By a Dafa practitioner in China

(Clearwisdom.net) I am currently a junior college student and I have already been practicing cultivation in Dafa for ten years. My life mainly revolves around school and family. Since The Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party was published, every time I have a chance, I introduce the Nine Commentaries to my classmates and relatives and expose the wicked Communist Party's true facade. At the same time, I clarify the truth about the persecution of Dafa.

Some of the relatives and friends accepted the facts and signed to renounce the party. Some accepted the facts but have yet to decide to renounce. Others, however, could not accept what I told them. My father is one who does not accept it. We discussed this question many times, but invariably the discussions ended in dispute. My stepmother is different from my father. She agrees with my viewpoint. She thought what I said made sense. However, she told me that I am very much like my father in that we both are very obstinate and insistent on our own viewpoints, so we argue endlessly. I said, "Our viewpoints are not the same." My stepmother said, "That is right. Your viewpoints are contrary, but both of you are very stubborn, and once you think you are right you do not give ground. Both of you have the same temperament in your bones." At the beginning, I did not accept the words my stepmother said to me. I just felt that I was right and he was wrong. However, when I heard her words repeatedly, I had a feeling something wasn't quite right. My stepmother's words were not accidental.

When I carefully assessed myself with Dafa, I found my own problem was not minor. Master often told us that we ought to have a heart of benevolence and compassion, act truly for the good of others in everything we do, and not act with a human mindset. We are on the path to Godhood and what we need to give up are exactly these human things. How can we allow ourselves to be driven by humanness? Am I saving people or satisfying my own desire to win the dispute? I always felt that I stood on the side that is right, but I had forgotten that what all Dafa practitioners are doing is beyond what ordinary people do. We are entrusted with a great historic mission, which is different from what everyday people do.

Every time, when I talked about the wicked party's sore spots, my father got annoyed and scolded me for being naive. Even after he read the Nine Commentaries I gave him, he did not believe all the contents in it. When I talked about the facts of the persecution of Dafa, although he did not support the party's criminal conduct, he said we were playing politics and brought out Mao Zedong's system of twisted theories. I was once quite disheartened and felt my father was impossible to save. However, now I recall my demeanor was not exactly what a cultivator's should be. Every time when I clarified the truth to him, I always had this competitive mindset to outdo him. As I think about it, I have discovered that my sentiment is still at work. What cultivators should have is compassion, not personal sentiments.

When I am with friends and classmates, I can usually reason things out with them calmly. I know that as long as I have their good in mind, what I say can touch their hearts, let alone the truth about Dafa. However, when I face my father, I always feel intimidated. I feel that he is my father, and I feel like a child. This is what I had not realized before. There is another thing. Every time I met people who did not accept the truth, I became very irritated, and thought that they were really hopeless. I would not want to have anything to do with them again and thought that they would feel regret sooner or later.

Now I realize that I am too deeply mired in my human mindset. As a Dafa practitioner, I must always remember "Truth Compassion Forbearance," and must remember that the people I want to clarify the truth to are also poisoned by the wicked Party. Master said in "Teaching the Fa in the City of Chicago, "

"Think about this, everyone: before you began to cultivate Dafa, many of you present here were also once fooled by that wicked Party into becoming members of it, so do you really want to bring to trial the CCP members who have been fooled by the evil? You should understand that they, too, have been deceived by the wicked CCP, and they are all sentient beings for you to save. You must make a clear distinction here."

In the past six years, all Dafa practitioners have been through all kinds of difficulties and hardships to spread the truth about Dafa everywhere around the world to save sentient beings. In contrast, I am still attached to my personal sentiments. When I met the sentient beings who were poisoned by the wicked party, what I had was not the grand compassion to save them, but the attachment to my personal sentiments. When they did not accept what I told them, I did not look within to find the cause but dwelled on my human mindset, fretting that what I got in return was incommensurate with what I had put forth. Getting to the bottom of the matter, it is my enormous human mentality at work, which has always been lurking in the path of my cultivation, and creating many obstacles.

I hope my experience can be of help to the fellow practitioners who have similar problems, so that they can better prepare themselves and join the current of Fa rectification.

"If you are able to step out of the reasoning and attachments of ordinary people, then you are a god."[Teaching the Fa at the 2004 International Fa Conference in New York]

The above are my personal experience and realizations. If there is anything improper, please kindly point it out.

July 30, 2005

Posting date: 8/16/2005
Original article date: 8/15/2005
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Translated on 8/5/2005
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2005/7/31/107415.html

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