About "Looking Inward" in Fa-Rectification Cultivation

By a Dafa Practitioner

July 31, 2002

(Clearwisdom.net) I believe that right now we should clearly put the Fa as the priority. As a second priority, we should conduct ourselves strictly according to the requirements for Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples. Furthermore, we should remind each other to make sure that every practitioner remembers this at all times.

When something happens, we should think of it first from the perspective of Fa-rectification; which actions will be beneficial and which actions harmful. I think "looking inward" means first looking whether our thoughts and actions befit our mission of offering salvation to all sentient beings. Since we are facing the old forces' evil arrangements and persecution together, we have the historic mission of rectifying the Fa and offering salvation to people. If we limit ourselves to individual cultivation, calculate our own losses and gains and so-called improvements, while forgetting about what is needed in the overall situation of Fa-rectification, then we do not understand what a "Fa-rectification period Dafa disciple" truly is. With such xinxing [mind or heart nature], no matter how well we do in some aspects of individual cultivation, the foundation on which our cultivation is based will still be wrong and we will not keep up with the progress of Fa rectification. Isn't that the greatest xinxing problem?

When some practitioners who did not do well or were not devoted enough in Fa-rectification talked about "looking inward," I had the feeling that most of what they said represented individual cultivation. Presently my understanding in cultivation is when encountering a conflict and feeling unhappy about it, we should first think whether this thought comes from ourselves or whether it is forced upon us by some outside interference, and how this "unhappiness" will affect our mission of offering salvation to people. If we find out that this "unhappiness" is not from ourselves at all, then we should send forth righteous thoughts and recite the Fa-rectification verses to eliminate the unhappiness itself. Then we should look inside ourselves and find out the cause for the interference and correct our thoughts and notions, so that the old forces will not have a chance to interfere with us.

When we see shortcomings in other practitioners, we should first calm down and take a moment to consider carefully and determine if it's truly their shortcomings, or if we misunderstood others because of our own attachments. If it's our own attachments, we should do the same things as stated above; if it's really the other person's shortcoming, we should immediately send forth righteous thoughts to help him eliminate the interference. At the same time, with the righteous thought of completing the mission of offering salvation to all sentient beings, together with the fellow practitioner, we should then kindly point out the problem and attachment(s), remind him not to accept this interference unconsciously and help him to solve the problem.

These actions, in my opinion, represent truly "looking inward," and they conform to what the present cosmic development requires of our Dafa practitioners.

We always send forth righteous thoughts when we distribute materials, meet with congressmen, clarify the truth or do other Fa-rectification work. We have witnessed the power of righteous thoughts and the power of dissolving into the righteous Fa, then why don't we think of the power of righteous thought when we have conflicts among Dafa practitioners? If we don't place our responsibilities in Fa-rectification as top priority and do too much so-called "looking inward" from the perspective of individual cultivation, I think that's walking on the path arranged by the old forces. Of course, if we go to the other extreme and claim that since we are doing Fa-rectification work, we can use "Fa-rectification" as the excuse to indulge our human notions and attachments, then we would achieve the opposite effect and undermine our efforts to validate Dafa.

We should think about problems based on the current cosmic changes and do well in Fa study, sending forth righteous thoughts and truth clarification while doing Fa-rectification work. My understanding is that all of us should have persevered in Fa study (if not, then that really should not have been). On the issue of sending righteous thoughts, many practitioners have not realized its great significance and as a result, they consciously or unconsciously forget to send forth righteous thoughts on many occasions. On the issue of clarifying the truth, we should know that we have to know the truth ourselves first and recognize the old forces' arrangements, clearly realize our mission as Fa-rectification Dafa disciples and the important effect of righteous thoughts; only then can we better clarify the truth to people.

I also want to talk about problems I have encountered in the area of cooperation. Most of the problems we encounter stem from our differences of opinion, or we see other people's shortcoming in xinxing. Both of these situations lead to practitioners involved in conflict thinking the other practitioners will cause a loss to Dafa. In order to "be responsible for Dafa" and "be responsible for fellow practitioners," this individual might have failed to deal with the problem calmly and rationally, like a true Dafa practitioner; and he forgets to treat the fellow practitioner with compassion, and forgets that he should continuously improve his own xinxing also in doing Dafa work. Many conflicts are like this.

Right now, if we meet with an unpleasant situation, we should send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil that creates disagreements and misunderstandings among us, and immediately look inward to improve our xinxing. At the same time, we should consider how to do our work well from the perspective of offering salvation to people. That way we will be able to quickly get rid of discord, advance diligently together and complete our historic mission bestowed upon us by Fa-rectification.
Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2002/8/1/34131.html

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