By A Dafa Practitioner in Toronto, Canada

(Clearwisdom.net) At the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, Master said, "As I've said, everything that happens today in the ordinary society is the result of Dafa disciples' thoughts." Then what are the attachments (thoughts) that we have that have brought forth the seemingly repressive Article 23 in Hong Kong?

At this stage, we have cultivated enough to have a deep understanding of the Fa, both perceptually and rationally. We also know that no matter what kinds of bad things we encounter, if we can search inward and use Dafa to correct ourselves in a timely manner, things will change miraculously in an instant. This is true for personal cultivation. As a matter of fact, the same principle also applies to this so-called "test" in Hong Kong, which in reality is a frenzied attack against us as one body.

Looking back during the Germany event, I was quite busy then doing my own Dafa work. I thought to myself, "Quite a few practitioners who have cultivated well are going. There are plenty of people. The Dafa work that I am doing is also very important, and I cannot cause any delay to my work." With this mentality, it did not even occur to me to make a concerted effort to send forth righteous thoughts during those couple of days. After that, battles in Russia, Iceland and the United States occurred, one after another. Through all these, every one of us Dafa practitioners has dramatically improved our understanding of Fa principles. Dafa disciples both inside and outside of China have come to realize more and more that becoming mature as one body is a state that we must achieve.

The surfacing of Article 23 shows that even if the evil forces are to be rectified by the Fa in the very next minute, they will still continue their pre-arranged "tests" of whether Dafa disciples have truly formed one body or not. Master doesn't acknowledge this kind of arrangement. In addition, he has asked us to completely oppose the arrangements of the old forces as well as the old forces themselves. Furthermore, Master also said that if he does not want anything to take place, it would not take place. Since the Article 23 incident has already taken place, doesn't it show that we truly have major omissions so that Master and other gods cannot intervene?

I personally feel that we as a whole still have certain unclear understandings of the Fa, and that is the root cause of why the Article 23 incident has taken place. When confronted with it, I truly felt helpless. I could feel that I was being dragged along by the old forces. I stared at my email box that was packed with new emails arriving day after day, and did not know what I should do since there were so many things that I had yet to finish.

Fortunately, one thing was clear to me: the more intense the pressure that we face, the more we should study the Fa with a tranquil heart. While studying the Fa, I saw that we as a whole have two major problems.

First, practitioners who are actively participating in this event are also those who have always taken a lot of individual initiative to participate in Fa-rectification during the last three plus years. These practitioners are already busy taking care of a lot of Dafa projects, and sometimes find it difficult to even have the time to study the Fa or do the exercises. As the Fa particles, they have instinctively decided to actively participate in the appeal against Article 23. But they have not spent enough effort or done enough work as playing an assisting role to help other practitioners who have not become aware of the situation yet or have not yet understood it from the Fa to recognize what is going on so they can also participate. On the other hand, many practitioners are still in the state that I was in during last year's Germany episode. They are attached to their Dafa work at hand and think that there are already a lot of practitioners who are taking care of this matter, and they should not cause any delay to the Dafa work that they are currently doing. Therefore they haven't paid much attention to this matter.

The second problem is also very serious. At the Fa conference in Philadelphia, Master said, "With a Dafa like this, how could so many magnificent future Gods, magnificent Dafa disciples, who've been forged through Dafa cultivation put their hope in some ordinary person? Aren't we insulting ourselves? Could human beings control Gods? But a lot of our Dafa disciples were thinking that way. It's not a big deal if one person thinks that way, and it's not a big deal if two people think that way--that's just their personal cultivation issue. But if everybody thinks that way, then what kind of situation will there be among the larger group of Dafa disciples? It'll be a major disruption, a strong attachment, and that can't be allowed. I saw it, and the old forces saw it, too. The old forces thought, 'Wait a minute, what's this?' So they made the outcome of the Chinese Communist Party's 16^th Congress worse." When we held discussions over Article 23, many practitioners were still using human thinking to analyze the situation and emphasizing that we need to do this or that. Do we need to do things? Of course we do. This is the "practice" part of our "cultivation practice." We must do things and we must do things together so that we can achieve the real goal of saving people. This is because clarifying the truth is the process of how Dafa disciples participate in the Fa rectification in everyday people's ways. From July 20^th, 1999 until today, all the truth-clarification work we have been doing including the media, the governments, the Internet, making phone calls etc. are in everyday people's ways. "Certain things appear to be the same as what everyday people do. Yet they do those things for self-interest and for ordinary human purposes, whereas you do them for Dafa--the basis is different." ("Teaching the Fa at the Great Lakes Fa Conference in North America") But if we only do things without cultivation involved, and if we think that we can solve this matter that is related to the Fa by making phone calls, sending faxes, writing articles, holding parades, and staging public gatherings, taking these methods on the surface to the extremes to become the purpose of our work, when looking at the situation at a high level, aren't we trying to accomplish Fa-rectification tasks using some human methods?

Of course, the above is only from cultivation's point of view. This is only one aspect of the problem. The occurrence of Hong Kong's evil Article 23 incident, looking at it from another aspect, is caused by the nature of the evil, old forces. It is because they attempt to continue their persecution of Dafa. Master said at the Fa conference in Philadelphia, "I've said before that the evil won't stop persecuting even right up until the very end. Even if it's going to end tomorrow, today that evil will still do evil just the same. That's the way things are in the cosmos before the Fa-rectification is done rectifying it. Without going through Fa-rectification it won't become good on its own--how could it turn good without Fa-rectification? Poison is just poisonous, and if you want it to stop being poisonous it can't do that. So when you look at it that way, we shouldn't have any fantasies about the evil forces and those evil people who are persecuting Dafa."

So, generally speaking, our current truth-clarification work is far from enough. The number of the people who have learned the truth (especially Chinese people) occupies only a small portion of the world's people. As Dafa disciples, we should seize the time to save people before the conclusion of the Fa-rectification. Clarifying the truth is to save people, and to save numerous Kings and Lords who came down to the human world from countless cosmos. This is all Dafa disciples' duty-bound, sacred responsibility.

The third point, "Why is Article 23 appearing at this moment?" "Why is it happening in Hong Kong?" Since Hong Kong practitioners successfully rented a venue of the Hong Kong government to hold the large-scale 2001 International Fa Conference, Hong Kong has been a target of the old evil forces. Because of the unique situation of Hong Kong (it belongs to China but Falun Gong practitioners enjoy legal rights), it has become one of the important battlefields established by the evil to persecute Dafa. It is also an outpost of the evil attempting to expand its suppression and slander to overseas. This can be reflected by Hong Kong's arrest of sixteen practitioners who were peacefully appealing a short while ago and now "Article 23." What's important is that "Article 23" is an attempt of the evil to legalize its persecution of Dafa in Hong Kong.

Looking back at the question: What attachment of ours does Article 23 target? If we do not consider this question from an isolated viewpoint, but look at it in a holistic way in the process of Fa-rectification, it would be easier to figure it out. From Germany, Russia, Iceland to Texas in the US, from the false arrests in Hong Kong and Article 23, we can see that whenever we made some mistakes in the Fa-rectification work, it was mostly because we did not realize in the Fa that we should proactively eliminate the evil, but were passively dragged along by the evil. For instance, many practitioners summarized that we should have first accused the Hong Kong police of their violation of law and use of violence to arrest practitioners, instead of passively responding to the charges. This is also applicable to the incident in Germany and Iceland. All this indicates that our truth-clarification effort has not been enough.

Through studying the Fa, I see that at this final stage of Fa-rectification, Master has repeatedly told us that we are one body. Cooperating with each other while maintaining the state of enlightened beings is the requirement that Dafa has for us Fa-rectification disciples and it is also a state that we must achieve. All the "tests" from the evil are carried out under the pretext of helping us improve ourselves in this aspect. While doing things, if we can calm our hearts, use the Fa to examine our every thought and action, and quickly correct our incorrect notions, once we as one body have no omission left, the evil will not be able to cause any damage. Certainly, it is important to make breakthroughs in the understandings of the Fa principles and in our xinxing, but all this is to enable us to do truth-clarification work better and in a deeper and refined way, as they supplement each other. It is not that we're putting hope in the persecution vanishing on its own or the evil changing its nature. We should clear-headedly clarify the truth to the people through making phone calls, sending faxes, writing articles, and holding parades and other methods, including means that can have an effect on society and that are carried out in a quiet way like gentle spring rains. We do not seek any help from society, nor do we want to achieve some purpose through them. We clarify the truth to eliminate the evil and save people.

Whenever we don't do something right, the lives of sentient beings are the price that we have to pay. Why does Master do Fa-rectification? I personally think that it is for the sake of saving sentient beings. Why did we come to this world at such a risk? It is for the sake of saving sentient beings. Why do we need to fundamentally oppose Article 23? It is for the sake of saving sentient beings too. Article 23 cannot touch Dafa even a bit. Article 23 can't stop Dafa disciples from reaching Consummation either. But if we can't rapidly improve our understandings of the Fa principles as well as our xinxing and become more mature, the victims are countless precious Chinese people.

These are my personal understandings, please point out anything inappropriate.

Posting date: 12/19/2002
Original article date: 12/19/2002
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.cc/mh/articles/2002/12/18/41273.html

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