By a Dafa practitioner in Mainland China

(Clearwisdom.net) A while ago, a fellow practitioner whom I had been doing Dafa work with since July 20, 1999 was abducted by the police. She had been abducted twice before and had been detained in four different detention centers. She also had been moving around from place to place to avoid further persecution since 2000, unable to return to her home without facing near certain arrest. When I heard the news, I felt deeply upset in my mind. In the following 5-6 days, I lost a lot of weight due to my disturbed state of mind. When I thought about her being locked up in a detention center again, I was really upset.

That kind of strong state of mind made me feel that it was not the benevolence a cultivator should have. But I did not pay attention to it and did not think deeply about it. A few days ago, when I was studying the Fa, I suddenly realized that it was "affection,"--it was affection towards fellow practitioners and one of the attachments we should remove through our cultivation.

For those fellow practitioners who were abducted in our area, they were all very diligent Dafa practitioners. We really got along well and co-operated well, especially with those we had been doing Dafa work with. We went through various difficult times together, and we developed "affection." This "affection" is even stronger than the feelings we have towards our family members and our friends.

We should remove this kind of emotional feeling through our cultivation because it is created for the living beings within the Three Realms. It is not Benevolence and does not have the connotation of higher levels. It controls only ordinary human beings. For example, for the fellow practitioner I mentioned, the affection I had toward her was because I am very familiar with her. But if I heard about an abducted fellow practitioner in another area, and if he was as diligent as her, my feeling would have not been as strong.

I also thought about why some people who were once steadfast practitioners became "transformed." Was it possible that we had strong feelings towards, or sometime we even adore some of our fellow practitioners? If many practitioners have such strong feelings, was it possible that the old forces used it as an excuse to "test" us? (For the practitioners being abducted, there must have been a gap that the old forces could make use of, otherwise the old forces would not have found a way to do it.)

Things like police abducting fellow practitioners points to our attachments. We should remove our strong affection towards our fellow practitioners. All we have encountered, seen and heard have pointed to our attachments. If we do not have these attachments, the old forces would not be able to make use of them in their effort to interfere with Fa-rectification, and to persecute our fellow practitioners. When this kind of thing happens, we should find our attachments and remove them completely.

Of course, most of our fellow practitioners, after going through such an evil and harsh environment, do not have this kind of attachment anymore. But some still have it. Each of our Dafa practitioners should base ourselves from the perspective of Fa-rectification and seriously deal with the attachments.

November. 1, 2003

Posting date: 11/11/2003
Original article date: 11/10/2003
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Translated on 11/6/2003
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/11/3/59940.html

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