Leaving Attachments Behind, Follow Teacher Home in an Unweighted Boat

A Practitioner in North America

[Minghui Net] After I came back from Geneva, my greatest feeling was that I had just awoken from a dream. Next, the experience sharing conference in Ottawa made me become even more clear-headed. At first the Fa [law and principles] rectification process seemed very mild to me, and I was only passively waiting. Although I knew that Teacher was waiting, I felt as if I was still not a part of it [the Fa rectification process], and as if I didn't have a share in the elements that determined everything. This time I finally awoke. Suddenly, it seemed that I heard the drums of the Fa rectification beating faster and faster, and I realized that Teacher was waiting for the genuine practitioners to wake up, and keep up with the pace of the Fa rectification process.

1. One shouldn't Just Pull the Cart with One's Head Down Without Looking Up for the Road.

Ever since my visa to the U.S. got cancelled in June of last year, I have been working as a translator for Clearwisdom.Net. I thought that was the cultivation path Teacher arranged for me and I didn't need to think about anything else. However, my mental state was not quite right. Actually I didn't do much, but I always felt like I was completing assignments (like those given by my boss). I translated stories of fellow practitioners' sufferings in China word by word, which was an extremely painful experience for me. I thought I was supposed to let go of the pain I felt as human being's sentimentality. However, I didn't make any progress; instead, my struggle with my feelings became a burden to me. I didn't know what to do.

Not until the experience-sharing conference held this year in Los Angeles did I think of going out and improving myself. I felt I had to break out no matter what. When I arrived in Los Angeles, I saw that happiness was written on fellow practitioners' faces, and the atmosphere was completely different from that in Washington D.C. in 1999 after July 20. After July 20, the atmosphere was heavy and dark clouds were overcast. "Pu Du" and "Ji Shi" [Falun Gong music] sounded very low and deep and moved people to tears. I remember a fellow practitioner said to me, "the Buddha is suffering. If Teacher will really go back (to China), I will follow him back without a second thought." When I heard this, tears welled up in my eyes. I thought silently in my mind, "I will protect Teacher with my weak and small body." But of course that was a primitive human sentiment. Later I understood that we overseas practitioners should promote Dafa to people all over the world, so as to enable the great law of the universe to spread all over the globe. Further, I realized that this is the Fa rectification, and we have to eliminate the evil forces. Two years later, when I looked at the expansive parade group in Los Angeles, my heart was filled with joy. This time, I only saw the changes that took place after the Fa rectification had been going on for two years.

For the time when I went to Geneva, even after I had already reserved my plane ticket, I was still thinking, "Should I stay at my job or is it more important to appeal at the human rights meeting?" One day as I was doing the Dafa [great law and universal principle] exercises, I heard Teacher saying, "Catch up." The voice was very clear and strong. All of a sudden, I understood that Teacher told me to catch up with the stride of the Fa rectification. In spite of the fact that I was doing things for Dafa everyday, and they were important things, this was not enough. I knew I had to go. The first time that I went to Geneva, it seemed Teacher didn't awaken me, because the activities weren't much different from the Dafa-promoting activities in other places. It was only doing exercises at the square in front of the United Nations. On the second time, again I had no other choice but to go, because I really couldn't find an excuse for not going. Furthermore, the things I did there kept me occupied until almost the end, for no one else could take my place.

Now that I look back on it, I realize these were all Teacher's benevolent arrangements. My enlightenment quality is not good, and it's necessary that I go through a process in order to understand certain principles. Besides, it was a real honor to be able to do things for Dafa there. It seems that Teacher dragged me to the frontline.

In the environment created in Geneva, I slowly felt the advancement of the Fa rectification process. I read two of Teacher's new articles "Suggestion" and "Dafa Disciples' Righteous Thoughts are Powerful" in Geneva. On my way back, a fellow practitioner showed me all the articles written by the editorial department of Minghui Net [Clearwisdom.Net in English] beginning from when the website was first founded. I finally woke up. The whole Fa rectification process was at once revealed in front of my eyes. It turned out to be a developing process, and it's very fast. Because of my poor enlightenment quality, I didn't keep up with it, and this process was prolonged. I felt indescribably ashamed, that I acted as if I were sleeping. After I came back, the translation work was no longer a burden to me, but seemed very simple.

I comprehended that merely doing things is not cultivation practice. Sometimes you might unconsciously add human emotions or thoughts to your work. Only by continuously improving ourselves based on the Fa and let the side of us that's fully cultivated do its part, can we deal with things more and more at ease. We absolutely shouldn't feel exhausted and busy to death everyday. Actually, whether every piece of work involved in Dafa comes out successful or not is not determined by a certain practitioner's outstanding ability. Because "Cultivation depends on one's own efforts, while the transformation of gong is done by one's master" Zhuan Falun, [ the principle instruction book of Falun Gong-translator], the purer your heart is, the better the outcome will be. It's not something within a human being's ability range. In my opinion, everything we do is an opportunity that Teacher gives us to improve ourselves and to build up our mighty virtue, instead of showing off our capabilities.

2. A Better Understanding of Supernormal Capabilities

On May 10, I thought, I shouldn't do this passively, I shall send out my righteous thought, and reduce the number of cruel articles [those that report the torture of practitioners]. So I put down my work, put my palms together in front of my chest, and sent out a righteous thought in front of Teacher's picture, "Teacher, please strengthen me and let me use all my cultivation energy to stop these evil forces, and reduce these kinds of articles." I sent out this thought in tears. At midnight that day I was awakened by a thunderbolt. I had always been afraid of thunder, but at that moment I thought, is my righteous thought working and are gods eliminating the evil beings? However, I didn't dare to believe it, for I didn't cultivate very well and I thought I didn't possess that kind of power. The next day, fellow practitioners all said that the thunder on the previous night was rooting out the evil beings.

Later I read Teacher's article again, and finally believed that a genuine practitioner's righteous thoughts have power. And if I don't believe that, it's the same as not trusting Teacher. In fact, this was also a test of our faith in Teacher and Dafa that comes up throughout our cultivation process. The next time I did translation, unexpectedly, most of the news was about Dafa practitioners suffocating the evil forces and vicious people receiving their due retributions. Therefore I gained a deeper understanding of supernormal capabilities.

In Teacher's lecture in 1998 in Switzerland, someone asked Teacher, "Since xinxing cultivation is most important, why does Master still mention cultivation levels and divine powers in the book?" Teacher answered, "...It's not that I ask you to not pursue these things and yet I'm telling you about them. These things can't be separated from Buddha Fa cultivation practice. What you pursue and the principles of the Fa that you should understand are entirely two different things; divine powers are a manifestation of another aspect of the Buddha Fa. Your inability to see the extraordinariness of Buddha Fa's divine powers is caused by your reading the book with a human mindset. You're just reading those things that are to your liking. You don't read, and even reject, what your ordinary human thinking fails to comprehend. That is precisely the reason you can't progress." [unofficial translation] Personally, I have been cultivating with my supernormal capabilities locked up all along, I can't see anything, but I have strong faith in Dafa and Teacher. I always avoided talking about supernormal capabilities and felt they didn't have anything to do with me. I even had Zen Buddhism's way of thinking, and deemed that talking about supernormal capabilities showed an attachment to them. Actually, this was self-enclosure, and a barrier on my way of improvement in Dafa. Teacher clearly related to the subject of Buddha Fa's divine power on many occasions during his course of lectures; I just didn't take much notice or I didn't dare to think too much about it. If a Dafa practitioner can't even do things as well as an ordinary person, then isn't his cultivation in vain? If an enlightened person doesn't have any supernormal capabilities, then why do people cultivate? At the low level, attachment to supernormal capabilities is something to be avoided. However, when the god's side is needed to eliminate the evil beings in the universe, refusal to acknowledge and disbelief in divine power is caused by a lack of understanding of the holiness and magnificence of the Buddha Fa cultivation practice. And it's also not serious and not a righteous belief in the Buddha Fa cultivation practice.

3. Abandon Attachments Again, and Follow Teacher Home in a Weightless Boat

When Clearwisdom.Net published the news that asked practitioners worldwide to send out righteous thoughts to root out the evil beings within the Three Realms [the solar system], I found out with surprise that some fellow practitioners didn't realize the holiness and greatness of this moment. Instead, they thought, "Didn't the article say that you can do this even when you're eating or walking? Can't we do it any way we want?" Please think about it: why did Teacher ask us to do it in group practice? Isn't it because the more the practitioners there are, the stronger the energy field is? When using righteous thoughts to fight the evil beings, of course the environment is cleaner and our force is more powerful when we send out righteous thoughts together. The ultimate goal of our cultivation is to become a god, not to stay at a human being's level. Emphasizing too much one's human side will hamper one's cultivation practice. As the god's side becomes stronger and stronger, one's efficiency will also increase. No matter what kind of work you do in Dafa, isn't the final objective the elimination of the evil beings and to help Teacher rectify the cosmos with the Fa? Teacher has already endowed us with the glory of fighting with our godly side, and it would be a pity if we ourselves insisted on using only our human means.

Teacher said clearly in the beginning of Zhuan Falun, "...the entire cultivation process for a practitioner is one of constantly giving up human attachments." If we work for the works own sake, and forget to keep up with Teacher's Fa rectification process, isn't that producing new attachments and thus enclosing ourselves? According to my personal understanding, Teacher is tending us himself in our cultivation in the rapid Fa rectification. Every step we take has to correspond to Teacher's requests in order to cooperate with the whole process. If you do things according to your own plan, even if you plan far ahead, that's still a human being's arrangement, not a practitioner's state. "Enlightenment" is an element required throughout one's whole cultivation practice. Although it's Dafa's work, if you feel as if you can't put it down or you do it like your work in human society, then it becomes an attachment. The more ordinary people's concepts and ideas we have in our minds, the more we create our own barrier in our cultivation. This barrier is a counteractive force that prevents us from keeping up with Teacher's Fa rectification process, and we should give it up. Doing work for Dafa and giving up this attachment shouldn't conflict each other.

Above is only my personal understanding, and is only a reference for fellow practitioners. If there are inappropriate places, fellow practitioners, please correct them with benevolence.
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2001/5/29/11589.html

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