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My Experiences and Lessons Learned from Truth Clarification By a Dafa disciple from Beijing
(Clearwisdom.net) For some time, when I clarified the
truth the effect was not good. It always led to controversies with others
and sometimes we even parted in discord. Of course there were also some
objective reasons from external circumstances. Formerly, we only clarified the
truth about Dafa which was a little simpler. But now we have touched upon the
essence of the evil party, and therefore the evil wants to disturb and interfere
with us. But I think as Dafa disciples, we should not use this as an excuse for
not doing well in clarifying the truth. We still need to upgrade our xinxing.
Through looking within, I noticed that I have several attachments which I will
discuss here. The first one is my heart for competition. Normally, when clarifying the
truth, we should not enter into an argument with others, but we should truly
wish other people well. In the process of clarifying the truth, if the person I
was talking to used provocative speech, my competitive heart would become
aroused. Among ordinary people I was a good speaker and quite eloquent. So I had
the attachment of competition in this respect. Therefore when I met the same
kind of person as I, we would have an interaction which looked as if we were
having a debate. Sometimes, when we argued and then changed the original
subject, we still continued to debate. So this definitely influenced the effect
of my truth clarification. The second attachment was my heart of pursuing results. Each time I clarified
the truth, I wanted to persuade that person and transform their way of thinking.
When I noticed that the other party still persisted in holding on to his or her
original opinion even after I had explained quite a lot, I started to lose
patience and feel upset. Sometimes I even irritated the person. In fact, for
everyone who has heard the truth, each time they hear the truth some of bad
notions can be dispelled. The effect may not be obvious immediately. Therefore
we just do the things we should do and we must not be influenced by the outer
expression of others. Pursuing results too much is also an attachment. The third attachment was my communication style. My friend mentioned to me
that every time I spoke to others my tone of voice always sounded commanding. It
seemed as though I was lecturing people and in addition, I was impatient when
listening to other people. I always interrupted others when they were speaking,
and therefore these people did not want to listen to me. Before he told me about
these deficiencies, I had never realized that other people thought of me that
way. After that, I reviewed what he said and took it to heart. I found out that
besides me, a lot of other Dafa practitioners had the exact same problem. We
have learned the principles of the universe, so regarding ordinary people's
things we usually expressed contempt and intolerance, which would in turn drive
people away. At this point, I realized that it was not only the problem of not
conforming to the way of ordinary people to the greatest extent but also a
problem concerning elation and zealotry. After I realized my attachments, I also read some articles by fellow
practitioners about their truth clarification. Finally, I summed up several new
understandings. The first was that we need to send forth righteous thoughts both
before and during the process of truth clarification. A lot of people who did
not know the truth are interfered with by the evil factors in other dimensions.
Therefore, utilizing righteous thoughts in order to eliminate the evil was the
key point in helping them understand the truth. We are cultivators, so we all
understand that when we clarify the truth the effect will not be completely
expressed in this dimension. Sometimes we feel that what we say is quite
persuasive, but the other party still does not accept it. Sometimes several
simple words may lead people to agree to resign from the CCP (Chinese Communist
Party) and its affiliated organizations immediately. The second realization was
that our basic starting point must be correct. We do not want to just tell them,
but we want people to really understand the truth. Our basic standpoint should
be that of saving people; it's not about how we feel. Once we realize this, the
heart of competition will no longer exist and we can be calm and conscientious.
We will not be influenced by the other people's expressions, and will not get
involved in senseless arguments. We can also manage the direction of the
conversation. The third understanding was that we need to pay attention to our
speech by using a polite tone and speaking as softly as possible. Avoid using
bitter words and carefully watch the other person's expression to determine what
he or she might be thinking. If we can determine that person's attachment, we
can use a different approach and build better communication. Of course we need
to use different approaches with different people and we cannot force our
opinion upon others. We have to take the viewpoint of the opposite party and
take their feelings into account. In fact, if we cannot do this then that is a
problem and lack of benevolence. The more benevolent our hearts are, the more
people we can save. "Mercy can dissolve heaven and earth, bringing about spring, Righteous
thought may save people in the world" (Hong Yin II, provisional
translation) After I had figured out the problems mentioned above, I thought that this
time there should be no problem for me to clarify the truth. But what upset me
each time when I wanted to talk to my classmates or friends when they got
together and had a party, was that I never achieved the three items mentioned
above. At the beginning, I was able to keep a peaceful mind and have a calm and
sensible talk with them. Yet as the topic got hot and we had deep discussions, I
talked very rapidly, became completely argumentative, and forgot to maintain
righteous thoughts. One time I was almost kicked out by others. They said,
"If you two still want to continue the quarrel, you can leave, but we want
to have peace and quiet now." I was really upset. Offering salvation to
sentient beings is truly a holy thing to do, but I was not successful. Why was I
not able to find and get rid of the problems? Maybe Master was watching me when I was feeling so sad, and he pointed out
this section of Fa to me: "But sometimes, because we don't keep up our Fa-study, we handle like
an ordinary person some of the things we do to spread the Fa and save sentient
beings. This makes a lot of the sacred things we do not so sacred, it prevents
us from doing them well, and it also causes people in society not to
understand us sometimes. So it not only prevents you from improving, but also
causes Dafa some losses." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa
Conference in Boston") It turned out to be a problem of not enough Fa-study. During that time I had
a great deal of homework from school and I also was busy doing Dafa work.
Therefore, I seldom calmed down and studied the Fa. I did realize this problem
at that time, but did not break through it. Because I did not break through this
problem and did not study the Fa, I did not do well the three things
of Dafa. No wonder the effect was that bad; it was like an everyday person doing
Dafa work. The interference regarding my studying the Fa was that each day I wanted to
hurry up and finish the other things I had to do and then hasten to study the Fa.
But the result was that those other things used up most of my time, so I had
little or no time to study the Fa. In fact, I knew that if I peacefully studied
the Fa first, the other things would be accomplished with half the effort. I did
not know why, but as soon as I wanted to study the Fa, the inspiration of doing
other things would appear in my brain, and thus I would do them immediately, and
it took me the entire day. Previously, I always thought it was inspiration given
by Dafa. I never worried about interference that could prevent me from studying
the Fa. I never thought about eliminating it, and therefore I never overcame it.
In fact, there are various forms of interference with our Fa-study, so we must
have a clear understanding of it, and we must remember that nothing should
interfere with our Fa-study. Today I am writing it down in order to eliminate
all the evil factors that want to stop me from studying the Fa. As long as we
can truly and calmly study the Fa, I believe that clarifying the truth will then
be accomplished naturally. Additionally during the recent period, we all felt that it was difficult to
peacefully study the Fa. When we read the Dafa books the impression was quite
superficial. I thought it must be time for me to memorize the Fa. During
different phases, the Fa has different requirements for us. Do not let the
concepts of human beings confuse us and delay our steps. Many practitioners
started to memorize the Fa during the first few days. They then felt that it was
impossible for them to succeed and gave up. In fact, memorizing the Fa is also
something we need to do without having a desire for accomplishment. Therefore,
do not pay too much attention to whether or not you can memorize it and recite
it. Continue memorizing the Fa paragraph by paragraph and the effect will be
better than just reading it. Memorizing the Fa is not easy but it can be done. February 23, 2006 Posting date: 3/19/2006 |