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Searching Inward By a practitioner in China
(Clearwisdom.net) Teacher mentioned searching inward several times in
"Fa Teaching Given to the Australian Practitioners." I have some
understandings that I'd like to share with everyone. Please kindly point out
anything inappropriate. In the beginning, I only superficially searched inward. I remember a specific
incident that illustrated this clearly. One time I was distributing
truth-clarifying materials in the middle of the night. I heard dogs
barking and saw people walking by. I looked inside myself and suddenly realized
that if I am afraid, how would other sentient beings be able endure it? Although
I was distributing materials, I was in fact saving sentient beings. If I was
afraid, they would also be afraid, so then how could they be saved? Another understanding that I had about searching inward came when I was on a
hunger strike in a forced labor camp. I realized that when I found an attachment
in this dimension, I had opened up an iron gate in another dimension until my
righteous thoughts eliminated it. The first few days after I was arrested, I searched inward again. A month
before that, a fellow practitioner had criticized me but I didn't listen and
instead argued with her. Everything that I had lost due to persecution were
things that I had attachments to, such as money, sentimentality, comfort, and
other things. Of course, I could not walk the path arranged by the old forces
and I could not agree with their persecution of Dafa under the guise of such
excuses. I think that if a person pays attention to getting rid of human
attachments in his cultivation, then the old forces won't have any excuses to
persecute that person. A week after the materials production site was set up, I heard the old forces
in another dimension saying that practitioners in our city have a strong
attachment to fear and that local practitioners wanted to protect themselves
more than to save sentient beings. They also said practitioners would go into
hiding at even the slightest sign of trouble and that these practitioners need
to improve. Soon after I heard these things, three things happened. First, the
police conducted a city-wide search because a TV broadcast signal was
interrupted and utilized to show programs exposing the persecution of Dafa.
Secondly, a large materials production site was destroyed. As a result, everyone
panicked and some even stopped taking home truth-clarification materials. The
third incident involved the spread of rumors among practitioners about how a
certain fellow practitioner was a spy and that other practitioners were told not
to have any contact with him. All of this reminded me of an evil arrangement
that I encountered earlier. The only way to resolve these things is to search
inward when encountering difficulties. If our human attachments are exposed,
they need to be resolved accordingly. So I shared my understandings with other
practitioners. Once everyone understood and saw the issues in themselves, the
fear went away and the situation quickly stabilized. This incident really
touched me and left me with a stronger impression that I should search inward. I saw in other dimensions that if someone is surrounded by evil that is
attempting to persecute him, he should search inward at that moment. Thus, the
evil will be restrained and will not be able to get close to the person. When we set up the materials production sites in rural areas, I selected one
coordinator from each of the three areas for which I am responsible. Every week
we meet at my place to discuss and share our understandings. We ask each other,
"Do you see any shortcomings in me? Do you see any common attachments among
practitioners in this area?" We all search inward to see if we have the
same problem as others do and determine how to improve upon it. We look inside
ourselves and help each other to search inward as well. The coordinators then
talk to other practitioners in their areas and share with them the shortcomings
that we saw so that other practitioners can use them as a reference. If there
are common attachments that we cannot explain clearly, we add a column after the
"Minghui Weekly" for a local experience sharing event. We
select articles only from the Minghui/Clearwisdom website to publish. We use
them to point out other practitioners' attachments and try to resolve these
issues through studying the Fa. If one or two articles are not
enough, we put them in small booklet, such as "Illness Karma,"
"To Practitioners Who Haven't Stepped Out," and "Determination to
Cultivate." Every once a while, we analyze the attachments of local
practitioners and write about them. This helps everyone to search inward and to
form a good environment. What we found is that wherever practitioners cultivate well, that is where
things seem to be good from all perspectives. Sentient beings believe that
practitioners can save them, and they come to practitioners in search of the
truth and ask to be saved. When people do not treasure their lives, perhaps it
is a reflection of practitioners in that area without understandings about the
preciousness of these lives. Also, this could be a reflection of practitioners
not making the best use of their time to save sentient beings. Searching inward allows one to cultivate oneself and it can also save others.
However, in order to find one's attachments, one must study the Fa well and
truly understand the Fa from the perspective of the Fa. One can then reach the
state of having no enemies and will always be successful. Posting date: 12/7/2007 |