Thoughts After the Kitchen Fire
By a Dafa Practitioner from Mainland China
(Clearwisdom.net) 1. Caught on Fire One day in mid-July of this year, after I sent forth righteous thoughts in my
rented house (which also serves as a truth materials site), I went to the
kitchen to cook a meal. I noticed that the stove flame was not strong enough. I
thought that there wasn't enough gas left in the tank, so I tilted the tank to
let the gas out a little more. The valve had been leaking since the last time I
added gas. It wasn't a big leak, so I didn't pay too much attention to it.
Another day when I was cooking I adjusted the valve and noticed there was some
white gas coming out, as it frosted up a bit. I tried to fix it, but could not.
I was planning to change the valve when I got my next tank of gas. When I laid
down the tank, it still didn't help my cooking flame, and the white gas still
kept coming out. I thought the gas might be too low (although by lifting the
tank, it felt like it still had some gas in it). I then made a huge mistake. I
turned the tank upside down on the floor and used my foot to shake it. Within
seconds, the room was on fire and it blocked the exit. I was shocked. I vaguely realized that it would be even more dangerous if I
tried to close the valve, because the valve was towards the floor. I clearly
knew that it was dangerous in the room and I should run out. So I ran out
immediately. Now that I think about it, I still feel scared. 2. Fighting the Fire Looking from the outside, the whole kitchen was completely on fire. It made
loud noises. Even the asbestos tiles on the roof were burned through. I thought,
"This is a truth materials site. What if the tank explodes? If the fire
reaches to the neighbor's houses, it would be huge trouble." I cried,
Master, please help fight the fire! Master, please help fight the fire! Falun
Dafa is good! Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance is good! I ran into the house,
knelt down in front of Master's picture and begged, "Master, it was my
fault! Please help! Master!" After I begged Master, I heard the noises die
down. When I went out, I found that the fire was less strong. It was possible
for me to put it out myself. The neighbors came to help too. Everyone helped put out the fire. I realized
that it was Master who helped put out the fire. I realized I should take the
opportunity to validate Dafa. So I said, "Falun Dafa's Master helped fight
the fire. Otherwise, there would have been great losses." A neighbor asked,
"What happened?" I said, "The landlord practices Falun Gong. She
said that whenever I have troubles I should say, 'Falun Dafa is good.
Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance is good' and her Master would protect me. It
really worked. Otherwise, it would have been a huge problem." The landlord
is a fellow practitioner. Everyone in the area knows that she practices Falun
Gong, and people respect her. 3. Severely Burned and Intact Paper After everyone left, I only felt a little hot on my body. When taking a
shower, I found that my right hand was severely burned, except my thumb. The
skin on my right hand formed one huge blister. I knew it was no use to keep the
skin, so I peeled it off. But I didn't feel any pain. Two hours later, I found
that other than where my shirt covered, my whole right arm, shoulders, back,
face and ears were all covered with big blisters. Bloody water dripped from
them, and the area swelled up as well. I had trouble opening my eyes. I couldn't
even recognize myself when I looked in the mirror. Practitioners asked me if I
was in pain. I said no. I knew Master endured it for me. There was a large box
of paper for making truth-clarification materials in the kitchen.
Other than the box getting burned a little bit, the paper inside was intact. It
was a miracle. 4. Facing the Challenges with Righteous Thoughts and Being Encouraged by
Fellow Practitioners The next day, the swollen areas became infected. It smelled awful. My clothes
were filled with pus and blood. I used many towels. My lips were swollen too. It
hurt every time I opened my mouth. My arm was twice as big as it was before.
There were thick scabs on my face and the back of my right hand. Fellow
practitioners worried about me and encouraged me, "If this happened to an
ordinary person, no one would stand the pain and the shock. It's Master who is
protecting us." When looking in the mirror, I felt a little worried,
"I hope this won't give me scars." I immediately realized that this
was a wrong thought and eliminated it right away. I'm a Dafa practitioner. Now
that I'm like this already, I recalled Master's words, "...you completely let go of everything, behave like an upstanding and
noble Dafa disciple who has no resentment or attachments, and leave it to
Master to arrange whether you stay or go." ("Teaching the Fa in the
City of Los Angeles") I smiled, "Yes, it doesn't hurt at all. Thanks to Master's benevolence,
looks like I'm going to change completely." A practitioner came to take care of me for the next few days. We studied
again and again "Teaching the Fa at the Fa Conference at the U.S.
Capital" and we read three chapters of Zhuan Falun every
day. We studied Master's other new lectures the rest of the time. Every day we
practiced the standing exercises twice and the sitting meditation once.
Sometimes my movements were not accurate. My right hand and arm were very
uncomfortable, and sometimes I couldn't feel them. But after I finished the
exercises, I felt much better. I knew it was Falun that was purifying my body.
After the exercises, there was no more bloody water dripping. Scabs started
forming. When I was doing the fourth exercise, fellow practitioners saw shining
balls moving with my hands. The power of the Fa boosted my confidence to keep
practicing. 5. Recovering in Three Weeks A week later, the scabs started coming off. Two weeks later, my face was
shining without any scars. In the meantime, it started itching around the scabs
on the back of my right hand. The skin on my arm, ears, shoulders and back
started peeling. Three weeks later, the back of my hand was recovered. Only the
color of my skin had yet to recover. There was no scar. My ears, shoulders and
back were completely back to normal and I was able to move them freely as well. To be severely burned like that and recover so well within three weeks is
indeed a miracle. It was all because I practice Dafa and had Master to protect
me. Even the fellow practitioners who witnessed it could hardly believe it. I sincerely thank Master for his benevolence and kindness. The Buddha Law is
boundless. I appreciate fellow practitioners taking care of me selflessly,
helping me strengthen my righteous thoughts and helping me find my attachments. After this experience, I started thinking deeply about the cause of the fire. 6. Looking Inward and Suddenly Waking Up After studying "Teaching the Fa at the Fa Conference at the U.S.
Capital," I was deeply touched. The attachments that prevented me from
making progress for a long time in my cultivation finally surfaced. I didn't
completely understand the cultivation way. I didn't use the Fa to harmonize my
and my fellow practitioners' cultivation states. I always felt that my
surrounding cultivation environment was not good enough. On the surface, it
seemed that I wanted to help everyone advance as one body, but in fact my
impatience caused me to deviate from the true way of cultivation. I was deeply
touched by what Master said in "Teaching the Fa at the Fa Conference at the
U.S. Capital," "Don't go to extremes with anything; do things rationally and with a
clear head. That is the mighty virtue of a Dafa disciple. Whoever
manages to remain steady while following this ordinary-society cultivation
format, that person is truly doing what's best in this format of cultivation.
If with this format someone exhibits behavior that is out of line with this
format and at odds with it, then perhaps that person hasn't done well enough.
Since Dafa disciples' cultivation is conducted with a format like this, this
format is able to forge Dafa disciples, and it can create incredibly high
future Attainment Statuses. Departing from this format or not conforming to it
will obstruct your cultivation; those things are actually the product of
attachments." The above story illustrates how I deviated from Master's Fa. This was a huge
lesson for me. I was able to fix the loophole with Master's strengthening and
fellow practitioners' help. I now write about this lesson to warn everyone, as
well as for fellow practitioners' reference. What was truly a pity is that three days after this incident I was still not
able to find where my loopholes were. I thought I was relatively diligent in
cultivation recently. I was printing materials, getting supplies, organizing
group discussions, guiding fellow practitioners who made mistakes and so on. I
felt I knew how to save sentient beings and was able to do the three
things well. How could something as banal as jealously become an excuse
for the old forces to give me trouble. I did not think it possible. Master
wouldn't have let them do this. I knew I had loopholes, and not ordinary
loopholes. But I wasn't able to identify them. I was suffering. On the third
day, a fellow practitioner said to me, "When we send forth righteous
thoughts to eliminate the evil, our thoughts should still be kind. 'Immediate
retribution in this lifetime' has the content of good is rewarded with good, and
evil will be met with retribution. For the evil people who never regret their
wrongdoings and stop what they've been doing, they will meet with retribution.
But for the people who don't know the truth and blindly follow the evil to
persecute Dafa, if they get to know the truth, they will stop the wrong doings
and help stop the evil. These people should be saved. The Fa has its
standards." I suddenly came to realize that my thoughts were not kind
enough. Whenever I read news about illegally detained fellow practitioners being
brutally tortured by guards and evil people in forced labor camps, I would send
a thought for the guards to meet with retribution immediately. I thought that
only this could effectively wake people up. Otherwise, I wouldn't have vented my
feelings. I just hoped the evil people would get what they deserved. I thought
of an article in "Minghui Weekly" that stated that a fellow
practitioner's bike was stolen. The first thing she thought of was, "If
this were an ordinary bike, the person who stole it would just lose some virtue
and they would still be able to pay in some way. But this is a bike that helped
do Dafa work to save sentient beings, how could you ever be able to pay!"
Consequently, the bike reappeared several days later. Comparing my state of mind
to what this fellow practitioner did - from that standpoint I'm far away from
the Fa's requirements. I told fellow practitioners, "I found my loopholes." Immediately
afterward, I found out that my true loophole was my attachment to complacency.
Ever since I read Clearwisdom editors' "Notice of Adjustments to the Times
of Global Sending Forth Righteous Thoughts" and Master's new lecture
"Opening the Gate of the World," I didn't regret that I never gave
enough attention to the Sunday sending forth righteous thoughts and that I
should treasure the time left to cultivate better and save more sentient beings.
Instead, I started feeling very good. I even told some practitioners that ending
the Sunday sending forth righteous thoughts means the evil factors in other
dimensions no longer exist. The reason why we haven't ended the daily sending
forth righteous thoughts is because there are still fellow practitioners who
haven't paid enough attention to sending forth righteous thoughts. Their spaces
still need to be cleaned up. We need to wait for them to be able to consummate
together. In addition, I went even further in thinking that the evil party no
longer exists, that the Fa has been rectified. It's only because of
practitioners' attachments to fear that we can't return back to a
pre-persecution environment. Now that I'm looking back on what I said and
thought, why did I have this huge demonic nature? Master said in "Teaching the Fa at the Meeting with Asia-Pacific
Students," "Some students' righteous thoughts are always lacking, and whenever
they get big-headed they come up with something different. That's when you'll
be used by demons, and you will go astray and have problems. Those who have
gone wrong didn't go wrong overnight. They slowly began like that." Indeed, the mentality of showing off plus the attachment to complacency are
all easily taken advantage of by the demonic nature. In fact, persuading my
relatives to quit the CCP and its related organizations hasn't gone as smoothly
as I expected due to my leaving home to avoid persecution. I haven't even made
phone calls to many co-workers. They still don't know the truth of Falun Gong,
let alone quitting the CCP. The local evil is still going crazy and has yet to
be exposed to the outside world. How could I say my own space has been cleaned
up! From an overall perspective, the evil commands are still being carried out.
Lots of fellow practitioners are still being detained and persecuted in forced
labor camps and prisons. Both local and overseas practitioners are still working
on saving the detained fellow practitioners. There are still many barriers in
the process of the Fa-rectification that need to be overcome. There are still
many predestined people who haven't gotten to know the truth and are facing the
danger of being eliminated. How could I say that the evil factors no longer
exist? Isn't this demonic nature? Wasn't this the attachment that caused me to
make this huge mistake? I'm digging it all out and eliminating it completely. Master said in "Teaching the Fa at the Western U.S. Fa Conference"
in 1999: "If it's your idiosyncrasies formed postnatally, that is not your
personality but your attachments, and they are formed postnatally. If, let's
say, some people indeed have their own traits--this person acts quickly while
another is just very slow--or if there are differences among them in terms of
their innate traits, then that is something that belongs to their origin. What
is formed postnatally are things like, for example, the thought that goes
"I just like it this way," "That's just how I am," "I
just like to do it this way," or the "That's just how I do it"
that come out when doing certain things. It is wrong to treat these
attachments, these idiosyncrasies, as your own traits or personality. These
things all have to be removed." The way I treated the gas tank was not assimilating to ordinary society. It
was not a necessity of my cultivation or due to any special needs. It was only
because of my habits and notions formed postnatally. Wasn't this demonic
interference? In addition, I often ran around doing things, and didn't study the Fa well
and calmly. For a while, I'd developed the mentality of doing things, which
caused me not to do things properly. Thinking about it calmly and thoroughly, time is limited now. Our cultivation
environment has become better and better. But the Fa has higher and higher
requirements for us. The moment we deviate from the Fa, the remaining factors of
the old forces will take full advantage of our loopholes. However, if we always
use the Fa to measure everything we do, completely negate the old forces'
arrangements and firmly believe in and follow Master's arrangements, we will be
walking steadily on our cultivation path.
Chinese version available at
http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/8/20/135793.html
Yearly Archive
Printer Version
feedback@clearwisdom.net