(Clearwisdom.net) I didn't pay due attention to Teacher's new article "Eliminate the Dark Minions With Righteous Thoughts" when it was published. I thought I already had a good understanding of the subject when Teacher published "Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Midwest-U.S. Fa Conference" last year. Teacher said,
"So to thoroughly eliminate all the evil elements, from now on when Dafa disciples send righteous thoughts they should completely clean out those old forces' behind-the-scenes helpers, meaning, eliminate them."
("Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Midwest-U.S. Fa Conference")
I thought Teacher meant we needed to be specific when we sent forth righteous thoughts from now on, so I stopped studying "Eliminate the Dark Minions With Righteous Thoughts" after I read it for a few times, thinking that I already had a good grasp of this article and that I had identified the most critical line in the article: "aim directly at those dark minions and completely eliminate them." (From "Eliminate the Dark Minions With Righteous Thoughts") Then I put the article in the back of my head.
One day a fellow practitioner suggested that I memorize this article. I immediately took the advice although it is a challenge for me to memorize an article. During the process of repeatedly reading the article in order to memorize it, I developed new understandings of the article, as well as the issue of a fellow practitioner close to me who had recently been abducted by the police. When I sent forth righteous thoughts during that period of time, I also saw with my celestial eye that the number of remaining dark minions was alarmingly large and that they were truly responsible for all the interference with and persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. They are exploiting even the slightest loopholes in Falun Gong practitioners and have become completely insane because they have seen their fate and have thus become desperate. Now that I truly understand why we must aim directly at the dark minions and completely eliminate them, and I am able to send forth righteous thoughts with a clear objective.
This experience has inspired me to reflect upon a more profound issue: my attitude toward studying the Fa. I obtained the Fa over nine years ago, and I have been studying the Fa every day. I have also been validating the Fa and offering Teacher's salvation to sentient beings, yet I have always felt that I lacked diligence, constantly dodged things in my cultivation, and had a lot of human notions. Each time Teacher mentioned in his lectures that there are some Dafa students who are still not truly cultivating themselves, I knew I was one of those students. Teacher said,
"[...] there are also some people who are fumbling along with various attachments that they haven't let go of. Superficially, they too say that Dafa is good, but in reality they do not practice cultivation."
("Huge Exposure" in Essentials for Further Advancement I.)
"But there is still another group of people who do not intend to change and who have long been stumbling along in Dafa."
("Dafa Cannot Be Used" in Essentials for Further Advancement I.)
"There are standards for Dafa disciples, and the Fa has standards. It's not like everyone can just goof around together and pass muster. Every person's spirit is being hit upon, every person is genuinely cultivating himself, and every person is thinking about how to be responsible to his own existence! Why are some of you not able to do this?! Looking at you, Master is so worried! Looking at you, Master is so worried!"
("Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference")
After this experience, I realized the root cause of my problems has been my lack of the proper attitude toward studying the Fa. Despite many years of cultivation, to what extent do I truly understand the Fa? Because I merely read the Fa instead of studying the Fa, I often fail to remember that I am a cultivator when I encounter an issue. I often find myself in a less desirable cultivation state because my actions are often driven by my everyday notions and not by the Fa. Now I feel as if I have never truly cultivated myself for the past nine years. After Teacher published the article "Correction*," I followed Teacher's words and corrected the Chinese characters in Dafa books. While doing so and during Fa study from then on, I truly felt that I must study the Fa with a peaceful mind. It does not matter how many pages of the Fa I have read. What truly matters is how much I truly understand the Fa when I study the Fa. It is only when I truly understand the Fa that I will know how to follow the Fa.
I would also like to bring up the issue of some fellow practitioners studying Teacher's articles significantly less often, especially Teacher's lectures at the Fa conferences. The practitioners close to me have studied Teacher's new articles no more than four to five times on the average, while some have studied them only once or twice. I feel as if they are satisfied after they learned what Teacher has said lately. This might be just a personal speculation derived from my own attachment because I was anxious to know what Teacher said the first time I studied these articles. Teacher said,
"I suggest that everyone set his mind to reading ten times the book I wrote, Essentials for Further Advancement, which you call scripture. When your mind isn't at peace, studying the Fa is not effective. You should study it with a peaceful mind."
("A Heavy Blow" in Essentials for Further Advancement I.)
When I repeatedly studied "Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Midwest-U.S. Fa Conference," I made the effort to count the number of times I studied it. Even when I studied the article for the 11th time in a row, I continued to discover lines that I failed to notice the last time I studied it. Teacher has published many new articles lately so we really must seize the time to study these articles well while keeping up studying Zhuan Falun each day. It is only when we study and understand the Fa well that we are able to enhance our cultivation levels, send forth powerful righteous thoughts, and do well our mission of clarifying the truth to the sentient beings and offering them Teacher's salvation.
"Stop letting the evil exploit gaps, and stop being interfered with by human attachments. Do well the things that Dafa disciples should do, and walk the last leg of the journey well. Righteous thoughts, righteous actions."
("Eliminate the Dark Minions With Righteous Thoughts")
Please kindly point out anything erroneous in my understanding.
*Teacher's article "Correction" is about correcting the wrong uses of Chinese characters in modern Chinese phrases, so it was not translated into English.
