Written by Dafa practitioner Xiao Juan from Hebei Province

(Clearwisdom.net) Because of human notions and the restriction of not being able to write articles, over these years I have not known how to share my cultivation experience. Today I am writing to share with fellow practitioners.

I read in "Teaching the Fa at the 2005 Manhattan International Fa Conference,"

"You should always keep your thoughts righteous, and when you are confronted with evil or with certain situations, you should send forth righteous thoughts a lot; you need to clarify the truth and save sentient beings, but even more so should you cultivate yourselves well. If you don't cultivate yourselves well you won't have mighty virtue, what you say will not be in line with the Fa, and then you can't possibly save sentient beings. When what you say has no mighty virtue and no power, it will have no effect, and the evil will capitalize on that. What's more, if you don't cultivate yourselves well and your righteous thoughts are lacking, when you handle certain things you will tend to slip into human ways of thinking, and then you won't be able to have the effect of saving sentient beings."

Looking back on April 11, 2004, since my attachment of fear was too strong, the evil took advantage of my loopholes. For three days, police harassed me outside my home. However, I sent forth righteous thoughts at home and didn't open the door, so this scheme of persecution didn't succeed. But as I didn't look deeply into my heart to dig out my attachments, I developed the attachment of fear again. In December, one policeman (later I learned that he was the head of the National Security Team) changed to plainclothes and came to my home to inquire, while other policemen waited nearby. After some conversation, he said, "It was not polite to talk through the door and it is so cold outside..." He took advantage of my kindness. After he came into the room, he made a call and 6 or 7 policemen came upstairs. I thought with human notions that they surely would search my home and I immediately sent forth righteous thoughts and asked Master to help. These policemen searched around in the room and tried to decipher my body language, but they could find nothing. Later with one wrong idea, I said some words and facts with human thoughts, and due to my human thoughts, they found some flyers, a VCD and other truth-clarification materials.

When I locked the door, they saw my keys and I realized their purpose. When I went downstairs, I secretly gave the keys to my neighbors. I wanted to ask my neighbors to inform my daughter who was in school. One policeman said, "Hurry up. How shameful to let others see you." I said, "You don't feel ashamed that you violate the laws while enforcing the laws? I try to be a good person following Truth-Compassion-Tolerance, so what should I feel ashamed of?" At first, they planned for the National Security Team to arrest me, and later when they called the police station, they said I was a kind person. In fact, my compassion and righteous thoughts changed them.

When we came to the police station, they asked me for my home keys and wanted to go to my home to search, but they didn't succeed. During this period, I had a thought to clarify the truth to the head of the police station. Consequently, in the afternoon, the police station head and the director of the 610 Office appeared. I compassionately and peacefully clarified the truth to them, "You are the most severely persecuted people and you should be saved. You participate in this persecution due to your ignorance but both your body and spirits would all be destroyed." They dared not tell me their names while claiming that they were not afraid of being exposed on the evil people's list on Falun Dafa websites. I said, "Posting your name aims to end this persecution. We want to leave you a chance to choose a future. If you stop persecuting Dafa practitioners, you can be saved. If you treat Dafa practitioners kindly, you will be rewarded." I have been considering them as lives that are persecuted by the evil and could be saved. At that time, I only had one thought, "In this cosmos, my Master will make the final decision. I am a Dafa practitioner and no being has the right to test or persecute me."

I kept sending forth righteous thoughts. During the interrogation, they kept coming in and going out. I didn't feel that their actions had anything to do with me. "One unmoved heart can restrict all movements!" ("Teaching the Fa at the Mid U.S. Fa Conference") (Draft translation.) As my righteous thoughts became stronger and stronger, when they interrogated me, I compassionately and peacefully clarified the truth to them. They kept saying, "You are a good person and you are really kind." They attempted to do evil things three times, but every time, I eliminated their scheme with the wisdom and righteous field that Dafa gave to me.

This time, I witnessed the power of righteous thoughts and the seriousness of every single thought of ours. The evil wants to persecute Dafa practitioners using the most evil means at any time and it depends on if we firmly believe Dafa and Master Li. If every one of our thoughts is solid and if we don't use human thoughts, with Master supporting us, no life will dare to touch us. Within the righteous field, they seemed to understand the truth and dared not do evil. After over two hours, those supervisors saw my firm thoughts and determination not to compromise. They let it go at that, so I went back home after a few hours.

It is also worth mentioning the harmony of clarifying the truth during normal times. My neighbors talked to those plainclothes policeman face to face about what a good person I was and they should not arrest me, etc. In the afternoon, more than one of my neighbors and security people called them one after another and urged the police to release me using the excuse that my child was not being taken care of. I really felt the situation that if all Chinese people oppose the persecution, the evil would be eliminated. If we can think about one sentence of Master Li with righteous thoughts, then the evil beings in other dimensions will be eliminated.

Let Go of Postnatal Notions

Master said in "For Whom do You Exist?" (Essentials for Further Advancement),

"The most difficult things for people to abandon are their notions. Some people cannot change, even if they have to give up their lives for fake principles. Yet notions are themselves acquired post-natally. People always believe that these unshakable ideas--ideas that can make them pay any price without a second thought--are their own thoughts. Even when they see the truth they reject it. In fact, other than a person's innate purity and innocence, all notions are acquired post-natally and are not a person's actual self."

I enlightened to the understanding that whenever I consider questions or handle matters, I should clearly distinguish between my true self and my ego self, likewise with other people, and whether my thought is a pure thought or a human thought. If we want to distinguish it clearly at any time, we need to consider questions within Dafa using righteous thoughts and we should instantly rectify every thought and idea according to the Fa. I have run into some misunderstandings, when in the course of finding practitioners talking using human attachments or human thoughts, I would directly try to rectify his/her unrighteous attachments or thoughts. I thought that this was helpful for them to improve within the Fa, and sometimes I would directly teach them what to say or what to do. I thought it would help practitioners remove such human attachments more quickly, but I didn't consider whether other practitioners could accept it or not. Sometimes practitioners would refuse to accept it, or could not understand me. After I came back home, I looked inside myself and found that I had problems with my speaking tone, my compassion, my method and approach.

When I studied "Zhuan Falun", I read the lecture about cultivation of speech:

" 'I want to do this or that,' or 'this matter should now be done this way or that way.' Perhaps it will unintentionally hurt someone."

I realized that I was not within the Fa, but when I saw other practitioners again, I still repeated the same mistake. When I dug deeply inside myself, I realized that the genuine root was formed by postnatal notions. Since I was not confident, I always hoped others to teach me what to do, so I also tried to teach others what to do. Once a notion is formed, if we cannot judge it with Dafa, we will not realize it. Notions are the largest burden and are the most difficult to let go of on our cultivation path. When we run into some problems, we should use righteous thoughts and not our postnatal notions to judge if something is right or wrong, good or bad. We should not impose our own thoughts on others, emphasizing that someone should think a certain way.

Postnatally acquired ego and notions are also barriers between people. We are practitioners walking on the path of godhood, so when we run into some problems, we should treat them with compassion, kindness, and tolerant thoughts. We will not feel discouraged, nor will we have human thoughts moving us. What kind of notions can we not let go of! Master said in "Teaching the Fa in Canada, 2006,"

"Gods can control the human mind and lead humans to do certain things, not vice versa. How could human beings possibly affect gods? So if you wish to become a divine being, don't you yourself have to be that way? Don't you have to let go of those attachments? And don't you have to let go of those feelings of yours that can be stirred up by human beings?"

Shouldn't we let go of our postnatally acquired ego and notions that we have formed in the human world? Shouldn't we remove all barriers? When we run into some questions, we should keep our hearts unmoved, calm down and measure things with Dafa. We should conform to the standards of Dafa practitioners and manifest the kindness of Dafa practitioners and great enlightened beings' compassion. With strong righteous thoughts and the presence of Master and Dafa, if we use Dafa and righteous thoughts to look at questions with our pure self, will human notions and thoughts still have room to exist? I strengthen my righteous thoughts and eliminate the human thoughts and impure thoughts that are not myself. I often think that if we don't have Master's protection and practitioners' cooperation and support, how can one single practitioner do anything?

I deeply feel that at present I have to: let go of all human attachments and human notions, break through the barriers that the old forces arrange for us; remove the attachment of suspicion; and improve together and form a genuine cultivation environment so that Dafa practitioners can improve together as one body. I can feel that cultivation is to cultivate every thought, target every attachment, and follow the requirements of Dafa at different levels to cultivate every thought of ours and become more pure and righteous.

Due to my limited level, I ask my fellow practitioners to please kindly point out anything inappropriate.

Posting date: 1/8/2007
Original article date: 1/8/2007
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Translated on 12/23/2006
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/12/14/144651.html

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