By a Dafa practitioner from Shandong Province

(Clearwisdom.net) Since I began to cultivate Dafa in 1997, I cannot convey enough the benefits to my health or family life in words. Though I did truth clarification many times, as I look back at my path, I discovered that selfishness and pursuit have existed at every step. I would like to share my understanding of personal truth clarification in order to improve ourselves together in cultivation.

Once when clarifying the truth at a banquet, in attendance were the chief of the local Judicial Bureau, the head of the People's Congress of the city, the director-general of our corporation and some high level managers. While drinking wine, my company's boss said about me, "He does not drink wine. He practices Falun Gong." Then the chief of the local Judicial Bureau and the head of People's Congress of the city said loudly at the same time, "Fellow, you cannot practice Falun Gong! It is heresy."

I clarified the truth to them. I told them Falun Gong is good. I described how Falun Gong can make people improve their moral standards and become a good person, how Falun Gong brings great physical and mental benefits and that it can raise society's morals to a higher level. I spoke of the "Tiananmen Square Self-Immolation Incident" having been staged by Jiang's regime to deceive people and persecute Falun Gong. They could say nothing more and came to understand the truth about Dafa. The chief said, "I want to learn from you, fellow! I formally want you to be my teacher." I told him, "If you want to learn I'll give you a book, but there's only one master and that is Master Li."

As I talked about Jiang Zemin's regime persecuting Dafa, and that my boss and the director-general always protect Dafa practitioners, the head of the People's Congress said, "The Communist Party does not allow practicing, so you cannot practice. The Communist Party does not allow you to publicize Falun Gong, so you cannot publicize it!" This negative response made me realize my error. Although it is reflected in this dimension that my boss and the director-general protected us, the one who actually protects us is our Master. They were just doing it in this dimension; the one who truly protected practitioners is our Master.

After that, I did some self-examination on this. I had clarified the truth to them with humanness in many aspects. The attachment of indignation made me think that they were not fair toward Dafa and Dafa practitioners. There was also the attachment of fear, which made me ponder whether or not I could clarify the truth of Dafa to the high-level leaders present. I was still afraid and cowered, even when the evilness of the persecution came at me. When the truth was clarified, and the listeners all approved of Dafa being great, and they could also accept the truth, I was happy. I was thinking that I had done a good job. Master had already acknowledged my truth clarification work. Then the attachment of pursuit appeared. How bad these attachments are! I did not act from the mindset of altruism. I put myself, not Dafa, in the primary position. How serious the attachment of selfishness is! The attachment of pursuit appeared only when I did truth clarification. This attachment is deeply rooted. Why didn't I get rid of it when I made mistakes before? Again, it was selfishness. I was afraid that Master wouldn't accept me and I could not possibly reach consummation because I made mistakes.

Why can one not improve oneself after making a mistake and go well on one's way of cultivation and validate Dafa? The attachments of selfishness, fear and pursuit exist deeply and microcosmically in our minds at all times. Undertaking different ways of truth clarification in many respects has made me clearly realize that as Dafa practitioners we must do the three things well, according to Master's teachings. We must save people. We must do well in truth clarification. At every opportunity, we should try our best to take the initiative in any situation without going to extremes. We should put Dafa first and to be considerate of others. We should be selfless, fearless and pursue nothing. Only by validating Dafa with the mindset of a genuine practitioner can we save more people.

9/17/2005

Posting date: 10/1/2005
Original article date: 10/1/2005
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Translated on 9/22/2005
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2005/9/18/110651.html

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