By Fang Yan

(Clearwisdom.net) Falun Gong practitioners are free to use any kind of technology to validate the Fa, including computers, and we treat all such tools with righteous thoughts as we go about doing the three things. I have noticed a trend, though. When distributing truth-clarifying materials and speaking of it, practitioners immediately recognize interference from the evil as soon as we encounter difficulties. That's when we have to send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the interference. By contrast, when we face technical difficulties, we tend to be immediately trapped within the technology and have a hard time extricating ourselves. We tend to focus too much on the computer itself. We get anxious when progress does not happen as planned and worry that it will delay Dafa work. When we truly feel that we have no other options, only then do we think to send forth righteous thoughts, even occasionally fretting, "There is no ink coming out of the printer. Would sending righteous thoughts really work for that problem? Would the virus in the computer really be gone?" So many doubts make us wonder how important it is to gain strong technical knowledge. Master said,

"...people focus more on the tangible things of our physical world, thus becoming more dependent upon our modern tools. Consequently, our human inborn capabilities are becoming more degenerated. In the end, they are made to disappear completely." (Lecture Three, Zhuan Falun)

In my opinion, many people think of the computer, nothing more than a modern tool, as such an advancement. This notion drives people ever more distant from spiritual context and to become trapped in logic at the crudest level. It makes people think that there is nothing that one cannot see, analyze or deduce in the computer world. If someone does not understand this technology, it just means he lacks sufficient computer knowledge and needs to learn more - such as this program, that setting, this switch and that button. On the surface, it seems that the more we learn, the easier we can operate a computer. Are our brains actually controlled by the computer? If a human blindly believes in something, that thing will in turn control that person. As we get more skilled in the use of computers, we have to make sure that we do not fall into the patterns of overly mechanical thinking.

True cultivators have capabilities and powers formed in other dimensions that are more microscopic and more powerful than any computer technology. Although some practitioners still can't comprehend this, there is an aspect of "enlightenment" in cultivation. Master requests that we have our thoughts focused and strong when we send forth righteous thoughts, "...with an air of supremacy and of destroying all evil in the cosmos." ("Righteous Thoughts")

Some practitioners say, "Computers always mess with people who do not know them." A specific problem may be very challenging to solve. But as soon as a computer expert stands next to you, without even touching the computer, the issue often disappears. This is not a joke. I often encounter such phenomena. In other words, the computer issue does not have to happen. It, too, has life. It can also be controlled. If computer experts were able to make a computer problem "go away," then how about the cultivators who have supernatural powers? Master said, "...a tiny finger will be more than enough to crush it." (Lecture Three, Zhuan Falun) Actually, if we can consider things from the perspective of the Fa, we can easily get to the crux of the matter.

On our cultivation path, the old forces always try to look for excuses to cause damage. For example, an older practitioner had established a family materials-production site. He has limited means, but did it anyway. The old forces found an excuse to interfere with him and made his computer malfunction to prevent him from validating Dafa. Their excuse was that practitioners have to be computer experts to be able to cultivate well and validate Dafa. Would the old forces interfere with us for not being computer experts? Can we eliminate such interference once we have grasped the technology? Obviously that's not the case. It is for us to see whether we view ourselves as humans or cultivators when faced with a challenge, to see if we are "ordinary people" when working with a computer, or if we act as "Dafa disciples," offering sentient beings salvation, and whether we are "technicians" or Dafa disciples during the Fa-rectification period with mighty powers, who are walking on the path to divinity with Master's guidance.

I am not suggesting that we should ignore technical matters and only focus on sending forth righteous thoughts. We are in the human world and exist in this environment, and we are under its control to a degree. Master mentioned in his lectures that we should try to grasp knowledge and many changes will take place in the future human world. We need to have a certain amount of knowledge. From my understanding, during the Fa-rectification period, being unwilling to learn new technology out of fear or completely relying on technology are both not right.

In brief, doing technical work is also validating Dafa. We will be able to validate Dafa as long as we follow the Fa principles and always use our righteous thoughts.

Posting date: 3/4/2008
Original article date: 3/4/2008
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2008/1/23/170961.html

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