(Minghui.org) I've learned to look inward, eliminate my attachments one after another, and upgrade my level. I am grateful to Master for enlightening and taking care of me in my cultivation.
Practitioner A from our practice site hadn't come to the Fa study group since she was released from the forced labor camp. Thinking that she might still feel some pressure and needed time to adjust, I asked a fellow practitioner who lived near her to go to her house once a week to study the Fa and share with her. Later on, I found out she had some resentment toward me. She said to the fellow practitioner: “When things are alright, everyone is good to each other. However, when something goes wrong, who cares about you? My mother asked her [ referring to me ] to visit me in the labor camp, but she refused, using various excuses.”
After listening to her words, I felt very hurt. How could she say this? My mind was restless. I couldn't concentrate on my Fa study or the exercises. I kept thinking about what had happened after Practitioner A was arrested: When she was taken to the police station she called me, and I wasn't sure what to do. I informed all the other practitioners in the area to send forth righteous thoughts for her. I also went online to expose the evil police who made the arrest. After that, I went to her house to discuss with her husband what we could do to facilitate her release.
Before I could say much, her husband stopped me and got very upset. He said, “If you weren't my classmate, I wouldn't open the door for you. You better leave me alone from now on. I won't open the door for you next time.” After I got home, I called Practitioner A's mother and asked her to take me along with her if she went to visit her daughter. I wanted to send forth righteous thoughts for her at close range. She said she would, and told me to wait at home. Her son would pick me up when she was ready. A few days later, she called me and said her son went on vacation. She asked me to wait patiently.
When I found out Practitioner A was released, at first I was very happy, but then regretted not having proactively initiated a plan to rescue her. Now, when she said, “When things are alright, everyone is good to each other. However, when something goes wrong, who cares about you?” I felt ashamed. I couldn't get out of this state for a long time. Later, through Fa study and looking inward, I found that I had a lot of attachments to fear, selfishness, pursuit of comfort, etc. I knew I had to get rid of these human attachments that the old forces used to isolate Dafa practitioners from each other. So I sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil elements. With the help of other practitioners, Practitioner A also started looking inward. Now, we have made up, and it is like nothing ever happened.
Practitioner B's face suddenly grew a lot of blisters. They swelled and began to ooze. The blisters spread to her hands, legs and other parts of her body. She stopped coming to the Fa study group, and complained that we didn't help her send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the interference. At the time, I thought she would study the Fa at home quietly and look inward to find what went wrong in her cultivation, and that her condition would soon improve. Two weeks later, she still didn't show up. One day, Practitioner B called and asked us to send forth righteous thoughts for her. I then knew she wasn't in good condition.
I started to look within after I came home from the Fa study. I didn't pay enough attention to Practitioner B, thinking that it had nothing to do with me and it was her job to look within. I also found out that I had the attachment of “saving face” because when I saw a gap between Practitioner B and Practitioner C, I didn't point it out to them, worrying that they would become unhappy with me. This was my human notion. After I found these attachments, I enlightened that if I upgrade my xinxing from these tribulations, not only would I raise my level, but other practitioners who were connected to these tribulations would also improve theirs.
So Practitioner C and I went to study the Fa and send forth righteous thoughts at Practitioner B's house. After Fa study, we shared our understandings with each other. I pointed out to Practitioner B how she seemed to get along with Practitioner C on the surface, but she still had a knot deep down in her heart. I asked her to look inward. Meanwhile, Practitioner C also looked inward. They found a lot of human attachments, such as jealousy, unwillingness to accept criticism, complaints about each other, pursuit of superficial beauty, etc. After they found the root cause of their attachments, one week later, Practitioner B came back to the group Fa study.
In “What is a Dafa Disciple”, Master said:
“When you meet with a conflict, it doesn’t matter whether you are in the right. You should be asking yourself, “What on my part isn’t right in this situation? Might it really be that there is something wrong on my part?” You should all be thinking this way, with your first thought being to scrutinize yourself to try to find the problem. Whoever is not like this is not in fact a true cultivator of Dafa. It is a magical tool in our cultivation. This is a distinguishing feature of our Dafa disciples’ cultivation. Whatever it is that you encounter, the first thought should be to scrutinize yourself, and it’s called “looking within.”
Now, I truly understand why looking within is a magical tool in one's cultivation.
From the Minghui website, I found out that Practitioner D, who lived nearby, was arrested by the local 610 Office and her home was ransacked. I told myself that I must learn a lesson from this experience. As a fellow practitioner, I had to proactively go to Practitioner D's house, comfort her family, and ask if I could do anything to help. As soon as this thought came, my attachment of fear surfaced, worrying that Practitioner D's family would not want to see me or hear what I had to say, that I wouldn't know what to say to them when I saw them, or that they would yell at me, etc. I didn't know why I was so fearful! Master taught us to look inward when encountering any conflict. I found that “fear” was derived from “selfishness.” When I changed my notion, and started thinking about putting Practitioner D and her family's interests first, the “fear” disappeared.
One day, I went to the market and saw Practitioner D's parents-in-law carrying a pumpkin. All of a sudden, I enlightened, “Isn't this Master hinting at me?” I had a lot of pumpkins at home.
I got one of our pumpkins and went to Practitioner D's house. Her mother-in-law opened the door for me. I politely introduced myself and told her I was her neighbor. Practitioner D's parents-in-law were very hospitable. They offered me some soup, and we chatted while eating. When our conversation shifted to their daughter-in-law, they started to get angry, saying how disobedient she was. They said that she used to be a government employee and had great fringe benefits. They just didn't know why she was so insistent on practicing Falun Gong.
I knew that they hadn't learned the truth yet, so I explained it to them. “It is not your daughter-in-law's fault. There's nothing wrong with exercising and keeping fit and trying to live by the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. It's the Chinese Communist Party's fault. They arrested your daughter-in-law and locked her up.” I encouraged them to talk to their son and come up with a way to rescue her. After they heard what I said, they changed their attitude, and agreed with me on how kind their daughter-in-law was and how bad the communist party was.
When I came back from Practitioner D's house, I felt I was in a very good state. Subsequently, some practitioners from our Fa study group and I went to send forth righteous thoughts near the labor camp. Other practitioners went to reason with the police at the 610 Office. Practitioner D was released shortly after that.
I will keep in mind the magical tool of looking inward in my cultivation, and strive forward diligently on the path of saving more sentient beings.