By Yuan Da, a Falun Dafa practitioner in Harbin City, China

(Clearwisdom.net) A few weeks ago, I went to a remote village with another practitioner to distribute truth-clarification materials and save sentient beings. The evil forces took advantage of our cultivation gaps, and the other practitioner was illegally arrested. With Master's help and his righteous thoughts, the practitioner was released in a few days.

After looking inside ourselves and studying the Fa to improve ourselves for a few weeks, we decided to restart our plan of saving sentient beings in remote villages. I shared my thoughts with some practitioners. I said, "I will start again with the village where I was arrested before. I will get up from where I fell down." After a few days, a practitioner shared his different opinion. He said, "It's not right to do so. Don't you think you have the attachment of competitiveness? You want to compete with the evil forces and policemen there." I said, "I am not doing this to compete, instead, there are several reasons."

As a practitioner, I have a human side. When I fell down in a place, I would have a sense of misgiving to that place. In other words, it became a psychological barrier. Such a barrier is a mix of shame, regret, and fear. I was illegally arrested and persecuted by the evil forces in that village when I distributed truth-clarification materials there alone. The incident caused great harm to my family. My extreme understandings of Dafa led to my divorce. It took several months for me to adjust my condition and return to my normal cultivation state. Although I worked even harder to save the sentient beings afterwards, I always had mixed feelings whenever I passed by this place. After I cultivated and improved myself for another six months, I finally broke through my fear and went there to comprehensively distribute truth-clarification materials with another practitioner. I was able to get rid of my psychological barrier and fear towards the village after that.

If we fall down, can we just lie down there? No. We should get up immediately. This incident exposed many shortcomings in ourselves,and in our area, such as lack of good coordination, the intent to criticize others, the intent of regarding ourselves as above others, the heart to protect ourselves, the distrust of practitioners, and so on. However, we can't become depressed in the setbacks, in the tribulations created by the evil forces, or in the criticisms of other practitioners. In no way can we delay the important task of assisting Master to rectify Fa and to save sentient beings. It is more and more urgent and the time left is more and more precious. If the Fa-rectification comes to an end one day, everything that we want to do also comes to an end.

Although the practitioner who was arrested had done very well, we realized that we had a gap for the evil forces to take advantage of. In addition to studying the Fa more, searching inside ourselves for shortcomings, and improving our character (xinxing), we must also break through the so-called tests of the evil forces and adjust our cultivation status as soon as possible. In addition, I also felt sorry and regretful because I thought I didn't do well and had implicated the other practitioner. I saw him being arrested while I was able to escape, so I also want to pull myself together and eliminate the interference.

I would like to thank the practitioner for kindly reminding me of my attachments. It helps me to examine myself and benefits my cultivation. Such self-examination is indeed a cultivation process that helps to improve our character (xinxing). Master said in Teaching the Fa in the City of Los Angeles:

"The other thing is what I said earlier about a necessary component that Dafa disciples are lacking, something they have missed, and that is your inability to take criticism from each other. You cannot refuse to accept other people's constructive comments and even negative comments. You cannot continue to push these things away. From now on all of you have to begin getting rid of this attachment. This isn't something that I am asking you to improve on one step at a time, as I usually do with things when I teach the Fa. Rather, this is a very crucial, final, major problem that must be removed now."

In the past, I have had a lot of attachments to get rid of, including my fear when being persecuted and my attachment of affection for my family. I compromised to the evil forces against my will. I was able to accept criticism from other practitioners with an open mind because I knew what I had done was far away from the requirement of Dafa. However, as I did more Fa-rectification work, I became less willing to accept criticism. I didn't like comments,whether they were constructive or negative. Didn't I become arrogant and judge things with human notions instead of by the Fa? Isn't this my gap? In the last incident, I sprained my ankle. Isn't it an obvious hint that I was not walking my path righteously, and I was off track?

When we help Master to rectify the Fa, if we always keep Master and Dafa in our minds, always keep our prehistoric vows to save sentient beings in our minds, the evil has no excuse to persecute us. We must use our supernatural abilities and Fa-implements that Master has bestowed us to eliminate the evil, to improve ourselves diligently, and to do the three things well.

December 13, 2006

Posting date: 1/5/2007
Original article date: 1/5/2007
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/12/14/144630.html

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