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Saving People's Lives Vs. Protecting People's Safety
By a Falun Dafa practitioner from China (Clearwisdom.net) While clarifying the truth and
encouraging people to quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its related
organizations, practitioners often say "Quitting the CCP will ensure your
safety." However, the following two scenarios occurred in my area. First, a
practitioner helped a person quit the CCP organizations last year, but that
person was hit by a car not long afterwards. The practitioner was bewildered and
asked other practitioners, "I helped her quit the CCP. Why was she was
still injured in an accident?" And second, I met with a similar incident. I
helped someone quit the communist organizations in 2005, telling him that his
life would be protected when Heaven eliminated the CCP, instead of telling him
that quitting would ensure his safety. In the fall of 2006, one of his toes was
severed by a carpenter's sawIn fact, "blessing ordinary people with
safety" is not our purpose. Esteemed Master led his disciples to the human
world to save all sentient beings, to save their lives when the danger is
imminent. An ordinary person can expect to have a peaceful and safe life only
after his or her karma is eliminated. But esteemed Master has never said that an
ordinary person will have no more karma once he or she quits the CCP. Master has
not done this even for Falun Dafa practitioners, let alone an ordinary person.
Since an ordinary person, even though he or she has quit the communist
organizations, is not free of karma, he or she will still encounter problems
involving paying back his karma. One has to pay for the debt he or she owes, and
this is a principle in the universe. This is also the root cause for what
happened in the above situations. It is worth noting that people who have quit the communist organizations and
still encountered similar incidents described above may have doubts about what
practitioners told them and may even be manipulated and used by the evil in
other dimensions, telling other people that practitioners are cheaters, thus
obstructing our efforts to save all beings. So I suggest we stop telling people
that quitting the communist organizations will ensure their safety. Instead, I
think a better way of putting it would be "Heaven is eliminating the CCP
and quitting the communist organizations will save your life." Meanwhile,
it must be made clear to everyday people that it is their lives that will be
saved when Heaven eliminates the CCP and that it will not ensure an immortal
life for people who are supposed to die when their time is up in this world or
when they become terminally ill. It will not guarantee that people will not die
in accidents, either. Another issue related to safety is the "protective talisman." Many
practitioners said to ordinary people, "I'll give you a talisman. When you
carry it with you you will be safe." Then two incidents took place in our
area. First, one practitioner gave an ordinary person a talisman and told him
that he would be safe while he carried it. But soon afterwards this person was
hit by a car and his leg was fractured. This person challenged the practitioner,
"How come I was not protected?" Second, a practitioner construction
worker was building a house for an ordinary person. He gave the homeowner's
child a talisman. The following day the practitioner fell from the scaffold and
broke his back. The child said to his aunt (a practitioner), "He asked me
to carry the talisman, but he himself broke his back." Undoubtedly the
above incidents have played a negative role in saving the beings. Why did they
happen? The reasons can be found in the following. In clarifying the facts we must follow the requirements of the Fa.
Expecting results from chanting "Falun Dafa is good" has conditions.
Let us review what Master said in "Teaching the Fa at the 2004
International Fa Conference in New York:" Disciple: The literature that disciples are distributing in Hong Kong
contains several stories with the theme of "recite 'Dafa hao' silently
and your health problems will be cured." This has led some Mainland
Chinese tourists to mistakenly think that we're pushing the idea that if
people have health problems they don't need to take medicine and will be
healed just by saying to themselves that Dafa is great. Teacher: Saying "Dafa hao" is not only
effective for ordinary people, but also for Dafa disciples since it clears away
the bad things in the mind. When you have every cell in your body saying that
Dafa is great, you will find that your entire body feels the reverberations. (Applause)
It is the Fa that your mind is invoking, so that's why it is so powerful. But I
think it's best to clarify the truth with wisdom. Outside Mainland China you
don't need to do this or to clarify the truth this way. The environment is more
relaxed and you can clarify things to people based on reason. In Mainland China
the environment is different, the extent to which people have been poisoned by
the slanderous propaganda varies and they thereby have different views on Falun
Gong, and people from Mainland China have a certain degree of cultural context
for and background on qigong, so you can do it this way among the broader
populace in Mainland China. But you don't need to do it this way in urban areas
or if you're outside Mainland China. You don't need to do it this way in Hong
Kong either. Just tell them the facts in an open and dignified way, and that
will be fine. From these words of Teacher's, we may conclude that it is
inappropriate to tell ordinary people in urban areas that chanting "Falun
Dafa is good" will save them. The two incidents just described happened in
the city. Not doing things according to Dafa is the biggest negligence and it
can be easily exploited by the evil. In fact, Master's fundamental goal in
transmitting Dafa is not treating illness and ensuring safety for ordinary
people. However, within the range allowed by Dafa, we may let ordinary people
benefit from chanting "Falun Dafa is good" and thus they will be saved
through their acceptance of Dafa. But it can only be used as a supplement to
saving the people, and the primary method is clarifying the facts. Some practitioners who are not clear about Fa principles and who are attached
to the benefits that Dafa can bring to people asked ordinary people to chant
"Dafa is good" and gave them talismans in hopes that ordinary people's
illnesses would be cured or their lives would be peaceful. This is wrong. Our
real goal is to let ordinary people know the truth and, from their hearts, say
"Dafa is good" so that their future lives will be protected. In other
words, practitioners are saving the beings. Some ordinary people get benefits
through chanting "Dafa is good," but that is only the spin-off effect,
not our purpose, something practitioners should not get attached to. It is just
like the abilities we develop in our cultivation--they come along, but they are
not what we really want. We have to be clear about what Master wants us to do
and should not make the mistake of putting the cart before the horse. From the passages quoted above, we can be certain that chanting "Dafa is
good" will reduce karma, but not eliminate all of the karma, for Master
only said it's "effective." Almost everyone today has come to this
world with piles of karma. Besides, the principle of the universe dictates that
a debt must be paid back. That is why an ordinary person, even though he or she
often chants "Dafa is good," will still come across things involving
paying back karmic debts, as no one can go to a heavenly kingdom with karma
still on the body. In the third incident described above, that ordinary person
probably would have been paralyzed for life and been bedridden, or he might have
been killed in the accident. But since he chanted "Dafa is good," his
karma was reduced, and so he only had his leg broken. However, an ordinary
person will not understand these Fa principles, and when he has an accident due
to his karma he will doubt Dafa and practitioners. Some practitioners take the following quote to mean that one's safety will be
protected if one says . "Falun Dafa is Good." "Even when an ordinary person shouts out "Falun Dafa is
good" today, Master will protect him..." ("Teaching and
Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference") But how will he be protected? Revered Master did not specifically say. Some
practitioners took it as Master would ensure that he would have no illness, no
misfortune, and no death. This understanding is definitely wrong. Revered Master
said a long time ago, "Buddha is saving, rather than blessing people."(Zhuan
Falun, Vol. II, provisional translation) Many practitioners are so attached to the benefits Dafa can bring to ordinary
people that they made a lot of talismans. When other practitioners gave them
truth clarification materials they didn't want to take them. All they wanted
were talismans on the grounds that ordinary people liked them. We are led by our
revered Master to save all beings rather than fulfilling ordinary people's
attachments. We are not here to bless ordinary people with a peaceful life,
either. If that were the case, people would not be able to eliminate their karma
while still enjoying an illness-free and disaster-free world. That would be a
divine world. Think abut it this way. Can an ordinary person who has accrued an enormous
amount of karma in his or her past lives be exempted from paying back the karmic
debt simply because he or she carries a talisman? Master said, "Those people who'll be left behind will have to eradicate sins by
paying, with horrible suffering, for the sinful karma they owe from their entire
past; only then will they be able to enter the next stage of history."
("Eliminate Evil," an address from Master to the Clearwisdom website
on November 30, 2000Since their sins are to be eliminated, there will surely be
misfortunes and tribulations. So there is no "ensured safety" to speak
ofThe mission of Dafa practitioners is to save all beings by clarifying the
facts, so we should not veer into the mistaken path of blessing ordinary people
with a peaceful life. An ordinary person who knows the truth and who often
chants "Dafa is good" will get some benefits because his karma will be
reduced That is for sure. That explains why there have been so many cases posted
on the Minghui/Clearwisdom in which people were blessed because they chanted
"Dafa is good." But over time those ordinary people who have succeeded
in avoiding disasters and illnesses through chanting "Dafa is good"
will still face instances of paying back their karma. So, to clarify the truth,
one must understand the truth himself. Efforts to clarify the facts will not
succeed or may even mislead the world's people if our attachments are too strong
or if we have an insufficient understanding of the Fa and the truth. The above is my limited understanding and may well be one-sided. I welcome
comments and sharing from practitioners who have differing opinions.
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