By a practitioner from Yantai, Shandong Province

(Clearwisdom.net) For a long time I have wanted to write and share my experiences about doing the three things well according to Teacher's request. Different kinds of interference have kept me from writing. I now feel that I should remove all the interference and do it, because I have a responsibility and a duty to fellow practitioners to help harmonize our Dafa websites. It is also a good opportunity to improve my cultivation practice.

1. Studying the Fa Well

"The Fa can break all attachments, the Fa can destroy all evil, the Fa can shatter all lies, and the Fa can strengthen righteous thoughts." ("Drive Out Interference" from Essentials for Further Advancement II)

Teacher again and again has explicitly pointed out the importance of studying the Fa. How can we accomplish our prehistoric vows of assisting Teacher to rectify Fa and save sentient beings that we made prior to coming to the human world? What do we rely on to accomplish these goals? All of these come from Dafa. What are the human attachments? These are recently-developed human concepts and sentimentalities formed over thousands of years of incarnations.

In "Teaching the Fa at the Fa Conference at the U.S. Capital" Teacher said:

"As a human being cultivates into a god, during this heart-wrenching, agonizing process of removing attachments - think about it everyone - what kinds of things might he be capable of exhibiting? It might be that he is capable of anything. But once he realizes it, he can correct it. And why can he do that? It's not done for the sake of being a good ordinary person, but rather, to cultivate to Consummation. That is sacred, and that is walking the path toward godhood." ("Teaching the Fa at the Fa Conference at the U.S. Capital")

I have truly experienced the meaning of, "... heart-wrenching, agonizing process of removing attachments." In the spring of this year, the boss, who currently rents the big workshop behind my house, came to my home to talk with my husband and me. He proposed building a brick wall around the workshop and wanted to discuss his need to use some of our land as a place to work and store his bricks, stones and other things required to build the wall. He promised us that upon completion, he would smooth the out the dirt and put a concrete surface on top. Since we have a lot of farmland, our family needed a smooth, hard place to put our crops after harvesting. As we had not already done this ourselves, due to our limited economic situation in recent years, we were very pleased to hear his plans and agreed to his promise. However, after the brick wall was completed, the boss did not keep his promise. Although I didn't have too much attachment to this issue at the time, my husband started to become anxious, with the harvesting season getting near. He talked about it all the time and gradually my attachment to it began to surface. I mentioned this matter to the boss, but he did not even admit it. At that time, I didn't maintain my xinxing well, and I lost my temper and argued with him. My throat became uncomfortable, but I didn't care. The next morning, I had a bad headache and felt very cold. I then realized that the evil had taken advantage of my serious attachment to self-interest. I constantly studied the Fa and sent forth righteous thoughts for the next two days. The more I read Teacher's Fa, the more I realized that Teacher had clearly explained the meaning of removing attachments to fame, self-interest, and sentimentality. Since I was so fortunate to become Teacher's disciple and I had received great benefits from Dafa, what else is worth anything for me to treasure in the world?

Teacher said in "True Cultivation:"

"Can you bring to heaven the things deep down inside that you cannot let go of?"(from Essentials for Further Advancement)

So I told myself, "Let it go and follow the natural course of things." As soon as that thought emerged, I suddenly felt release and all the bad symptoms in my body vanished. By that time I thought I had passed the test, but that was not the case. That night, my husband brought up the issue of the boss's promise again. Every sentence again prodded my heart and agitated my ordinary human mentality. The result was that the next day, all those bad symptoms returned to my body. Since then, I have realized that it was about time that I faced my problems and solidly improved my xinxing. Teacher said:

"These are all your own tribulations that we use to improve your xinxing, and you will be able to overcome them. As long as you upgrade your xinxing, you can overcome them. Unless you, yourself do not want to do so, you can make it, provided you want to overcome them. Therefore, from now on when you come across a conflict you should not consider it a coincidence. This is because when a conflict occurs, it will take place unexpectedly. But that is not a coincidence--it is for improving your xinxing. As long as you treat yourself as a practitioner, you can handle it properly." ("Transformation of Karma" from Lecture Four of Zhuan Falun)

When reading this paragraph of Teacher's Fa, my tears flowed. I said, "Teacher, your disciple has disappointed you. I was unable to understand your Fa until I severely suffered mentally and physically. I have thoroughly removed my attachment." Certainly, after removing my attachment, the bad symptoms in my body vanished again. Moreover, the boss also made the land smooth and put a concrete surface on top.

Although this matter wasn't major, it actually highlights the importance of studying the Fa. If we don't study the Fa well, we can't even pass small hardships. Only when we study the Fa well can we cultivate ourselves well, conduct ourselves well with righteous thoughts, and save more sentient beings. This is why whenever Teacher teaches the Fa, he always mentions studying the Fa well.

2. Sending Forth Righteous Thoughts

Teacher has specifically mentioned the importance of sending forth righteous thoughts many times, and many practitioners have also written articles in "Minghui Weekly" about what they have understood, thought, and seen during sending forth righteous thoughts. Every time I read reports of fellow practitioners being persecuted, either to the point of being disabled, tortured to death, or having their organs harvested, I always cried and my heart hurt. The Fa-rectification has reached the final stage, however, fellow practitioners continue to be arrested or suffer from "illness karma," and some of them have even lost their lives. Why?

We have clarified the truth, saved people, and exposed the evil persecution for seven years, but still have not eliminated all the evil. Why? It is because we still have attachments. Even though we found our attachments, we were still not willing to suppress or eliminate them with righteous thoughts. In fact there are many practitioners with strong righteous thoughts who have done well and there are also many examples of practitioners' showing their divine powers.

Below is my experiences sharing with fellow practitioners.

On June 21, 2006, the people in my town came together for the farmer's market. The town government also held an activity for legal consultation. Among the flyers they were handing out, there were many slandering Dafa and Teacher. I had a retail shop on the street where their activity was to be held and they were right in front of my shop. At that moment my first thought was that the evil had come to me. I knew this wasn't accidental, so I went to interrogate them, "Why are you all blocking my shop without telling me?" The government officials, controlled by the evil, immediately greeted me with smiles, "These are free materials, you can take more." I saw an opportunity, so I quickly picked up all the materials about Falun Gong. As I started to leave, they said, "You cannot take them all." I replied, "What is the purpose of attacking Falun Gong? Whoever wants these can come to my shop to get them." I took them straight to my shop. After siting down, tears began to fall. I asked Teacher and the Fa guardian gods of the universe to give me strength. I said, "Let their activity fail. Let it rain quickly so that they are unable to continue poisoning people." In fact, in less than fifteen minutes, rain started falling from the sky and it lasted until that afternoon. So, they had to quickly end their activity. I then burned all of the materials that were meant to poison people. Through this experience, I truly understood the importance of sending forth righteous thoughts. Since Teacher has given us such divine powers, as practitioners during Fa-rectification period, we should maintain righteous thoughts all the time and eliminate the evil to save the world's people.

3. Clarifying the Truth and Saving Sentient Beings

Every time I clarify the truth to people, my first thought is to make a banner of "Falun Dafa is good" to leave an imprint on peoples minds. Second, I send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil elements behind them, and then I clarify the facts to them. By doing it this way, the results are very good. Teacher has required us to:

"Validate the Fa with rationality, clarify the truth with wisdom, spread the Fa and save people with mercy--this is establishing the mighty virtue of an Enlightened Being." ("Rationality" from Essentials for Further Advancement II)

I feel that as long as our minds are righteous before we clarify the truth, Teacher will give us the wisdom.

Once a visitor came to my shop to wait for someone. I kindly offered him a seat and brought him a cup of water, which warmed his heart towards me. Then I chatted with him. The topics we talked about ranged from the weather and bird flu to rabies, then naturally to many Chinese people quiting the CCP and the truth about Falun Gong practitioners being persecuted. He told me that he believed the Chinese Communist Party was capable of doing those evil things because his mother, a follower of Buddhism, was once persecuted. He also said he was a member of the CCP, but he had not participated in the Party's activities for many years. I urged him to withdraw from the CCP, which he did. I also gave him some Dafa truth-clarification materials and a card that said, "Falun Dafa is good." Later he told me that he keeps the card with him all the time. I was very gratified that a being had been saved.

Actually, many times while clarifying the truth, I have spoken from the perspective of a third party. By doing so, many predestined people have understood the truth and quit the CCP. I understand that I have to solidly improve my xinxing and cultivate myself well, and only then can I save more sentient beings. In Teacher's lecture "Let Go of Human Attachments and Save the World's People," He explicitly points out that we, Dafa practitioners, are the only hope for the world's people to enter the future. This has made me realize even more how magnificent it is to take on this responsibility and save the world's people.

The three things that Teacher requested us to do are all related. Fellow practitioners, together let us do the three things well and treasure this precious opportunity that only comes once in millions of years, so that we can achieve Consummation and follow Teacher and return home.

Posting date: 6/12/2007
Original article date: 6/12/2007
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2007/5/22/155345.html