By a Falun Dafa practitioner in China

(Clearwisdom.net)

Through sharing cultivation experiences with fellow practitioners I have gained new understanding about what it means to conduct oneself from the basis of Fa-rectification cultivation versus personal cultivation. I would like to share these notes with everyone.

A fellow practitioner was astonished when he found that I hadn't improved my technical skills to do Fa-rectification work after a year of trying. I said, "I am not planning on becoming an expert. My thinking is to hone my technical skills just enough to do the Fa-rectification work. Otherwise, I might develop an attachment to technology." He disagreed. "You are not considering technology from the right starting point. For the sake of Fa-rectification, a Dafa practitioner should continue to improve his knowledge and technical abilities so that he can increase his contribution to Fa-rectification work."

As I started to contemplate from his perspective I realized that there was indeed something not quite right about my daily life. I am quite content with doing the same kind of Fa-rectification work every day. I am familiar with the methods and I can accomplish my tasks quite efficiently and on schedule. I feel that I have sufficient workload daily to keep up with the pace of Fa-rectification. I am quite content with the fact that I am making steady and regular contributions to Fa-rectification, but the workload is not large enough to put me under pressure.

The practitioners' words compelled me to consider my starting point and I suddenly realized that my methods of work actually stem from a personal cultivation basis. I feel I am cultivating in Dafa; I am doing volunteer work for Dafa; or I am not falling behind the Fa-rectification. Therefore, I am very content with my cultivation. If I think from the basis of Fa-rectification, I am sure I will no longer feel satisfied that I have met the requirements for a Fa-rectification period practitioner just because I think I should do this and that, I am willing to do this and that, I am doing this and that, or I have done this and that for Dafa. Instead, I will consider what the Fa-rectification needs me to do, or whether I have tried my utmost to do what Fa-rectification needs.

I think this shortcoming must be why I often feel I do not have enough energy for Fa-rectification. My starting point when doing Dafa work has been "I must help with Fa-rectification" instead of "this Fa-rectification work needs to be worked on." If I see things from the basis of Fa-rectification, I am sure I would see that it does not matter who does what job in Fa-rectification. Instead, we must see that all aspects of Fa-rectification work are part of the overall Fa-rectification and, therefore, it is guaranteed that they will be completed successfully. The Fa has already arranged all the necessary elements needed to successfully complete each task, so all we need to do is harmonize the Fa's arrangements. Since all the elements have already been arranged long ago, it follows that our capabilities to complete each task were also pre-arranged and given to us by the Fa. They are not capabilities that we developed through our own efforts. It follows that we should have all the necessary time and energy to complete each Fa-rectification task. It is not right that I sometimes feel I lack energy when doing Fa-rectification work.

When Teacher arranged us to help with Fa-rectification work, he must have given each of us a unique combination of talents to match the Fa-rectification tasks we would need to do. Teacher cannot possibly have bestowed our abilities at random. In other words, the abilities of each individual practitioner must have been pre-arranged. We must utilize our given capabilities to their fullest; otherwise we would be delaying the Fa-rectification.

I know that several practitioners in city C are extremely busy with Fa-rectification work every day. Each Fa-rectification task they do stems from the needs of Fa-rectification. Often they do things to help fellow practitioners to upgrade on their cultivation. They are not concerned about how much they want to do for Dafa, or how high of a cultivation level they desire to achieve. They are concerned about how they can help fellow practitioners upgrade on their cultivation, how they can help Dafa practitioners as one body to upgrade together, and how they can create more opportunities or better environments for every practitioner to help with Fa-rectification.

I have noticed another common problem pertaining to the basis of our thinking.

Some practitioners tend to think first about how to help others to find the root cause of the problem whenever there is an obvious mistake or something didn't go well. Eventually "helping to find root cause" inadvertently turns into "finding faults." Then "finding faults" turns into accusing and complaining about others. Thus, these practitioners became least helpful in resolving the issue. Moreover, they created additional problems by putting a fellow practitioner that needed help and encouragement under tremendous pressure and distress. Because of the negative reinforcement, the practitioner who had made the mistake will make even more mistakes thereafter.

Conversely if we can evaluate a practitioner's so-called "mistake" from the perspective of Fa-rectification, we may come to see that it is related to the old forces creating interference for practitioners. We were fooled into believing that just because a practitioner has an omission, the old forces are allowed to interfere with practitioners' Fa-rectification work. Teacher has never acknowledged the old forces' interferences with Fa-rectification, and neither should we.

When a fellow practitioner encounters a problem, I think we should first eliminate the interference. If our first reaction was "there must be something wrong with him," we would be siding with the old forces, or we would be reinforcing their plan. Needless to say, that practitioner should also look inside while trying to eliminate the interference.

Teacher said,

"Everything is just too trivial to even mention next to the Fa-rectification--nothing begins to compare. You can't compare things that occur in personal cultivation with the Fa-rectification. It doesn't matter how high an old-force being's level is, if it can't place itself properly in this balance of things it's in danger and will be weeded out during the cosmos's Fa-rectification" ("Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A.")

My understanding of this passage of the Fa is that, with the end of Fa-rectification approaching, where we position the Fa-rectification becomes increasingly important. We must never evaluate things using personal cultivation as the starting point. Otherwise, we are likely to fall onto the same wavelength as the old forces.

I would like to provide a few examples of what I mean.

I know a practitioner, Mr. X, who worked as a construction materials manager on a construction site. The neighboring residents would often ask him if they could take home a small amount of construction supplies for free. Mr. X always started by explaining to them that he was a cultivator and that he should not give away any materials belonging to his boss for free, but he always ended up giving in to their requests and thus compromised his standard. Moreover, when Mr. X saw that those people always took more than they claimed, he was stricken with a strong feeling of guilt. When the construction was about to be completed, he noticed that a few pieces of lumber were not needed. He thought he could use the supplies for his home, so he took them. After he had done so, he became increasingly haunted with guilt and regret. He felt his morality had sunk very low and that he had let Teacher down. He could not even look at Teacher's portraits. Thus Mr. X gave up on himself for a very long time. He kept criticizing himself and remained in this state for some time.

Actually Mr. X was not attached to wealth or materialistic comfort, so it became all the more difficult for him to see the root cause of his problem.

Finally other practitioners found that Mr. X was evaluating this issue from the wrong starting point. He did not think about this issue from the perspective of offering salvation to sentient beings or the Fa-rectification, he was regarding it from the perspective of personal cultivation. Because of that, he kept on thinking there must be some attachment that had caused this problem. In other words, X had limited his thinking within the boundary of personal cultivation. Thus he kept on searching inward and trying to eliminate his attachments. The old forces had noticed he put his attention on personal cultivation and not Fa-rectification.

It was exactly like what Teacher said,

"'Well, don't you want to practice cultivation? I'll take care of you and tell you how to practice cultivation.' It will make arrangements for them." ("Consecration" in Lecture Five of Zhuan Falun)

Those things that do not meet the requirements of the Fa-rectification trapped Mr. X. He eventually became plagued by his attachments and gave up on himself and cultivation all together.

When the neighbors came to Mr. X with the "excuse" of asking for free supplies, he failed to recognize that these people had actually come to hear the truth about Falun Dafa because he was not thinking from the perspective of Fa-rectification. It is true that Mr. X should not have given away property that did not belong to him without asking, but most importantly he should have grasped these opportunities to have a personal conversation with each neighbor that came to him for construction materials. These were perfect opportunities for him to clarify the truth completely and thoroughly.

Because Mr. X failed to place his mind on Fa-rectification first, he led himself into a dangerous area and could not get out of it.

Let me share another story with you.

Dafa practitioner Ms. Y runs a clinic. There was a man who often came to ask her if he could have the plastic lunch container that came as a free gift with each order of prescription medicine. When the man came to ask Ms. Y for the 8th lunch container, she became annoyed with his insatiable greed and gave him the lunch container in reluctance. At the same time, the whole situation struck Ms. Y as puzzling. She thought, "What have I done wrong? I have already clarified the truth to him. Why does he keep coming back to me?" Eventually Ms. Y saw the whole situation from the correct perspective. Ms. Y had directed her attention on the wrong area. She had been thinking the whole time that she must have some attachment that caused the man to keep annoying her, while in fact she should have put more attention on clarifying the truth to him. Each time Y clarified the truth to the man so briefly that his knowing side kept prompting him back to her in order to hear more truth about Falun Dafa. Each time his knowing side failed to learn the truth completely and thoroughly from Ms. Y, it kept sending him back with the excuse of asking for the free plastic lunch container.

Some practitioners make a very conscious and time-consuming effort to remove attachments when realizing a stubborn attachment to something. Thus it gets treated as an important task and the practitioners feel very distressed when they fail to sever the attachment by the root. Because Ms. Y directed most of her attention on removing that attachment, she had procrastinated in Fa-rectification work.

During the Fa-rectification period, we should remove our remaining attachments while doing Fa-rectification. We should be completely devoted to Fa-rectification and treat the removal of our attachments as an easy matter, because next to Fa-rectification, everything is trivial. If we still place personal cultivation before Fa-rectification and put too much attention on purging our personal attachments, the old forces will create an illusion where we see our attachments as bigger than they actually are and they will try to lure our attention to personal cultivation instead of Fa-rectification.

A fellow practitioner told me once, "I spend all of my thoughts and efforts on Fa-rectification, and when I discover my attachments along the way, I tell myself that they are not really part of me and I would not let them affect me. Soon these attachments are melted into nothing in the giant melting pot of Fa-rectification."

The above three main points are my thoughts about the issue of "starting point." If we regard things from the perspective of Fa-rectification first, we will be able to resolve many issues in cultivation.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/12/17/62679.html