Dafa Practitioners on the Path to Godhood (Part 2)
By a Falun Dafa practitioner in China
(Clearwisdom.net) Part 1:
http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2006/3/1/70421.html
4. Rescue Fellow Practitioners with Righteous Thoughts It was just after the Chinese New Year in 2005 when a fellow practitioner
asked me to join her in sending righteous thoughts for one of her relatives who
was also a Dafa practitioner. She was arrested. Her husband said that over ten
other practitioners were arrested as well. The police said that she would be
sentenced most heavily, because the truth-clarifying materials came
from her. Although I was very busy, I tried my best to squeeze time to send
forth righteous thoughts for this practitioner. We sent forth righteous thoughts
to cleanse away the rotten demons in her dimensions, and we sent out the
strongest thought to free these practitioners unconditionally. Four days later,
a fellow practitioner told me that she was released. Her release greatly touched
her husband. In order to get his wife out, he went everywhere to borrow money
and tried to bribe the officials. He now believes from deep within his heart
that Falun Dafa is good, and he supports his wife in doing Dafa work more than
ever. Through this incident I gained a significant insight. I came to understand
the importance of using righteous thoughts as one body to rescue our fellow
practitioners. Teacher explained this Fa a long time ago and has mentioned it in
many articles. The problem with us was that we had not reached that realm and
consequently were unable to enlighten to the Fa of that realm. Since then
Practitioner A, B and I worked out a plan to rescue our local practitioners who
were still detained. As of September 2005 we have rescued over ten
practitioners. According to the police, these practitioners would have been
sentenced heavily, but they denied the old forces' arrangements with strong
righteous thoughts. With the protection of our Master and the collaboration of
all Dafa practitioners, these practitioners were unconditionally released. They
again converged into the vast current of Fa-rectification. One of these
practitioners was sentenced to one year of forced labor, but with Master's help
and his own strong righteous thoughts, he denied the old arrangement and was
released unconditionally. Dafa disciple's righteous thoughts play an important
role. We must completely deny the old forces' arrangements. Evil is not worthy
of testing us even though we still have attachments During the rescue process, we realized that we should not be attached to
other practitioners' shortcomings, but instead we ought to act like Dafa
disciples. We should clear the dimensions of fellow practitioners and deny the
old forces' exploitation of practitioners' attachments. At the same time we
asked Master to help practitioners and enable them to burst out of the evil's
den with righteous thoughts. Through the rescuing effort, we gained a clearer
perspective of Fa. When we try to rescue fellow practitioners, it seemed from
the surface that we were merely helping others, but in reality this rescue
process has cultivation elements. Rescuing fellow practitioners is related to
our own improvement and elevation. Only when every individual practitioner
purifies himself can the improvement of the one body be achieved. Every
practitioner's successful denial of the old forces' arrangement is a direct
result of the one body's improvement. In the process of rescuing our fellow practitioners, I noticed many of my own
shortcomings. Our strong righteous thoughts freed a practitioner from the
detention center within two days. However, we didn't hear about another detained
practitioner in ten days. We shared our understanding of this situation and
found our own shortcomings. We had the attachment of treating practitioners
differently. Because we did not know the other practitioner, we did not send
forth the purest righteous thought and did not totally deny the old forces'
persecution of our fellow practitioner. After we found our shortcomings, we
renewed our efforts to rescue this practitioner. With our pure and calm minds
and our pure energy field, this practitioner returned to the vast current of Fa-rectification
within a week. In the process of rescuing, we also realized that apart from our righteous
thoughts to strengthen other practitioners' righteous thoughts, we shouldn't
ever think that such and such practitioner had done this or once ever wanted to
do this, that the evil must have known what he had done or was going to do, or
that it seemed that this practitioner was not able to come back but had to stay
inside, etc. These bad thoughts would reflect in the practitioner's mind and
would reinforce his bad thoughts and weaken his righteous thoughts. This also
would increase the difficulty for the practitioners outside to rescue them. When
we were rescuing Practitioner E, some practitioners, including some of the
coordinator practitioners, thought that E was doing such and such thing and
wanted to do such and such things, and it seemed he had to stay there, etc. But
when we heard this, we were not moved and we were still in a calm and serene
state. We were very clear in our hearts that we must rescue this practitioner
and we certainly would succeed in rescuing him. More than twenty days later, Practitioner E was back. We learned from her
sharing that the first ten days she had bad thoughts. She thought that she had
no other way but to stay there. But over ten days later she realized that this
thought was not right. She must leave there. From this example I enlightened
that every single thought of practitioners should be based on the Fa. Because we
are still cultivating, we still have many elements of the old cosmos such as
selfishness and attachment to oneself. If we can not restrain our every single
thought and base them on the Fa, those elements will come out and hinder us from
saving sentient beings. Only when we listen to Master and study the Fa, study
the Fa and study the Fa more, can our every single thought be based on the Fa
and can we achieve the "selflessness" and bring ourselves up to the
standard of the new cosmos. Only by doing this can our righteous thoughts come
out at the critical moment and can we correctly walk our path. When we were rescuing Practitioner D, we realized that we should not have the
thought of relying on and waiting for others, and that we should not look
outside but start from ourselves. Practitioners A, B, and I are good friends
with Practitioner D. On hearing Practitioner D was arrested, we started to
rescue him by sending forth righteous thoughts on the afternoon of that very
day. All of us thought Practitioner D had no problem and she could certainly
burst out of the devil's den. We learned that she did not corporate with the
evil in the labor camp from the first day. This increased the confidence of the
practitioners outside. Whenever we had time, we sat down and sent forth
righteous thoughts. For more than ten days we did not have any news of
Practitioner D and we did not see any articles on the Internet exposing the
evil. On the sixteenth day we saw a brief message on the Internet about
Practitioner D. Practitioner A, B, and I calmed ourselves down and had some
discussion on this matter. We felt that we did not do well. We had the
attachment of qing for our fellow practitioner. And we had
the thought of relying on and waiting for others to do something. In the past
exposing the evil on the Internet was done by a certain practitioner. Why this
time did he not do it? But we did not have any complaint. We realized that there
were things there that we needed to cultivate on, and we had to break through.
After we improved our understanding, we sent out our purest righteous thoughts
using our purest hearts. The evil must set Practitioner D free. At the same time
we started making stickers. I could not type, but I started to learn typing and
do the sticker at the same time. From 6:30 p.m. to 12:00 a.m., for nearly six
hours I typed only just over 700 words. In the process of typing, I could feel
that Master was helping me. My heart was as calm as the still water. The next
morning after the righteous thoughts, I was to take the stickers to other areas
when Practitioner A phoned me and told me that Practitioner D was set free
unconditionally at about 11:30 p.m. the previous night. With the help of our
benevolent Master, we again experienced the power of the righteous thoughts of
the whole body. The next morning we had some sharing and one practitioner said to me,
"Practitioner D came back home at 11:30 p.m. last night and those stickers
you made did not play any role. You were busy in vain last night." On
hearing this, I was very calm. I thought very clearly... what does Master
treasure us for? Master is looking at us from the point of whether we cultivate
ourselves in the process, whether we help others, whether we help others in
order to improve ourselves, or whether we are truly up to the standard of
"selflessness" of the new cosmos. Doesn't Master look at our hearts to
see if we are up to the standard? As to my personal sacrifice, it is not
important. This effort was not something additional. This was what I should do. In years 2003 and 2004, about twenty practitioners in our area were arrested.
In some cases the police did not get anything in the practitioners' homes, and
in other cases they got only several pieces of truth clarifying paper from the
practitioners' homes. But why were all of them given heavy sentences or
sentenced to the labor camp? Most of them had been detained in the detention
center and some for as long as six months. On one hand the practitioners
themselves did not deny it with righteous thoughts. On the other hand we did not
enlighten to this Fa that we as a one body should rescue practitioners. Master
explained the Fa clearly to us. But we ourselves did not elevate to that realm.
The connotation of the Fa of that realm would not unfold to us. Because we do
not cultivate well, many other practitioners have to bear what they should not
bear for us. Because we do not cultivate well, the old forces then have the
chance to take advantage of us and increase the difficulty for us in our saving
sentient beings. The elevation of the whole body this year suffocated the evil
and the old forces barely maintained the persecution. In the effort of rescuing practitioners with righteous thoughts, I realized
that we should not rescue them only after they were arrested. Why shouldn't we
clear away the hidden danger in advance? First let everyone study the Fa
diligently and let them realize that studying the Fa well is the safeguard of
everything. It was imperative that we restore the Fa study group. At that time
Master's article "Teaching the Fa at the Western U.S. International Fa
Conference" had been published for some time. We studied this article for
many times when we had Fa study. It was suggested that everyone memorize the
last paragraph of this article. In the last paragraph Master said: "No matter how much I say, you still have to walk the path of
cultivation yourselves. To walk this path well and progress to its
end--nothing is more extraordinary. I say that because during the journey you
will have hardships, tests of every sort, unforeseen ordeals, and you will
have unexpected interference from all kinds of attachments and emotion. The
interference will come from family, society, good friends, and even fellow
cultivators. And along with this there is interference from changes in the
state of human society and from human notions that were formed in society. All
of those things can drag you back to being like an ordinary person. But if you
can break through all of it, you can advance towards godhood. So as a
cultivator, what is truly remarkable is when you can be steadfast and have
righteous thoughts so firm that nothing can sway you. Be solid and firm like
diamond, or granite, and then nothing can affect you--evil will be afraid at
the mere sight of you. If upon encountering trying circumstances your thinking
can be truly righteous, then, when faced with the evil's persecution and when
faced with interference, just one sentence of yours fortified with steadfast
righteous thoughts can instantly make the evil disintegrate (applause),
and it will make those who are being used by the evil turn and flee, it will
make the evil's persecution of you dissolve, and it will make the evil's
interfering with you disappear without a trace. One thought born of righteous
faith is all it takes. And whoever can hold firm that righteous thought and go
the distance will become a magnificent god forged by Dafa. (Long applause)"
("Teaching the Fa at the Western U.S. International Fa Conference") Many of the practitioners memorized this last paragraph and they urged on
themselves and behaved themselves according to this Fa. Everyone realized that
when we studied the Fa well, the evil would be afraid at the mere sight of us.
Then how did the evil dare to capture and persecute us? It is not that we
elevate ourselves in the persecution. Even Master does not acknowledge this
persecution. We too must totally negate all the arrangement of the old forces.
As long as we hold firm righteous thoughts and do not stop on the way of
returning to our original selves, can we become what Master said, "a
magnificent god forged by Dafa." 5. Remove Attachments in Cultivation Because I walk the path right, practitioners often praise me. So when a
practitioner asked me whether I had the heart of "willing to listen to
praise," I immediately replied without thinking "No." I did not
take what the practitioner said as something that I need to cultivate on. I did
not pay any attention. Instead I thought this would not trigger my attachment of
complacency at all and would not affect my cultivation. Neither would I become
self-inflated. Because I did not look inward as a practitioner should do, the
mentality of complacency, showing off and proving myself was growing without my
notice. I was wandering in the loop of "improvement" and "falling
down." I remember once on my way back home from the experience sharing
conference, it started to rain. I was riding my bicycle but did not have
raincoat. I had a short skirt and a short top on, and I was almost wet all over.
With the rain and the thunderstorm, the sky became so dark. I earnestly asked
for Master's help. I needed another twenty minutes to get home. The rain then
suddenly stopped. But when I looked behind me, the rain poured down like the
waterfall without any stop. I repeatedly recited, "When disciples have sufficient righteous thoughts, master has the
Almighty power to turn the cosmos around." (from "Grace Between
Master And Disciple," Hongyin II, provisional translation subject
to improvement) I was overjoyed beyond description. As a matter of fact this should be a very
normal thing (if it happened to practitioners) but I was so delighted without
reason and forgot that I myself was a practitioner walking on the way to the
Godhood. I regarded myself as an ordinary person. Near my home there was a 45
degree downhill road with a 200-meter-long plain road, which is followed by
another tortuous path. When I was riding down once, my brakes worked well. But
when I turned onto the winding path, my brakes stopped working, and I swayed
four or five meters. At that moment I shouted loudly, "Master I know I am
wrong." I felt myself jump up like a cotton ball. Then I turned back and
stood up. I landed without being injured or bruised. At this moment I knew that
Master had helped me again. I looked at my watch. There were only three minutes
left. I rushed to the bicycle and had a try with the brake. But this time the
brake worked. I knew the problem was caused by my attachment of complacency. As
soon as I got home and pushed my bicycle into the house, the rain bucketed down.
One practitioner said to me "You are so lucky." But I told her the
story of how I asked Master to help and how I fell down. I learned a good lesson
from this incident. From then on when extraordinary phenomena appeared, I always
warned myself "Don't forget this lesson." "Don't have the
attachment of complacency, because enlightened beings would not get excited
about fortunes or become sad about misfortunes." I did not pay enough attention to cultivating myself. In an experience
sharing conference, though I did not reprimand a practitioner, I did not speak
calmly to him. Neither did I speak with compassion. Half way through talking to
him, I realized that I didn't do it right. When I saw other practitioners so
calm and peaceful, I was really ashamed of myself. I forgot to cultivate myself
on this matter. Though other practitioners did not criticize me, I knew they
showed their tolerance and their broad hearts towards me. I vowed to no longer
be attached to my human notions and let myself slide down. This was not just a
small oversight. But it was the indication of my xinxing and
the manifestation of my realm. It was also a demonstration of my actual
cultivation state. We are all Master's disciples. How did I dare to treat other
practitioners like this? In "Teaching the Fa at the Meeting with
Asia-Pacific Students," Master said: "There's something you must pay attention to: you are validating the
Fa, not validating yourselves. A Dafa disciple's responsibility is to validate
the Fa. Validating the Fa is cultivation, and what you remove in the
cultivation process is none other than the attachment to self; you can't,
instead, go and exacerbate the problem of validating oneself, even if you do
it unwittingly. When you're validating the Fa and cultivating, that is a
process of removing self, and only when you do that are you really validating
yourself. That's because ultimately you have to let go of all your human
things, and only after you've let go of all your human attachments can you
step out from the throngs of everyday people." Comparing with what Master has told us to do, I found I did everything in the
past with lots of human heart and with the heart of validating myself. I was
very ashamed of myself. Because I did not look inwards, when there were praises from other
practitioners, I adopted the method of avoiding meeting them. This did not
fundamentally solve my problem. Instead it affected my work as a coordinator in
the area. Because I did not recognize my attachment, it affected some other
practitioners who in turn did not recognize their fundamental attachments as
well. Was not "praising others" itself a demonstration of a strong
human heart? Wasn't it because the practitioner had a strong human notion that
it resulted in him being praised by others? Master has mentioned that
"There is no constraint between this qi and that qi." This showed that
my field was the same as yours, thus one party was not able to restrain the
other party, and my attachment aroused your attachment. Isn't it a revelation of
human attachment when you praise other practitioners or you like being praised?
Isn't it the attachment that we as practitioners must eliminate in cultivation?
Master once told us that we could not bring any human heart to Heaven. When I
understood this Fa and when I corrected myself from the perspective of the Fa, I
no longer heard any of those "kind" praises. I knew it was Master who
helped me remove this mountain of granite. Without the material matter, the
impure field vanished automatically. Though the praises were without any
malicious purpose, if we indulge ourselves in them, they would become
incomparably sharp swords that would weaken practitioners' wills bit by bit. So
those practitioners who like to praise others and those who have shortcomings
like me (who like to listen to praises), please remember that to be responsible
for one's own cultivation and to be responsible for other practitioners'
cultivation, we must cultivate speech and cultivate our hearts. When we point
out other practitioners' shortcomings instead of praising them, that's when we
really take care of our practitioners. When I wrote this point, I realized that simply because I had the attachment
of validating myself and did not look inward at any time as practitioners are
supposed to, the old forces enlarged my attachment and took advantage of those
practitioners with the same strong human hearts, and let them keep praising me
and made me feel self-satisfied. The purpose of their so doing was to destroy
both parties of practitioners. Only when we keep eliminating the attachment to
self in our cultivation can we fully carry out our sacred duties as Dafa
disciples. Just like Master said, "...what you do then, with a pure heart,
will be the best and most sacred" ("Further Understanding" from Essentials
for Further Advancement). Just when I was writing this experience sharing article, an incident occurred
which taught a lesson that I will never forget in my lifetime. Practitioner C
met two staff members from the National Security Bureau right outside her
doorstep downstairs. They were asking where his home was and they were asking
the practitioner himself the way to his home. He came to my home and told me
about this incident. Practitioner A and another practitioner were at my home as
well. We thought that they could not play a role in determining the outcome and
the old forces were not worthy of testing us. We believed that no one could
touch this practitioner. At the same time we sent forth righteous thoughts to
clear the practitioner's field in his dimension and totally negated the
arrangement of the old forces. At the time Practitioner C did not say a word.
But later he went to the other practitioner's home and the other practitioner
thought that this was the hint that Master gave to Practitioner C, that he
should leave home and find another place to calm down and study the Fa, and that
he should not stay at home waiting for his arrest. When Practitioner C came
back, he reckoned that the practitioner was really responsible to other
practitioners and they said that even Master gave the hint to him and he did not
leave home, etc. I said to him that leaving home and changing the environment to
study the Fa with a calm heart was not wrong. I also said that whether he used a
human way to temporarily avoid them or he negated the arrangement with righteous
thoughts, this was the fundamental issue. The superficial action did not
represent anything. Another practitioner said that when he thought the other
practitioner was right, it was because what she said satisfied his attachment of
fear, so he thought she took real care of him. I suggested that he read the
article "The fear is..." on the Minghui net. Thus Practitioner C did
not go home and stayed at my place. In the past when I shared with Practitioner
C, he said that he could not guarantee the time of doing exercises every day. I
wanted to let Practitioner C see how diligent I was in doing exercises. There I
displayed the attachment of showing off. I went to bed after the righteous
thoughts at 12:00 a.m. Practitioner A and the other two practitioners kept
sharing experiences. I did not know when but in my sleep I heard Practitioner C
was saying that nobody knew how much time she spent on studying the Fa and doing
exercises. She herself boasted about it. I began to lose balance in my heart
even in my sleep and complained that Practitioner C even did not have the basic
respect of believing others. "Well tomorrow I will let you have a look at
how I do the exercises." I did not look inward, and did not even have a
think of why I heard such words. Later in the experience sharing, Practitioner C
did not even remember that he said such words. But at the time I did not realize
that it was Master who used this practitioner to say this to me to get rid of my
attachments and to save me. At the time all my attachments of competitiveness,
showing off, jealousy, and the heart of validating myself came out. Because my xinxing
was falling, my physical body experienced a bad state. For several days I felt
uncomfortable and itchy in my throat. When sitting in meditation, I shook
forward and backward. Practitioner C said to me "seems like you fell
asleep. Is this how you do your exercises?" On hearing this, I felt even
more uncomfortable. I said in my mind, do you think I always practice like this?
If I really practiced like this all the time, I would not look so young. Don't
you see how others have benefited from my cultivation? Though I did not admit my attachments on the surface, in my heart I knew I
was wrong because I had never experienced the physical discomfort since I
started the practice more than ten years ago. And I did not have such big test
that lasted for five days. I knew that my problem had become very serious and
that I had to awaken immediately. I started to calm myself down. First and
foremost I studied the Fa with a peaceful and calm mind. Then I looked inward to
find out the reason why. I clearly knew that I had the mentality of complacency
and showing off. I was not willing to admit them. I was not willing to believe
that I was that bad. The feeling I had at that time was hard to describe. I knew
that the things that I have to part with was non-self. Why did I still treasure
it? I realized that the old forces had taken advantage of the impure heart that
I still had and that in my mind there still remained some traces of the Fa of
the old cosmos, and that I only wanted to change others and did not want to
change myself. I had not assimilated totally to the new cosmos's standard of
selflessness. I always wanted to help improve others, but neglected cultivating
myself. It was Master's mercy that He exposed my deeply-hidden attachments in
front of our fellow practitioners thus giving me chances to eliminate them and
make improvements, and at the same time let the practitioners know that like
Master said there was no example to follow in cultivation. Only when we take the
Fa as our Teacher can we walk the path correctly. When I enlightened to this, I
cleared the field in my dimension first thing the next morning when I did the
sitting meditation. I said to Master, "Master, I was wrong, I will correct
myself in time and will try to abandon various attachments." At the same
time I warned the old forces that they were not allowed to take advantage of my
remaining human heart to persecute me and my fellow practitioners. I would
definitely do the exercises well. I did not do it for others. I am Master's
disciple and Master requires us to study the Fa well and do the exercises well
every day. So I should do well. Today I chose to do the meditation and would not
allow the dark demons, the rotten devils and the evil specters of Communism to
interfere with and persecute me. Because my xinxing had improved, Master let me see that layers and
layers of bad materials were dissolved and evaporated. I saw my own body became
brighter and brighter from inside to outside and the brightness became more and
more clear. With Master's help, I sat for three hours in the meditation. I felt
like I was sitting inside an egg shell and felt so magnificent. All of my
physical discomfort disappeared. I again experienced the power of the Fa when I
was in a pure state. When we shared experiences in the afternoon, Practitioner A
said, "Today I saw you had meditated for a long time and your body was
upright all the time, you were in very good state." Through this incident I realized why Master singled out the attachments of
complacency, showing off and jealousy, and explained them individually.
Especially regarding jealousy, Master said, "The issue of jealousy is very serious as it directly involves the
matter of whether you can complete cultivation practice. If jealousy is not
abolished, everything that you have cultivated will become fragile. There is
this rule: If in the course of cultivation practice jealousy is not given up,
one will not attain Right Fruit--absolutely not. Perhaps you have heard before
that Buddha Amitabha spoke of going to a paradise with karma. But that is not
going to happen without giving up jealousy. It may be possible that one falls
short in some other minor regards and goes to the paradise with karma for
further cultivation. But it is absolutely impossible if jealousy is not
abandoned. Today I am telling practitioners that you should not keep
yourselves in the dark without being enlightened to it. The goal that you
intend to achieve is to practice cultivation toward high levels. The
attachment of jealousy must be relinquished, so I have singled out the issue
in this lecture." (Zhuan Falun) When we come across anything in cultivation and can let go of the human heart
of selfishness and the attachment to self, and when we can face any situation
with pure hearts, then we will find that, "After passing the shady willow
trees, there will be bright flowers and another village ahead!" January 30, 2006
Chinese version available at
http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/2/1/119837.html
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