By a Falun Dafa Practitioner in China

(Clearwisdom.net) I recently realized that I, and practitioners close to me, are subconsciously acknowledging the old forces arrangements. The following are several examples:

1. After suffering from persecution (of being illegally imprisoned) many times, and then being able to leave the evil den with righteous thoughts, a certain practitioner often manifested the tendency of acknowledging the old forces to different degrees. He did not pay much attention to Fa study and looking within, and had developed an attachment to doing things. He was not aware of his state of not being clear enough about the Fa-principles. At the same time, other practitioners' sharing did not do much to change his mentality of feeling helpless towards the old forces, and thus he silently acknowledged them. Other practitioners worried that he could be taken advantage of by the evil if he continued to be like this for a long period of time. They spent a lot of effort to help him, such as studying the Fa with him and sharing with him whenever they had the opportunity.

Later, they finally realized that two incorrect mindsets existed:

a. Acknowledging the old forces: The purpose of spending so much effort to help him was to prevent him from being persecuted again. This is in itself an acknowledgment of the old forces. It is trying to avoid persecution amidst acknowledgment of the persecution.

b. Not regarding practitioners as a whole: Practitioners were thinking that because the omission lies in him, the evil is bound to take advantage of this. And, if we wanted to prevent this from happening, we had to encourage him to develop righteous thoughts by studying the Fa and rectifying his understanding so that the omission could be filled. This mentality results from not regarding practitioners as a whole. If we had really enlightened to the fact that we are one body, persecution of any individual is the persecution of the whole body and will weaken the overall force of Fa-rectification. Consequently, we would not have acknowledged the evil taking advantage of the gap at any place or any particle.

Teacher says,

We negate even the very emergence of the old forces and everything that they've arranged; we don't even acknowledge their existence."( "Teaching the Fa at the 2004 Chicago Conference")

Therefore we should negate the old forces completely as one body. We should not acknowledge the evil arrangement for any of the particles among us. We should not allow them to take advantage of our whole body because if one of us has problems, i.e., persecution of one particle, there exists persecution of the whole body. We have a harmonizing mechanism. Looking within, pointing out each other's problems and helping each other to rectify ourselves are all part of cultivation itself. They are not for avoiding persecution. When even one practitioner lacks good understanding of Fa-principles, this will allow excuses and reasons for the evil's persecution. The evil should not have any position in the Fa-rectification. If we unknowingly acknowledge them, it equates to pursuing persecution. Teacher says in the "Spirit Possession" section in "Zhuan Falun,""...as long as you can always keep up your character, 'one good can overcome a hundred evils'--you won't run into any trouble. On the other hand, if you can't keep up your character well, if you seek after all sorts of things, you're sure to invite trouble."

2. A practitioner once shared the following experience: As he was going out to validate the Fa, he thought to himself, "Even if I am arrested, I still need to clarify the truth to people." He was then indeed arrested. Later he understood that this "even if" was already acknowledgment of the old forces.

3. Another practitioner narrowly escaped imprisonment many times. When other practitioners advised him to pay attention to security issues and adopt certain methods to remain safe, he thought, "I might end up being arrested sooner or later anyway as I've done so many things for Dafa." So he did not take any precautions. As a result, he was indeed arrested. Only after that did he realize that his biggest omission was the acknowledgment of the persecution.

4. After her husband (also a practitioner) was arrested, a practitioner continuously sent righteous thoughts and tried to rescue him. Though she knew in principle that she should totally negate the evil's arrangement, she was not confident. On the one hand, she thought that her husband's state was not good enough and she was not sure to what extent he would be able to negate the evil's arrangements. On the other hand, she thought that since the police had found many truth clarifying materials in their home in the past, she logically assumed (based on human principles) that the police would not let go of her husband easily.

In fact, the mentality of worrying that the outcome will be bad if the practitioner is not in a good state is acknowledging that the evil should take advantage of us if we have omissions. Believing that the police would not let him go easily because many materials were found is also a reflection of an everyday person's logic, instead of righteous Fa-principles. It is only logic at the human level. But every time Dafa practitioners manifest their mighty power through righteous thoughts, they are not following "normal" logic. If we have a clear understanding of the Fa and can negate completely the old forces, and if our righteous thoughts are strong enough, all of those "problems" can be resolved.

An article on the Clearwisdom website mentioned that after her daughter was sent to a labor camp, an elderly Dafa practitioner moved to the city where the labor camp is and sent forth righteous thoughts for her daughter every day. She also sent out thoughts of having her daughter listen to the Fa while she was reading. After about six months, the daughter, who had already renounced Falun Dafa and enlightened along an evil path, was released ahead of time. This leads us to believe that even though the practitioner herself did not have a clear understanding or was not perfect in cultivation, this still didn't prevent a practitioner's righteous thoughts from rescuing her and defeating the evil's arrangement.

5. After a practitioner's relative (also a Dafa practitioner) was arrested, many other relatives asked why this happened. The practitioner explained that the relative was arrested because of validating Dafa.

Later he realized that explaining his arrest in this way was acknowledging that validating Dafa is an excuse for the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) police to arrest people, and that validating Dafa will result in being arrested. This is the evil's logic and a manifestation of our acknowledgment of the persecution. We should not acknowledge any of the logic of the Chinese Communist Party's persecution of Dafa disciples and should completely negate it.

After realizing this, in clarifying the truth to everyday people, the practitioner instead replied, "The police never need any reason to arrest Dafa disciples, nor do they obey the law. Cultivating 'Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance' is not a crime. The constitution ensures citizen's civil rights and freedom of belief. Cultivation is lawful. The arrests of Dafa practitioners are illegal. You want to know what excuse they have used to arrest people? All excuses they use are illegal and unreasonable. And they know that they don't have justifiable reasons, so they have always been acting in a deceitful way and dare not have their actions exposed." Such a reply has not only conveyed righteous understanding to everyday people, but has also strengthened his own righteous thoughts. If all of us can think and speak like this at any moment, a righteous field will be formed.

The above is only my shallow understanding. Please point out anything that is inappropriate.

Posting date: 5/25/2006
Original article date: 5/24/2006
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/5/10/127285.html

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