By a Falun Gong practitioner in China

(Clearwisdom.net) Practitioners have held two different understandings on the issue of safety. One understanding was to pay attention to safety measures; these practitioners always reminded other practitioners to watch out for safety. The other understanding was to emphasize righteous thoughts; this group of practitioners (myself included) insisted on using "righteous thoughts." They relied on using "thinking like that of gods" rather than "human thoughts" when looking at issues. They believed that they are truly validating Dafa. This second group's understanding seemed to agree with the Fa principles while the first group couldn't quite provide a satisfactory explanation for their understanding of safety. Although practitioners in the second group have been gradually recognizing the need for safety precautions, their understanding (based on the Fa) of doing so was still somewhat unclear, and they didn't truly agree with the others. Some practitioners still insist on doing things their way; they even regard others who emphasize safety precautions as having fear.

For a while, I believed that these safety measures taken in the human realm were superficial and an external factor. I believed that only a xinxing problem could invite the evil to take advantage of our loopholes because everything depends on our hearts. When fellow practitioners talked about the safety issues in the human realm, I did not fully agree with them. Their understanding of it from the Fa principles didn't convince me. Although I also paid attention to safety, it was because we all cultivate in an ordinary people's society have some everyday people's mentality that we aren't aware of. Therefore, safety precautions are necessary to prevent the evil's attack. In looking back at my own cultivation experience, I saw many such incidences after the evil's persecution, and we took some measures to amend the loopholes. But the loss had already occurred. There were too many such lessons. At the same time, I also saw many practitioners who were confident about their own righteous thoughts before the troubles occurred; they thought they had no fear and did not believe that anything could happen to them. When they realized their problems, it was usually after irreversible damage to the group had occurred. These lessons were very painful. Most of the time, the most obvious reason for the evil attack was due to serious loopholes in taking safety precautions.

A fellow practitioner shared his thoughts on safety in his experience article. He said that if one doesn't pay attention to safety measures, it's like what Master described in Zhuan Falun where someone was holding a book in his hand and claiming "I have Teacher Li's protection, so I'm not afraid of being hit by a car." At the time, I did not agree with this analogy. I thought, how could he make such a comparison? How could he view Dafa practitioners as everyday people and the evil as a car? Evil is nothing in front of us. Now, in recalling these thoughts, I feel my thoughts were very immature and laughable.

In fact, if we calm down and think about it, the fellow practitioner's analogy was very precise. In the past few years many practitioners have relied on two sayings: "have righteous thoughts, and you won't have trouble" and "with Teacher's protection, there should be no problem." What have the results been? Many of them got into trouble. Are these simply personal issues? It's a shame that many fellow practitioners cannot become clear and mature. Those who hold a Dafa book and walk on the street claiming "I have Teacher Li's protection, so I'm not afraid of being hit by a car" are "undermining Dafa" as Master said. We are cultivating among everyday people; telephone calls may be bugged; cell phones may be monitored; bad people may call the police and the police may arrest you with "evidence." Let's say we, for example, paid no attention to safety, and thought: "We are gods. The evil won't be able to come near us; so no problem." or "I have Teacher Li's protection; so I won't get into trouble." or "Dafa disciples are gods; we should do everything with dignity. Why worry?" If we follow this kind of thinking and do everything without concern for caution, then we are no different from that person who held a book in hand and claimed to have "Teacher Li's protection." Isn't this behavior undermining Dafa? In the past few years, we have suffered too many such experiences in which the evil took advantage of our loopholes. Too many material centers were destroyed because of our own omissions. Can't we become more clear-headed from these painful lessons?

The evil took advantage of our lack of rationality and interfered with Master's Fa-rectification effort, and the old forces and dark minions caused much damage to our material centers. It's our irrational behavior that made the evil damage possible. We even considered our irrational thinking and conduct to be maintaining strong righteous thoughts; we thought that we had high enlightenment quality and good understanding. Master made it very clear in his books, but my level of enlightenment was too low to see it. When others told me this, I even rejected the correct understanding and thought it was incorrect.

It wasn't until I read Master's comment on wearing gloves in the winter that I suddenly realized how extreme and biased I had been. The so-called "rely on righteous thoughts with no need to pay attention to safety" is in fact extreme thinking that ignores the impact to the whole-body and disregards others' feelings. Individual practitioners can have their own understandings, and they have the right to express their own opinions. However, Master told us to pay attention to safety, so it must be important to do so. Then why do some of us still pay little attention to safety? Although Minghui/Clearwisdom articles continuously report the hard lessons learned from a lack of safety precautions, I have found that these articles still don't change the extreme notions held by some practitioners (especially those who feel that they have done well and walked on the right path). Why is this? Looking back at my own path, I understand their thinking and their solid faith in Dafa. That is, my feelings were very deep; I knew how I walked out of humanness with a complete change of heart. My feelings, my realm and my solid faith in Dafa, all these had already become a part of my life; they had become the main theme of my everyday life. How could anyone say those are an individual's notions? How could anyone call that validating myself? During the past several years I experienced extraordinary hardship in the evil persecution, and I made it this far. I made many breakthroughs regarding my human notions, and I went beyond human limits, from the impossibilities of everyday people to the possibilities of cultivators. What did I rely on? I relied on a strong belief and a solid faith in Teacher and the Fa. After years of hard lessons, I came to realize the meaning of the Fa. Could I have been wrong? Everyone has his own understanding of the Fa principles, and everyone's understanding may be different. Why should I follow low-level understanding and use low-level methods? Was I wrong? After I read the following paragraph in Master's lecture, I realized how wrong I was.

"When it gets too cold, you should wear gloves for the exercises, and don't freeze yourselves. Actually, practitioners won't get frostbite, yet some people have while doing the exercises. Why did that happen? Think about it: in Dafa no one is forced to do cultivation--the person himself has to want to do it. During Dafa cultivation many new students come to learn the Fa. They don't have such good or high enlightenment quality, or such high levels yet, and they haven't been tested yet, so we can't yet say that they have come here to cultivate. In other words, when we can't yet treat them as truly cultivating disciples, if they get frostbite, won't it have a severe impact on the Fa? Since they're just at the beginning level and have just joined, it hasn't been determined yet that they are cultivators. If they get frostbite when they are testing it out, what a huge impact that would have. New students keep coming to take up cultivation, so you can't do that. Some students do get frostbite since they insist on doing that. Actually, in one regard, it helps them eliminate karma; in another regard, it's a way of having them enlighten to this." ("Teaching the Fa at the Eastern U.S. Conference" in 1999)

Previously, I thought that Master was saying this to the new students because their understanding was not high and they didn't regard themselves as practitioners; so they should wear gloves to prevent frostbite. I thought that this was intended for those who were not diligent. Now, my thinking has completely changed. After many years of cultivation during the Fa-rectification period and many lessons learned, I came to realize a deeper meaning. Previously, I misunderstood Master's meaning, including the most obvious, literal meaning. Master made it very clear, "When it gets too cold, you should wear gloves for the exercises, and don't freeze yourselves." When the weather gets too cold, you still don't wear gloves, and "you can't do that." "Some students do get frostbite since they insist on doing that." Master was giving us a hint, what hint? I came to understand that we cultivators should always think of others first, right? We should wear gloves because we have to care for new students, for their benefit. True, real practitioners won't get frostbite. But if we don't wear gloves, then the new students will copy us. However, their enlightenment quality is not that high; then "If they get frostbite when they are testing it out, what a huge impact that would have." They will have doubts about Dafa and stop practicing Falun Gong. Our task is to help people obtain the Fa, not to push people away. This was the first point. Secondly, Master said, "...if they get frostbite, won't it have a severe impact on the Fa?" If they get frostbite because they are still ordinary people, then what will they say? Will it stop others from wanting to learn Falun Gong? Will it affect other practitioners? If they brought a negative impact to the Fa, aren't they undermining Dafa? Master told us we should always assign the highest priority to other people's learning Dafa, we should place Dafa and our collective advancement as the highest priorities. We are not cultivating alone; we are a group. We cultivators should think of others, not just of our individual selves. In the past some veteran practitioners and coordinators did experience frostbite. After they got frostbite, they still did not enlighten to this. They continued to think that Master said, "...practitioners won't get frostbite..." They did not think about where they went wrong. Let's say, for example, a coordinator thought; "I am not a new student, I am a true cultivator who has been tested, and 'practitioners won't get frostbite.' How could a god get frostbite? Ordinary people can't endure cold weather, hot weather, hunger and fatigue; so ordinary people will get frostbite. However, I am a true cultivator. I understand the true meaning of cultivation and the significance of life. I truly trust Master and the Fa; so I shouldn't get frostbite." Could anyone say he was wrong? These words seemed to agree with the Fa. However, he would be wrong.

One should wear gloves when doing the exercises in winter weather. This lecture, when applying to Fa-rectification, is a clear direction about safety precautions when we validate Dafa in an evil environment. We should consider Dafa, consider the whole group, consider practitioners at all levels and especially new students, non-practitioners who will learn Dafa in the future, our families, friends and relatives. It's not that we fear anything, we have the whole universe in our hearts. We can understand the sentient beings, and we do everything to bring benefit to them. We do everything to save as many people as possible. We should do our best to avoid any negative impact to others so they don't lose the chance to be saved; some people could even commit crimes against Dafa because of our wrong behavior. We are Dafa disciples; we want to assist Master to rectify the Fa. We want to end the persecution of fellow practitioners. However, the extreme behavior has been used by the old forces and dark minions to persecute fellow practitioners. We wanted to save our friends and families, but our extreme conduct was used by the old forces to harm them. Thus, they didn't dare to learn Dafa; they got the wrong idea about Dafa, and they may have even committed crimes against Dafa.

If a practitioner can measure everything using Fa standards, think of others when doing anything, understand other people's opinions, always put Dafa as the number one priority when considering everything and put saving sentient beings as the number one task, then we will never go astray.

Posting date: 4/26/2006
Original article date: 4/25/2006
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Translated on 4/1/2006
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/3/19/123085.html

 Yearly Archive  Printer Version