Letters to the Editor: Reflections after Reading Three Recent Minghui Editorials

(Minghui.org) This article contains three letters from Falun Dafa practitioners in Europe. The incidents depicted in the letters reflect some complicated phenomena caused by practitioners’ attachment to doing Dafa work. The articles are not pointing fingers at anyone. They ask everyone to positively affect the cultivation environment by improving our xinxing and taking the Fa as our teacher. 

Letter 1: True Cultivation and Its Environment 

Minghui recently published three editorial articles, “Be Responsible,” “Flattery and Demonic Interference from One’s Own Mind” and “Can We Distribute Master’s New Articles Among Non-Practitioners?”

Some practitioners shared their thoughts after reading these articles, including “A Practitioner Outside of China Expresses Concern–A Letter to the Minghui Editorial Board.” I thought all of these articles reflect some issues we face. It made me wonder why some veteran practitioners still don’t have a positive influence on the cultivation environment, especially those outside China.

I want to talk about something that happened among our local practitioners. Ally (alias), a Western practitioner who was in charge of our local Falun Dafa Association, asked if I wanted to be a member of the Association. I said I did not. There was another practitioner who wanted to help, but Ally did not hold the person in high esteem. 

Ally has replaced three or four Chinese members in the Association over the past few years. Last year alone, she replaced the entire team three times. For the past few years, if someone asked her who the members of the Association were, she wouldn’t say. She did so recently only because there was an emergency situation. If I had agreed to become a member of the Association, I know that she might eventually replace me.

Environment for Fa-study and Positive Sharing No Longer Exists

The Minghui Editorial article “Be Responsible” said, “Many of those in conflicts or tribulations tried to blame others for their problems and sought external solutions instead of looking at the issue from the perspective of cultivation. As a result, many new practitioners who took up Dafa after 2000 no longer experienced the serenity and purity that Fa-study groups and practice sites originally had.” 

During the experience-sharing time after the Fa-study sessions, Ally was always surrounded by four or five Chinese practitioners who complimented her. She ignored other practitioners. No matter what was being discussed, it would not take long before one of her sycophants would bring up her name. Sometimes she was mentioned a dozen times in an evening. The discussions would center around her cultivation or how she handled Dafa-related issues. There were times when the evening was all about her since Ally did not understand Chinese and the practitioners would spend much time translating for her. She gradually got used to the Chinese practitioners complimenting her that way. This situation continued for over ten years.

A lot of practitioners did not seek to do Dafa work on their own, instead they waited for her to arrange and allocate work for them. 

The practitioners who liked to flatter her often needed her help. For example, they needed help to join a project or Dafa activity, or their family members needed her to issue some kind of affidavit for their immigration documents. They often did favors for her in exchange for the help. 

After a while some veteran practitioners left the group because they did not feel comfortable in a cultivation environment dominated by the flatterers. The newcomers picked up on the flatter culture, knowingly or unknowingly. One time, when a veteran practitioner came to a Fa-study session, Ally immediately appeared nervous and upset. A minion who observed her uneasiness openly accused the veteran practitioner of causing trouble.

Not Being Truthful

When we hold a Dafa activity, it should be to save people and not just for taking pictures and writing reports that will be sent to Minghui for publication. 

To hold a forum that exposes the live organ harvesting crimes in China, the Association rented a theater that could hold hundreds of people. They invited a well-known Canadian human rights attorney to speak at the event. However, the event wasn’t well-promoted hence only ten people attended. Most of the local practitioners did not go either. When the attorney asked why there was such a small audience, the practitioner said it was because most people were on vacation.

It is almost certain we will run into various problems when we hold a Dafa event, but we should overcome them so that activity truly has the effect of saving more people. Otherwise it is just for our own entertainment and meaningless. 

Letter 2: Reflections on Practitioners’ Who Have Sickness Karma and Pass Away

Recently, we kept hearing about practitioners suffering from sickness karma, some of whom passed away. I would say they are not isolated cases and we should sound the alarm. We needed to discuss this issue based on the Fa. 

Eliminate the Old Forces’ Interference and Protect the Flesh Body

One of our local practitioners was rushed to hospital and placed in the ICU. We discussed the situation and decided to send righteous thoughts to help him. Another practitioner asked me in private, “Why do we send righteous thoughts (under this circumstance)? What should I say when I send righteous thoughts for him?” 

I answered, “The person’s illness isn’t Teacher’s arrangement and we should deny it.”

She whispered, “How do you know that Teacher did not arrange for this to happen?” 

I told her, “The old forces prioritize personal cultivation and interfere with us using the excuse of eliminating our attachments. In fact, they interfere with Teacher’s rectifying the Fa and this should not be allowed. Let’s send righteous thoughts now.” 

Through this incident, I realized that it was time for us to seriously talk about practitioners suffering sickness karma and dying. We need to know how to calmly face and handle such situations based on the Fa.

Only Looking Within Can Get Us Past the Test 

Teacher talked about sickness karma many times. The tests we come across in cultivation are opportunities for us to improve our xinxing, which is the only way we can pass the test. 

We should not deny that we have a certain attachment. It might be that we have not discovered it yet, or that we have but refuse to face it. I believe that if we frankly face our attachments, we will see that they are not hard to eliminate. After all, the attachments are not really part of us. They make us believe that they are part of us, because they do not want to be eliminated.

Only those who have succeeded in cultivation or have never cultivated cannot find their attachments. A cultivator should continuously find an attachment, eliminate it, and thus improve. Teacher created opportunities for us to discover our attachments and improve ourselves, but some of us give in to the attachments and repeatedly give up those opportunities. When one is surrounded by an attachment, a notion, or other degenerate matter and stays at one level for too long, a practitioner may suffer chronic sickness karma. 

Teacher said: 

“Once you improve your xinxing, your body will undergo a great change. Upon xinxing improvement, the matter in your body is guaranteed to transform.” (Lecture One, Zhuan Falun)

Letter 3: Some Thoughts on Recent Minghui Notices 

I was shocked when I read the three Editorial Notices. They made me think. My understanding is that when we study the Fa, it should not just be an issue of reading the Fa or not. It should be, can truly assimilate to the Fa, look within, and form an environment in which we can learn from one another in our cultivation. 

As practitioners, we study the Fa, or at least go through the motions of doing so. Some of us spend a lot of time every day studying or memorizing the Fa. However, it is not about the amount of Fa we study, but whether we let go of our human notions after studying the Fa. Only then can we assimilate to the Fa.

Do we really take the Fa to heart and let it to guide us in our cultivation? Can we, especially veteran practitioners, share our experiences with an open heart, truly look within, and help others improve based on the Fa and thus improve the cultivation environment? Do we know how to cultivate even though we go through the motions of studying the Fa, exercising, and sending righteous thoughts every day? Why do we send righteous thoughts? When we do something for others, are we 100 percent altruistic, or do we have a even a tiny part of vested interest in the outcome? Only we know. We need to eliminate all attachments during cultivation.

Teacher said,

“No matter how the human moral standard changes, this characteristic of the universe remains unchanged, and it is the sole criterion that distinguishes good people from bad people.” (Lecture One, Zhuan Falun)

Let us work on creating a cultivation environment that allows us to compare with one another and progress diligently in our cultivation. We should not create a market for the ill-habits of “flattering others and showing off.” 

Editor’s note: This article only represents the author’s understanding of their current cultivation state meant for sharing among practitioners so that we can “Compare in studying, compare in cultivating...” (“Solid Cultivation,” Hong Yin)