By a practitioner in Liaoning Province in China

(Clearwisdom.net)

It has been six years since the beginning of my cultivation in 1997. Reflecting on my path, sometimes it has been quite difficult, and the tribulations and tests that I encountered have been very painful, too. However, I passed one test after another relying on my unwavering belief in Dafa.

I was arrested and put in prison in 2000 when I went to Beijing to validate Dafa. While in prison, I maintained my righteous thoughts and proper conduct. I did not follow the evil's arrangement. I told everyone the facts about Dafa. In 2002, Jiang's gang escalated its persecution against Falun Gong. Because my righteous thoughts were not sufficiently strong, I momentarily lost control of myself under various tortures and allowed the evil to take advantage of my shortcomings. I left a black mark on my path of cultivation and caused considerable damage to Dafa.

After going home, I was overwhelmed with regret and remorse. However, I came back to Dafa with the help of Master's great benevolence and fellow practitioners' encouragement and help. I realized that the time was urgent and understood what my responsibilities were to Master and to Dafa. I should not be down like this; I had to get up.

Master said:

"Now, I'm not saying that these practitioners aren't any good, I've said that if you fall, pick yourself up and keep going forward--Master won't abandon you, and you mustn't lose confidence. There are still opportunities, and I'll manage to save you no matter what. Now do you still lack confidence?"

[...]

"It's not a big deal if you haven't done well. Just do things well next time and try to find out where the problem was. There's an obvious phenomenon in your cultivation, which is, after you haven't done something well, you're only overwhelmed with regret, and you don't do it over. If you regret it too much then it's an attachment again. Once you've done something wrong, seen where it was wrong, and recognized it, then do it well next time, and do it over. If you trip and fall, and just keep lying there, (audience laughs) then that's no good."

[...]

"I don't like it when you blame yourselves, it's totally pointless. I'll just repeat what I said: if you've fallen don't just lie there, get right up!" (Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference)

From this, I realized that although I did not do well in facing my tribulations, it was a part of the old forces' arrangements, and Master did not acknowledge any of it. We need to rectify it and completely reject the old forces' arrangements. By remaining down like this, wasn't I just following along with the old forces' arrangements? Wasn't that exactly their objective?

Master said:

"When you've been persecuted or been under pressure in the ordinary society, it's hard to prevent your human thoughts from having an effect, so some ordinary people's thoughts might surface, but don't think too much of it. Fa-rectification disciples, the persecution has already come to this stage, and Dafa has already come to this stage in the Fa-rectification: what's there for us to still be afraid of? Haven't you already seen your future very well? So when it comes to those evil beings and their arrangements, as long as your righteous thoughts are strong enough you can reject them, repel them, and make them helpless." (Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A.)

"And those who haven't done well, in essence, aren't you acknowledging the old forces' arrangements? Once you acknowledge them isn't it like you're part of their group? Because you haven't done well amidst the persecution it's caused instability among the practitioners and aggravated the persecution, so aren't you, too, adding fuel to the fire and helping the evil? Negate them, completely negate everything of the old forces!" (Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference)

The more I studied Master's Fa, the clearer it became to me. Master is benevolent to his disciples, giving them opportunities to make up for their mistakes. I will use my righteous thoughts to eliminate the persecution that the evil forced upon me and completely negate the old forces. I studied the Fa repeatedly and diligently, to get myself back into the current of Fa-rectification and eliminated the evil with righteous thoughts. I wrote a "Solemn Declaration" on Minghui that everything I wrote under pressure from the evil and the "repentance statement," "disclosure statement," and "guarantee statement" that I wrote after July 20, 1999 were all null and void. I will re-double my efforts to compensate for all the damage that I had done to Dafa.

March 30, 2003

Posting date: 4/9/2003
Original article date: 4/8/2003
Category: Fa-Rectification Stories
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/4/1/47504.html

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