness our compassion and peace and might change their opinion of Falun Gong. If we shouted like them, we would become like them and we might all be competitive. We would bring out their fighting nature and cause them to become tools of the evil CCP. We wouldn't be able to save them by shouting.
When I arrived at the White House, nothing took place as we had planned. I saw our protest banners and the CCP's welcoming banners mixed together. Both parties were shouting through the speakers on top of their lungs. Not many Falun Gong practitioners were sending righteous thoughts. At the time I felt I should sit down and send forth righteous thoughts, but I finally decided to join others and shout slogans. Afterwards, we discussed the situation. We agreed that we should have played the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party on the speakers and focused on sending forth righteous thoughts.
Personal cultivation practice is different from Fa-rectification cultivation practice. In personal cultivation, we respond to everything from the individual's point of view with a goal to upgrade our cultivation level. In Fa-rectification cultivation practice, we must regard assisting Teacher in the Fa-rectification and saving sentient beings as our goal. We upgrade our levels in the process of harmonizing better with what Teacher plans. The causes of interferences and tribulations are very complicated. Some are caused by our personal attachments. Some are interferences from other dimensions. Some are caused by our strong attachments of relying on the ordinary people and attachment of time, expecting some VIPs and media to make the big change. The evil forces target individual practitioners due to our collective loopholes. Fa-rectification is controlled by Teacher. The present time is for practitioners to improve ourselves and to save sentient beings. We rectify ourselves and walk straight our path while assisting Teacher for the Fa-rectification and saving sentient being. This process is very important since it will be the reference left for the future.
Teacher points out in the article "Walk Straight Your Path" that
"Don't let the pursuit of some particular goal cause you to ignore the meaning of a Dafa disciple's existence. In fact, making progress in one's own cultivation is a part of the process of saving beings. Saving beings, improving yourself, and resisting the persecution are all acts that validate the Fa; only walking straight your path amounts to validating the Fa."
Dafa practitioners are one-body. Given the progress of the Fa-rectification, the Dafa work has become very large in scope and has a very wide impact. We should look beyond individual cultivation and evaluate everything from the perspective of one-body. We should place ourselves within the one-body and search within. We should not simply judge practitioners or incidents from outside the one-body. We should look at our actions from within this one-body. We need to find as to how far we are falling behind the Fa's requirements. Many problems we are facing are testing the one-body. To solve problems, we must build powerful righteous thoughts, transcend our self, eliminate gaps and partitions between us, and harmonize with one another. We must attain a state that Teacher described in Lecture Eight of Zhuan Falun:
"In the end, thousands of energy channels will join together and turn one's body into one without any energy channels or acupuncture points; they will join together to make one whole body. This is the ultimate purpose of opening energy channels." ("Heavenly Circuit" in Lecture Eight of Zhuan Falun)
This concludes my understanding of righteous thoughts and righteous actions. Please, if you find anything not within the Fa, share it with me compassionately.
Thank you, Teacher. Thank you, fellow practitioners.
