Do Not Be Led Astray by the Old Forces’ Arrangements

(Minghui.org) For a long time, I held a grudge against a fellow practitioner because I thought some of the things she said and did were not always based on the Fa principles. I tried to let go of it, but it kept creeping back, and I would again be seeing if what she said measured up to the Fa principles. My contempt for her became so strong that I even thought of completely avoiding her.

One day while I was reciting the Fa, something suddenly clicked, and I began to see things more clearly: When I find it hard to let go of others’ shortcomings, is it because I am actually attached to their attachments? The old forces arranged her attachments, so if I can’t let go of them, am I acknowledging the old forces’ arrangements and cultivating myself within those arrangements? Looking inward is the only way to meet the requirements of the Fa, and only by doing that can we follow Master’s arrangements and deny those of the old forces.

With that new understanding, the knot in my heart was untangled, and I began to see her shortcomings with more righteous thoughts and understanding, and I was freed from what had been weighing me down in my heart for a long time.

I remember in the past when I heard that a certain practitioner was being persecuted, the first thing that came to my mind was a question: Did this practitioner have any attachments or notions that were not in line with the Fa principles? If so, those loopholes must have been taken advantage of by the old forces to persecute him.

Such an unrighteous thought was actually acknowledging and justifying the persecution by the old forces. I also tried to recall if I’d had any recent contact with this practitioner and wondered if I would be implicated. All this was based on fear and concern for my own safety.

I realized that this way of thinking was following the old forces’ arrangements instead of denying them and looking within to see if I had similar attachments and notions that needed to be abandoned by cultivating myself. This wrong way of thinking also made it more difficult for the fellow practitioner to overcome the persecution.

If we can view the situation based on the Fa and always reflect on and improve ourselves when we see others’ shortcomings, we are already denying the old forces with righteous thoughts in line with the Fa.

The truth is that fellow practitioners who suffer tribulations do need our strong support with righteous thoughts. Even if we cannot go out to help them or organize fellow practitioners to send forth righteous thoughts together, we should not interpret the situation based on human notions that the old forces can exploit.

If we can all deny the old forces’ arrangements and support our fellow practitioner with strong righteous thoughts, the powerful force our one-body can generate will deal a heavy blow to the evil and help the persecuted practitioner overcome the tribulation. This is how Master expects us to conduct ourselves.

I would like to share a specific example. A practitioner in our area had such a strong attachment to lust that he wasn’t welcome in any Fa study group. He was later persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party and lost his life.

It’s understandable not to accept him if you were concerned about how it might affect others as a whole. However, we should have also looked within to see if we had any attachments. Group Fa study offers us a great opportunity to learn from each other and to improve together. Shouldn’t we reflect upon ourselves and cultivate our xinxing when issues arise among us?

That practitioner’s attachment to lust was not from his true self, but something that developed later in life and was reinforced and magnified by the old forces. It should not have been acknowledged or accepted. However, most of us thought the attachment to lust was his own problem and that it had nothing to do with us. Nor did we reflect upon ourselves: There must be reasons for such things to happen among us, so there must have been something we also needed to let go of in our own cultivation.

If we had all looked within and reflected upon ourselves, we would have conducted ourselves by the Fa standards and the situation might have been different. Instead, all the Fa study groups rejected him. I feel that our way of thinking at that time did not negate the persecution, and we had not yet transcended the tribulations arranged by the old forces.

I remember a sharing article about a Fa conference in which quite a few practitioners whose cultivation states were far from the standard of the Fa said things that sounded plausible but were actually misleading. Just then, everyone could hear police sirens approaching. At that critical moment, one practitioner said something very righteous based on the Fa, and the police cars turned around and drove away.

In our situation, if even just a small number of us had held thoughts in line with the Fa, the situation might have been quite different. Even though the practitioner in question was mainly responsible for his own conduct, it could also be that the old forces, taking advantage of his attachment to lust, used it to test our mindsets and see if we would look inward and cultivate ourselves. The old forces might have boasted: “Look, we are right to test them. They are not cultivating themselves.”

I don’t mean to point fingers at anyone in particular by sharing this issue, because I am also one of the ones I am talking about. It is not unusual for cultivators to make mistakes and have shortcomings. The most important thing is that we become aware of them and keep improving ourselves by cultivating.

We need to strengthen our righteous thoughts when we communicate with each another instead of judging others’ shortcomings through the lens of human notions, emotions, and our own attachments, and labeling others accordingly. We must not be led astray by the old forces but deny their arrangements with righteous thoughts and truly be able to look within ourselves in any situation so that we can become more mature and constantly improve ourselves.

When we can do well based on the Fa and truly become an indestructible one body, the old forces will be terrified.

The above is only my limited personal understanding. Please kindly point out anything improper.