We Should Not Misuse Sending Forth Righteous Thoughts

By Fang Zhi, a practitioner from China

(Clearwisdom.net) I had only practiced Falun Gong for six months before the persecution started. Thus, during my individual cultivation period, the foundation of my personal cultivation was not solidly laid. But when Fa-rectification began, I often interpreted everything I came across from the perspective of it being the old force's interference and did not pay attention to self-cultivation. Whenever I had difficulties or problems, I used sending forth righteous thoughts as the way to solve them. I did not search within myself and treated all problems as if the evil was interfering with me rectifying the Fa.

Here I would like to give an example. Within one month my husband caught a cold twice. The first time, I quickly sent forth righteous thoughts for him and he immediately recovered. I figured that the evil jumped at every opportunity to interfere with me, including using my family members to disrupt my work. I thought it even made my husband get sick so that I would have to take care of him and have less time to do the three things well. So with this reasoning I sent forth righteous thoughts, hoping to disintegrate the evil that was persecuting my husband, and hoping that he would recover as soon as possible. But soon after he got well I developed the cold-like symptom instead. I was a practitioner, how come I was infected? Things should not be like this. So I searched within myself to see if I had done things well and whether I had kept up my xinxing. I searched for awhile but did not find the obvious cause. Two days later I recovered. Then I forgot about it.

But soon my husband caught another cold. He himself did not understand why. I still had not come to a correct understanding. Again I sent forth righteous thoughts to have him recover. Two days later I again developed the same symptoms as he did. This time the symptoms lasted much longer. Only then did I realize that I must find the cause.

Teacher said,

"If you do not know the karmic relationship of a matter, you are likely to handle it incorrectly." (Zhuan Falun)

Teacher also said,

"One must repay one's own karma, and no one dares to violate this principle." (Zhuan Falun)

In this case, I had sent forth righteous thoughts twice to help my husband recover, while he himself did not have the opportunity to pay back his debt. This necessitated him to get another cold so that he could pay back his karma. Didn't I do a wrong thing? In addition, this loophole would allow the evil to interfere by saying, "You yourself did not do well. You let an ordinary person get well so you yourself have to suffer for him." Didn't I let the evil take advantage of my loophole? Teacher said,

"Of course, most disciples who are in this state are that way because, at the beginning, they didn't realize that they had subtle attachments or were being interfered with by their own notions, and so the evil has exploited this gap and magnified those factors." ("The Closer to the End, the More Diligent You Should Be")

If a cultivator takes all problems as interference and then sends forth righteous thoughts to get rid of them without looking inside for any attachment or human notion, he is demonstrating a low understanding of the Fa, and the results obviously will not be ideal.

In this final stage of the Fa-rectification period, we should not forget to cultivate ourselves while doing the "three things." We should live up to the expectations of our Teacher - "the closer to the end, the more diligent we should be."

The above is my personal understanding. Please kindly point out anything inappropriate.

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