By a Dafa practitioner from Shandong Province

(Clearwisdom.net) Truth-clarification materials in our local area were mainly supplied by practitioners from other areas until 2003, when several diligent practitioners here established local truth-clarification material production sites. Two practitioners, A and B (one male and one female and whose ages differed by over ten years), took the initiative to assume this responsibility. The two practitioners made large contributions to coordinating the whole area to validate the Fa. However, they didn't pay enough attention to the minor details of their own personal cultivation. They especially were not strict in their association with the opposite gender. After some time their attachments to qing greatly expanded. They became addicted to qing, so much so that they could not extricate themselves. They even abandoned themselves to vice. Their behavior seriously damaged validating the Fa and rescuing sentient beings in our area.

At that time practitioner A lived alone. His wife worked in another place and his child did not stay with him either. There were few other practitioners who worked with them at that time because of the limited xinxing levels of our local practitioners. A and B worked together and cooperated with each other for a long time. They also had their meals together. As time went by, a feeling of love was generated between them. Gradually, their caring for each other went beyond the limit that should exist between practitioners. Indulging in qing and under the all-pervasive pressure from the old forces, their relationship eventually became so deep that they did almost everything together, including daily trivialities not related to validating the Fa. They were even jealous when the other had contact with practitioners of the opposite sex. Their behavior moved further and further away from the requirements of Dafa. Finally, the evil gained an excuse for persecution.

During the Chinese New Year of 2005, practitioner A suffered severe illness karma. Fortunately, with the merciful care of Teacher and the support of righteous thoughts from practitioners, these old-force arrangements and the persecution did not have a severe effect.

Not all of the practitioners in our area knew about A and B's situation. Our progress of validating the Fa in our area was good. Practitioners in neighboring areas praised our work, yet our local practitioners were blindly optimistic. We placed more emphasis on, and praise for, the work of practitioner A and B, and we didn't pay enough attention to A's illness karma. All of us thought it was only interference from the old forces, and we didn't go further to find the real reason behind the illness karma.

In fact, this illness karma/persecution also should have rung an alarm for A and B. They should have learned the lesson from it and broken through. Unfortunately, they did not look within for their faults and lost this opportunity. Teacher said:

"The same applies to human beings, who possess Buddha-nature and demon-nature at the same time. What one does without moral obligations and constraints is of demon-nature. Cultivating Buddhahood is to eliminate your demon-nature and strengthen and increase your Buddha-nature. ("Buddha-Nature and Demon-Nature" in Essentials for Further Advancement)

"Cultivation is your own matter, and it is your own decision what you pursue. Everyday people all have both demon-nature and Buddha-nature. Demon-nature will take effect once a person's mind is not righteous." ("Stability of the Fa" in Essentials for Further Advancement)

Because they were irrational, they didn't realize that they were following paths arranged by the old forces. Practitioner A went with "transformation follows mind-intent" and saw from his celestial eye that they were previously a couple (i.e. in past lives). However, they didn't let go of their attachments and negate the persecution according to the standard of the Fa. Instead, they took it as an excuse to be self-indulgent and claimed to "get back the feeling of preexistence." Later, their relationship became so close that they almost slept together. They stopped only at this baseline. Master says in, "A Suggestion,"

"[Yet these] humans aren't able to live up to it and of their own choosing "enlighten" along an evil path in order to cover up their attachments."

(Essentials for Further Advancement)

What happened to A and B is one of the phenomena that Teacher pointed out in the Fa.

Because their attachment was taken advantage of and enlarged by the evil, the activities of validating the Fa in our local area broke down for a period of time. Our local information center had almost become non-functioning. There was a lack of confidence and trust among practitioners. The evil grabbed this chance to carry out its persecution. Since the latter half of 2005, a dozen practitioners from our community were illegally arrested and imprisoned. Several practitioners were arrested and sent to a forced labor camp. One main reason was that our whole local body was lacking strong cooperation and couldn't achieve (as one body) control over the evil.

In order to recover from the loss and rectify the whole body, several of the major coordinators in our area were mired in seeking to solve the problems for a year, and couldn't take care of other things. During this time, in order to diminish other practitioners and elevate themselves, practitioners A and B played tricks and promoted unnecessary misgivings and deceived many practitioners. They failed to live up to Master's compassion and fellow practitioners' trust. They also completely ignored the sentient beings' expectations. To put it bluntly, they had unconsciously become tools of the evil. They didn't realize that:

"What usually happens is that a person's bad thoughts correlate with evil beings in other dimensions, and then those evil beings capitalize on his bad thoughts to go and do bad things, and this way those evil beings achieve their goals and his bad thoughts' desires are satisfied." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A.")

Why has this happened? Wasn't it because of their attachments? It brought about serious damage to Fa-validation in our area. At the same time, it left stains that are difficult to clean from their path of cultivation.

However, the two practitioners still couldn't realize the seriousness of this issue; they are still concealing their problems. Master said:

"The things certain people have done make them undeserving of even the title "Dafa student"! They don't even deserve to be called "human beings," and yet they still call themselves "Dafa disciples"?! I'm waiting for you--do you not realize that?! "

"Sometimes when I see the things that you do it really makes me sad. Yet if I were to really give up on you, that would really pain me, too. I really don't want to abandon you just like that. But you just won't strive to improve! You just won't perform honorably! And you're even tarnishing the reputation of Dafa and doing things that are even undeserving of the title of "human being," yet you still call yourself a Dafa disciple! Let me put it this way, what I said just now is for all of those who have done things that are undeserving of the status of Dafa disciples. You'd better tell people about those things openly. That way, many things of yours will be eliminated, and at the same time it will make you really strengthen your resolve [to correct your behavior]." ("Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference")

When we practitioners studied the Fa together and shared with one another, A even said, "There are a lot of these things like those that happened to us" so as to whitewash his dirty behavior!

Master taught us in Zhuan Falun ("Lecture One"):

"When someone is doing a wrong deed, he will not believe it if you point out to him that he is doing a wrong deed. That person indeed will not believe that he is doing something wrong. Some people evaluate themselves with the declined moral standard. Because the criteria for assessment have changed, they consider themselves better than others. No matter how the human moral standard changes, this characteristic of the universe remains unchanged, and it is the sole criterion that distinguishes good people from bad people. As a practitioner, one must then conduct oneself by following this characteristic of the universe rather than the standards of everyday people. If you want to return to the original, true self and move up in cultivation practice, you must conduct yourself according to this criterion. As a human being, you are a good person only if you can follow this universe's characteristic of Zhen-Shan-Ren. A person who deviates from this characteristic is truly a bad person. In the workplace or in society, some people may say that you are bad, yet you may not necessarily be bad. Some people may say that you are good, but you may not really be good. As a practitioner, if you assimilate yourself to this characteristic you are one that has attained the Tao--it's just such a simple principle."

Pay attention, fellow practitioners! Weren't all our past achievements made because we acted righteously with righteous thoughts under the merciful protection of Master? As for the righteous thoughts and righteous actions, isn't that what a righteous life should have? How can you abandon yourselves to vice, even though you had previously made a commitment to Master? Master told us in "Drive Out Interference" (in Essentials for Further Advancement II):

"It's not that Master is not merciful: in the several years of your cultivation, I have not only borne an incredibly great deal for you, but also, along with this, constantly given you hints for your improvement, looked after you for your safety, and settled the debts that you owed at different levels so that you can reach Consummation--these aren't things that just anyone can do, and neither can they be done for everyday people. It's just that these people are too irrational and don't know to treasure Dafa and the opportunity to practice cultivation."

"Dafa is solemn, and cultivation practice is a serious matter. A person--no matter who he is--must himself pay for all of the bad things he has done in the world. I do not want to see a single student fall, but I definitely don't want unqualified disciples, either."

Fellow practitioners! Be clear-headed! Be sure not to take Master's mercy lightly. Master said:

"It's difficult to practice cultivation, yet very easy to fall. When a person fails a test or can't let go of a strong human attachment, he might reverse himself or go to the opposite side. There are too many lessons in history. Only after having fallen down will a person begin to regret, yet then it's too late." ("Dafa Can Never be Plagiarized" in Essentials for Further Advancement)

Let us become rational and cooperate with one another and walk our paths well. Finally let us use Teacher's words to encourage each other:

"Eliminate your last attachment(s). Everything you have accomplished through cultivation practice has already established your infinitely wonderful, and sacred, future Attainment Status. Take every step well, and don't tarnish what you have already attained. Let the part of you that has been fully cultivated glow with an even purer brilliance." ("Eliminate Your Last Attachment(s)" in Essentials for Further Advancement II)

Please be compassionate and point out anything inaccurate! Heshi!

Posting date: 3/19/2006
Original article date: 3/19/2006
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Translated on 3/6/2006
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/2/28/121744.html

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