Eliminating My Attachment to Fear When Rescuing Practitioners

(Minghui.org) I lost my family and my government job after I was released from prison. I also became very scared. Thus, when the coordinator practitioner asked me to join a team to rescue fellow practitioners who have been arrested, my first thought was to avoid it. I thought it would be too dangerous to deal with the police and procuratorate. I would be facing evil people head-on. With my xinxing level at that time, I dared not think about it.

A fellow practitioner I was very close to was reported and detained during the pandemic in March 2020. I sent the relevant information about it to Minghui.org. Overseas practitioners then responded by calling the local police here. Consequently, the practitioner was released after 15 days. She told me later that the local political director told her that she would have been indicted if it wasn’t for the phone calls from overseas practitioners. This encouraged me. I was impressed by how such a little exposure to the evil led to such a powerful suppression of the evil.

It was just as Master said:

“Don’t underestimate your sending even one flier or one booklet to China, making one phone call there, or sending one fax there or sending all sorts of information—the effect is quite significant, and its effect in frightening and eliminating the evil is huge, truly huge. It’s because of the evil’s slanderous propaganda that people have bad thoughts in their minds. When people become clearheaded, that’s when those evil things are eliminated and disintegrate. If a person really represents a gigantic cosmic body, his turning-around means that numerous sentient beings are saved—the impact is enormous!” (Teachings from a Tour in North America)

A few months later, I received a call about a practitioner who was jailed again. While I worried about her, the shadow of my past persecution resurfaced. The police had confiscated two of her cell phones, which had my phone number in its memory. I did not participate in the efforts to rescue her other than sending forth righteous thoughts. However, in the meantime, I complained about her in my mind for being careless about cell phone security.

I did not sense that I didn’t truly care about her until I was specifically asked to help with rescuing her. She conveyed her intention to hire a lawyer through the lawyer of another detained practitioner. The coordinator asked me to contact a family member of hers, who also cultivated in Dafa, but who had a stronger attachment to fear. I knew this family member had a weak main consciousness and did not pay attention to cell phone security, so I quickly rejected the request.

However, something Master said kept reflecting in my mind:

“Some people have family members who have been imprisoned in the persecution and are being persecuted, and yet instead of hurrying up and working along with everyone else to resist the persecution, stop the persecution, and lessen the persecution of your family members, you’re talking about things like “studying the Fa at home” and you’re still full of complaints about everything that [Dafa] students are doing. Did you know that when the persecution of your family members who have been imprisoned is lessened or stopped, it’s the result of Dafa disciples exposing and shocking the evil beings while braving evil and danger to take action against the persecution? When they get out, how will you bear to face them? What have you done for them? A cultivating human being is not a cultivating god, and everyone makes mistakes in the cultivation process; the key is how you deal with them. Some people are able to recognize them and some aren’t, and then there are people who don’t want to recognize them because of their attachment of fear and some other factors. Cultivation is not about taking part in ordinary people’s political struggles, and even less is it about fighting for power or gain. The notions, bad habits, and tendencies that you’ve formed in ordinary society and in political circles and the like are looked down on even among ordinary people, so even more so should they be disposed of in cultivation.” (“My Version of a “Stick Wake-Up”,” The Essentials for Diligent Progress III)

Indeed, how can we be unaffected when our fellow practitioners who are family members are being persecuted? How are we going to face them when they are released? I was persecuted. I recall how much I hoped outside practitioners would extend their helping hands.

Given the horrifying environment, shallowness of my Fa study, and attachment to fear in the early days of the persecution, this fellow practitioner had been detained for 10 months. The surrounding practitioners dared not expose the evil and did not participate in any attempts to rescue her. They just waited numbly for the results. The practitioner persisted and was eventually released. She told us that the police asked her, “How come none of your cultivation friends care about you?” I felt embarrassed. An ordinary person will help his friend all he can, yet, how did we practitioners react?

Enlightening to and Overcoming My Obstacles While Participating in the Rescue Efforts

I finally decided to join the team to help rescue fellow practitioners. Although it could contain the attachment of affection for fellow practitioners, I still took my first step. I was unsure whether the practitioner’s family truly wanted to hire a lawyer since the family member cared a lot about money. So I asked the coordinator practitioner to meet with him and confirm it.

There was no issue during the process of hiring an attorney. But, the family member did not answer the phone on the eve of the lawyer’s arrival. When I finally got hold of him and told him to get the materials and the fees ready, he changed his mind. He claimed that he had not met the lawyer and felt I was dragging him along. He said he needed to work the next morning, and wanted to postpone the hiring.

I knew this was evil interference. The family member was afraid that the evil might pressure him, his job might be affected, or the lawyer's fees would exceed his budget. I was forced to go to my bank to get the money to pay the lawyer. My mind was full of negative thoughts about the family member.

The lawyer and I met with the detained practitioner the next day. Then we went to her home to tell her family member about the situation and requested his support. He went with us to the police station to demand that his wife be released.

The lawyer had close to 10 years of experience in dealing with Falun Gong cases and had strong righteous thoughts. The family member was encouraged and no longer fearful. He became righteous too, being influenced by the righteous thoughts of the coordinator practitioner. I found that many of my human concerns were also gone; instead, I was immersed in the rescue effort. Much of the substance that induced fear was removed. I enlightened that it is fine to have fear, but what is important is to seriously face it. If one negates or eliminates the fear during the process, the bad substances will be dissolved.

After my xinxing was elevated, I found that the family member did not have those fears or attitudes that I thought he had when thinking about him. I enlightened later to the understanding that as long as a practitioner is still cultivating, Master will manage him/her. Thus, we should not view fellow practitioners negatively or hold on to an attachment. As long as we have strong righteous thoughts, things will move in a positive direction. The negative factors will no longer be effective. In the end, the family member was very pleased with the lawyer we hired and did not object to paying the attorney fees.

Minghui Helped Me Elevate My Xinxing When I Wrote Articles

The family member was unwilling to expose the phone numbers of the police officers who were in charge of the case. I was also afraid of being implicated, so I intentionally did not include their cell phone numbers when I wrote articles about practitioners’ persecution cases. The coordinator asked me to include the phone numbers so that overseas practitioners could make phone calls to the police officers. I didn’t comply with the coordinator’s request given my fear. I even hoped that this article would not be published on the Minghui website. But it was soon published. I took a closer look at the article and saw that Minghui had added the persecutors’ phone numbers at the end of the article. They had searched previous articles for the persecutors’ information, but some of the phone numbers they listed were outdated. I felt ashamed and decided to provide the most updated information to them. The Minghui practitioners were pushing me to move forward in my cultivation.

For one article I wrote about a practitioner’s persecution, I researched their previous persecution information so I could present a more complete picture. However, I saw it as a hassle and was not being responsible to the reader. I only quickly brushed through details of the jail authority’s avoiding responsibility, making trouble for the lawyer, and preventing the lawyer from meeting with the practitioner. The article lacked the necessary details to connect the paragraphs, but I quickly finished it and sent it to the Minghui website. The article was published. However, I saw that Minghui added a lot of description to the article to clarify the truth, making it more logical and complete. I felt embarrassed that I did not work harder to write the article. Strictly speaking, I did not treat the cultivation aspect seriously enough. I was affected by the Party's indoctrination and was perfunctory.

Master told us we need to be: “… accurate, clean, and free of human sentiments” (“Mature”, Essentials for Diligent Progress III)

“... there is no sense that the papers were written to complete some task, nor, in either form or content, done using clichéd, bogus, vacuous Party-style rhetoric; absent is the attachment of reporting accomplishments with the mentality of “If I don’t tell people, how will they know”; and for the most part they are free of the Party culture’s logic.” (“Mature”, Essentials for Diligent Progress III)

I found that those words in my article that were a part of the Party indoctrination language had been edited out in the published version. I hereby thank the Minghui practitioners for their unselfish efforts and help. I enlightened that one does not need to use eloquent language when writing an article, but it does require devotion from the writer. Only that way can one achieve the goal of saving sentient beings. Writing an article is also a process for the author of eliminating attachments and elevating his xinxing.

Thank you, Master. Thank you, fellow practitioners.