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Cultivators Should Not Form Attachments to the Fourth Plenary Meeting (With Master's Comments)
Master's Comment: This article is excellent. Its understanding of why Dafa
disciples validate the Fa is lucid, the righteous thoughts behind it are strong,
and it is logical and clear. I hope the Dafa disciples in Mainland China will
all read it. Dafa disciples are validating the Great Law, and they should not be
attached to the outcome of the vile Party's meeting. This is because everything
in human society exists for Dafa and for Dafa disciples' cultivation. Whether
something be upright or wicked, all the same it can only act in accordance with
the needs of Dafa. Li Hongzhi (Clearwisdom.net)
With ordinary people now holding the Fourth Plenary Meeting, some fellow
practitioners feel that a certain leader in the central government is good, and
they hope that the head of the evil hands over power to this leader, along with
other thoughts that rely on ordinary people. Some practitioners have been
keeping a close watch on this news everyday, and their moods fluctuate along
with it. Actually, regarding these issues, Teacher has made it very clear over
and over again, so why are some people still so attached to hoping that the
wrongs against Falun Dafa can be redressed or gaining a fair, just environment
through some source of strength from ordinary people? Why is it that at critical
moments, we always forget the Fa that Teacher expounded specifically targeting
our attachments?
Our Falun Dafa practitioners' clarifying the truth is not affected by
external forces. Whether the head of the evil steps down or not, we all still
have to extensively and comprehensively clarify the truth. Even if the head of
the evil steps down, we still need to continue to thoroughly tell the world's
people about the persecution that has been happening for the past few years, so
that more of the world's people can understand what has been happening. If the
head of evil steps down but still continues to control the persecution from
behind the scenes, we'll expose his new crimes while continuing to expose the
persecution. If he still clings to his post, we should search within ourselves
more thoroughly, purify ourselves even more and do better in clearing away the
evil and clarifying the truth.
In terms of the leaders of the Chinese Government, it doesn't matter what
rank they hold in the ordinary world. As far as we are concerned, aren't they
all sentient beings? Aren't their futures determined by their attitudes toward
Falun Dafa and the persecution? The attachment of pursuit, depending on ordinary
people and observing society's direction are all serious obstacles for
clarifying the truth. These impure mindsets often cause the results to be the
opposite of the intention. These types of hard lessons should not happen again
and again.
Furthermore, through contact with practitioners in different areas, I noticed
something in the Shijiazhuang area and its neighboring cities and towns.
Materials that did not come from Dafa websites are being circulated to different
degrees. Some were compiled by people intent on damaging Falun Dafa, for example
"The Great Golden Shining Path." Some were compiled by practitioners
who run truth-clarification material sites, for example, "Something is
Going on in China."
The content of "Something is Going on in China" was excerpted from
an ordinary people's website. Basically, it talks about how high-ranking
officials in the Chinese Government openly did the Falun Gong exercises as a
group in their compound, and how there was a furious debate on the Falun Gong
issue in the Central Committee Meeting, where they nearly came to blows, as well
as other unconfirmed information that has been circulating among ordinary
people. Actually, this is all old news from ordinary people's websites. Today,
even those websites have let those matters go.
If you were a member of ordinary society instead of a Falun Dafa
practitioner, you would have a different standard guiding your actions. For
people in society, there is no issue of not being allowed to get involved in
politics. But if we cultivators take political content and make it into truth
clarification material, and distribute it to ordinary people on a large scale,
the effect will be extremely negative, because it directly violates Falun Dafa's
requirements. We say that we do not get involved in politics, but when ordinary
people don't understand the truth, they don't just listen to what you say--they
really watch what you do. When they see what you do and feel that you are
getting involved in politics, they'll develop a negative impression, and then it
will be very difficult for them to accept it no matter how you defend your
actions. Isn't this pushing people away, then?
I. The Cultivation of Falun Dafa Forbids Getting Involved in Politics
Right now the Chinese Communist Party is holding its Fourth Plenary Meeting.
A lot of reports have indicated that the head of the evil was forced to resign
and hand over power. Then, how should our Falun Dafa practitioners look at these
issues? If it is true, should we relax a little and feel that the environment is
getting easier, or pin our hopes on the new person in power redressing the
wrongs against Falun Dafa?
Right now some practitioners feel that a certain leader in the central
government is good and hope that the head of the evil steps down. Teacher has
made it very clear in lecture after lecture: Falun Dafa practitioners have their
own mission to save the world's people, and we should not turn around and depend
on ordinary people to redress the wrongs against Falun Dafa; even less should we
disregard how ordinary people will end up and forget about our responsibilities,
only hoping to end our own suffering as soon as possible.
When an ordinary person steps forward to support Falun Dafa and says that
Falun Dafa is good, it is this being's goodness being displayed and properly
positioning him or herself in the Fa-rectification. As Fa-rectification Falun
Dafa disciples, we should clearheadedly walk our path righteously, safeguard
Falun Dafa's purity and remember Teacher's teachings by heart:
"I have repeatedly emphasized that we absolutely do not get involved
in politics, that we absolutely do not meddle in politics and that we
absolutely do not take part in politics." (From "Teaching the Fa in
the Beijing International Experience Sharing Conference", unofficial
translation)
No matter what happens in ordinary society, our minds should remain
unaffected. The Falun Dafa practitioner's path is the Fa-validation path that
Teacher has arranged for us. How to do well now lies in the three
things that Teacher requires of us.
From my recent Fa-study, my personal understanding is that the current
situation is very favorable to our clarifying the truth. The evil in other
dimensions can no longer sustain itself. The two big decisive battles in Beijing
and New York are major engagements at a time when Fa-rectification is drawing to
a close. The evil will soon no longer be able to continue, and a very big change
will also take place in the ordinary world. However, no matter how big a change
may happen, we as Falun Dafa practitioners should remain unaffected and should
not be moved by the outside world. Perhaps the head of the evil in China will
step down (or perhaps he will cling dearly to his post), perhaps many countries
and organizations outside of China will give us enormous support, but Falun Dafa
disciples have Teacher's teachings to guide us on how to take each step well. We
should not slack off because of any change in external conditions and develop
thoughts and behavior that are like those of ordinary people.
On the other hand, when many fellow practitioners who have not been diligent
read Teacher's recent lectures, they almost could not believe it: Fa-rectification
really is about to draw to an end and the first large-scale process of weeding
out really is approaching. Many were awakened and have returned to Falun Dafa
one after another. We can see that time is truly quite pressing; the time to
save sentient beings is quite pressing. Once this matter is over, those people
who still do not understand the truth will no longer be saved. Therefore, we
Falun Dafa practitioners should seize the day and try our best to save the
world's people. People of today are also reincarnations of high-level beings,
who have gone through so much to get to today. How important it is to save a
life!
At this final stage of Fa-rectification, our minds should be calm and stable,
"taking the Fa as our Teacher." The only hope and the only thing that
sentient beings can count on are Falun Dafa practitioners in the world today, so
we should walk the Falun Dafa practitioners' path righteously. No matter how we
validate and safeguard Falun Dafa and save sentient beings, we must follow Falun
Dafa's requirements and we must not lower our standard, and even less should we
conduct ourselves as ordinary people or even deviate from and damage Falun Dafa.
II. Taking the Fa as Our Teacher in the Strictest Sense
Some people have come to some understanding of one of Teacher's poems in
Hongyin II,
Minghui saves the predestined ones They believe that "Renmin" is referring to the Renminbao website,
and since Renminbao makes positive reports about Dafa, they believe that by
reprinting articles from Renminbao, we are conforming to Dafa.
This behavior is interpreting Teacher's words out of context and covering up
one's own attachments, and if one can't recognize this and correct it, it can
easily lead one astray.
A mere few days after Hongyin II was published, I saw a flyer at a
fellow practitioner's home. All of the articles in that flyer came from
Renminbao, and the content in that flier was similar to other flyers under
different names that appeared later on. I voiced my opinion and said we should
not distribute this type of flyer as Falun Dafa disciples' truth clarification
literature. Unfortunately, it became evident that other practitioners were
indifferent, and no one tried to stop those people responsible for the
circulation of these flyers. They all felt that it was enough to talk about it,
and everyone has their own understanding--it was fine as long as they weren't
the ones passing the flyers out. They didn't think about truly being responsible
to the Fa, to themselves, to the fellow practitioners who made these flyers, and
to the people that read them.
Later, I met practitioners from other areas in the past few days, and they
all said they have seen these flyers. They said they told the practitioners who
distributed the flyers that they were not Minghui articles and should not be
distributed as truth clarification literature, but they didn't solemnly point
out the consequences of passing out those flyers and the damage they could
cause.
During this last stage of Fa-rectification, the evil force is creating great
internal interference among the Dafa practitioners. There always seems to be
someone doing inconceivable things that deviate from Dafa, even things that
undermine Dafa. These things should be a matter of deep concern from Dafa
disciples. Just because we are in the final phase, we can't take shortcuts and
not think about the Fa, or not think carefully about whether something is in
accordance with Dafa.
Recently, some practitioners in Wuhan City bought pre-made Buddha statues to
promote Dafa. In some areas, practitioners did things that deviated from Dafa
while playing waist-drums. In some areas, practitioners changed the Fa
rectification verses and the form for sending forth righteous thoughts, which
also took place here locally. Some people in our area pretend to be studying the
Fa on the surface, but they are actually not studying and running away from Fa
rectification. They gathered together a group of people and do messed-up things
all day long.
Why is it that these people are not behaving according to the requirements of
Dafa and often do a set of different things, yet they think they are doing the
right thing?
Before Teacher published the most recent teachings, we had felt during
experience sharing that for quite a long time, the strength and results of truth
clarification have not been good. We felt like the area covered by our truth
clarification was too small, the number of people that have understood the truth
and received salvation was too small, despite the fact that we have distributed
so many flyers, VCDs and other materials in the past few years. So why is this
the case?
Thinking it over, Teacher has always told us to clarify the
truth. Mainland Falun Dafa disciples don't have any media at their
disposal. Television in particular has a huge impact and influence on people,
because they can see it with their own eyes, as if they were being communicated
to face to face, so of course the impact is the greatest. Since we don't have
our own TV channel, we can distribute VCD's, which should be able to clarify
things pretty well. Indeed, we've distributed a lot of VCD's. Reading newspapers
is also a major way for ordinary people to get information, so we have also
produced a lot of flyers and pamphlets to clarify the truth, which provide an
adequate amount of information. On top of this, we have done audiotapes and
tapped into TV broadcasts. We have done everything we could think of.
Dafa practitioners are the main body during Fa-rectification cultivation. We
overly depended on truth clarification materials and for a long time, ignored
our own power and value. These materials are only tools to assist in our
large-scale truth clarification efforts. Although other practitioners have
written articles online that constantly reminded us of the importance of
clarifying the truth face-to-face and improving our understanding of Fa
principles, we have not paid enough attention to this issue as a whole.
What I want to say is, when unconsciously Dafa disciples don't clearly
understand or don't measure up to the requirements Dafa has for us during this
period, the evil will take advantage of the omission. It will do everything it
can think of to restrict us, to keep us from improving in terms of the Fa, and
have us do things in a passive, low-efficiency manner. During experience
sharing, we realized that most of the practitioners who distributed flyers in
the past few years were in the situation mentioned above (of course, this is not
always true), and a large portion of the other practitioners hardly distributed
anything. They only read Teacher's lectures, and some also read articles from
the Minghui website. As for the practitioners who distribute flyers, some of
them think that they are not linguistically gifted, so they make up for it by
passing out more materials; some thought that distributing flyers was their
strength; and some thought, "There are so many people, how long would it
take if I talked to everyone with this one mouth of mine? I should just pass out
flyers--even like this there isn't enough time." As a result, for most
practitioners, they clarified the truth using their speech to a very small or
insufficient extent, which limited the outcome of our truth clarification
efforts as a whole.
In fact, for many of those Dafa practitioners who do not have mental barriers
in this area, they have been talking to people while giving them flyers. After
several years, their way of thinking and speaking ability have improved by leaps
and bounds. More importantly, when it comes to whether a person really
understood the truth, how to improve in clarifying the truth, what kind of
materials works better, and which ones need to be improved--only those who often
talk face to face while distributing materials are able to get sufficient direct
feedback. From this information, they are able to reach an objective, accurate
understanding and judgment, so that they can then help people truly establish
righteous thoughts through the materials they passed out, in a rational, wise
way. Not distributing materials is definitely doing something from one side
only, but giving out as many as possible is not our goal, either. Our goal is to
help people establish righteous thoughts toward Dafa and understand the nature
of the persecution.
If we can't let go of the attachment of relying on others, it will lead to
bad consequences, no matter whom we rely on. We have gone through the lesson of
relying on ordinary people many times, such as relying on the former Premier of
China, the United Nations Human Rights Commission, putting our hopes in Party
congresses, and other examples. We have had enough of these painful lessons. The
resulting losses and difficulties are reflected in the way we have done things
subsequently. Even though what's being relied on is the materials production
site run by Dafa disciples, if everyone relies on the materials production site,
then the evil would focus on destroying it, so that no one could read articles
from Minghui or get a hold of truth-clarification materials. If we all let go of
our ordinary people's mentality and proactively participate in validating the Fa
with righteous thoughts, do everything we are supposed to do with Dafa
disciples' pure compassion and great forbearance, there wouldn't be so many
painful lessons. We should establish material production sites, and everyone
should be a material site unto himself. We should proactively clarify the truth
and eliminate the evil's interference with the materials sites. We should not
just casually pay lip service to it, but we should put it into action
after realizing what to do! An elderly Dafa disciple in Beijing bought a small
portable copier and solved the problem of producing truth-clarifying materials.
Some practitioners make copies of audiotapes and distribute them. Some
practitioners find reasons to go to public places and clarify the truth to
people there, and hand out small handicrafts they made that have words
clarifying the truth on them, etc. So why is it such a difficult thing to do in
our area?
The key reason is that we only focused on doing things, instead of
cultivating as we do them. We have to ask ourselves how much we believe in the
Fa, to what extent do we believe, how much have we reserved for ourselves, and
to what extent--can we let go of self and melt into Fa-rectification, or are we
protecting ourselves and leaving difficulties to others? Of course,
practitioners who are unable to do certain things cannot be forced to do them by
others, but how much are we truly putting our hearts into doing these Fa-rectification
things, and do we truly believe in Dafa?
Teacher said in his recent article, "Let Go of Human Attachments and
Save the World's People,"
"This is especially so for the Dafa disciples in Mainland China: each
must come out and clarify the truth, bringing it to every field and valley,
mountain and hill, not omitting a single area where there are people. And as
for people who want to learn the practice after you clarify the truth, you
should arrange for them to study the Fa and learn the exercises as soon as
possible. They are the next group of disciples who will cultivate.
"When you clarify the truth, you need to make Fa-study a priority. And
stop reading and passing around those fake scriptures made by rotten demons
who disrupt the Fa and that are spread by the evil taking advantage of
students who have studied the Fa poorly and harbor strong human attachments.
Keep up your righteous thoughts and righteous actions, keep a clear head, and
rationally and comprehensively save the world's people."
My personal understanding is that Dafa disciples should cherish this
opportunity and spread the truth about Dafa to every corner in China instead of
distributing truth clarification materials without a clear purpose. We should
step forward and talk personally to the Chinese people, without waiting for or
relying on other people, and be proactive. We should get in contact with the
Chinese people in the most direct way, clarifying the truth with wisdom and
rationality. While doing this, we should distribute more materials, covering a
greater area with a greater variety of ways to do so. It's not that we should
stop passing out materials. Through our direct observation and contact, we will
know from the people's firsthand reaction how we can awaken their souls. Our
materials will therefore be more accurate and effective, and more able to
directly dispel their confusion and truly offer them salvation. If we only give
out flyers and do not talk to them, they won't even know where to go to learn to
practice.
Those people who circulate bad things should stop being led by their
attachments and stop being used by the evil to interfere with and disrupt Dafa.
Even more so, they should not disrespect Teacher's benevolence and take their
own lives as a joking matter.
III. Recognize Clearwisdom's role in Fa-rectification
As a trustworthy and reliable website for Fa rectification period Dafa
disciples, Clearwisdom has far-reaching functions and significance. It is a
website that truly regards the Fa as the teacher, and is a place that serves
both practitioners and society at large, a place where cultivators can exchange
experiences and Dafa is promoted. Clearwisdom Net is a beacon that Teacher has
given us to light our path and for the path of the world's people, and it is
pure and righteous. Teacher said, "It's not that the Minghui website is
never wrong, but when it comes to major issues, you must look at Minghui's
stance. When I published my picture and 'The Knowing Heart' on the Minghui
website, the purpose was to establish a credible website for you."
We cannot rely on ordinary people to validate Dafa. Dafa disciples' and
ordinary people's validation of Dafa and their understandings are filtered,
processed, purified and rectified through Clearwisdom and then returned back to
the Dafa disciples and the world's people. This cycle and purification process
go on continually, and nothing in ordinary society can compare to it, and
Teacher is watching the website. So articles on Clearwisdom have the pure and
righteous power endowed by Dafa, helping Dafa disciples to carry out the
magnificent task of validating Dafa and offering salvation to the world's
people, so Dafa disciples should follow the overall direction of Clearwisdom on
the major issues of validating and upholding Dafa. There was no report on
Clearwisdom regarding the Fourth Plenary Meeting. Instead, articles about truth
clarification and cultivation are continuously being published. Isn't this a
telling direction?
What I have written above is my personal understanding. Fellow practitioners,
please kindly point out anything inappropriate.
In closing, please allow me to share with everyone Teacher's poem "Hurry
Up And Tell Them:"
"As Dafa disciples tell people the facts,
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