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One Practitioner's Tribulation Might Be a Reflection of Everyone's Attachments
By a Falun Dafa practitioner from China
(Clearwisdom.net) Not too long ago, a practitioner (A) at our truth
clarification materials production site began to behave in an unusual
manner. He was so busy making materials that he neglected to eat or sleep. At
first we admired him for his dedication to save sentient beings. After a while,
we sensed that something was not right. As soon as he had some time, he made
copies of CDs, labeled the envelopes, and inserted them into the envelopes. He
did this nonstop. He would mumble, "There is not much time left, not much
time left," and listened to Teacher's lectures while making the CDs. Sometimes I intentionally took over his tasks so that he could study the
Fa. But as soon as I did, he began to do other things. I said to
him, "No matter how busy you are, you should find time to study the Fa.
Besides, can you really study the Fa well while making CDs?" He replied,
"At any rate, other living elements in my body are listening to the Fa."
At the time, I thought he made sense. For many days, Practitioner A continued to make truth clarification materials
and did not seriously study the Fa. When we suggested that he study the Fa, he
did not listen and showed strong resistance. Furthermore, he turned around and
blamed us for not helping him with the CDs. We showed him good sharing articles
regarding Fa study from the Minghui website, but he would not read them, saying
he did not have time. Finally, we showed him Teacher's lectures regarding Fa study. The articles
affected him, and he began to study the Fa. But every time he read "whoever
practices cultivation will attain gong" he got sleepy and could not
continue. We immediately realized this was a serious problem. If we could not
help him recognize the loophole, then the old forces might take advantage of the
situation and persecute him. Moreover, this could affect the practitioners
around him. At the time, I forgot to send righteous thoughts to eliminate the
evil elements around Practitioner A; I just quietly said to the living beings
that were surrounding him, "No matter what kind of life you are, Dafa is
given to the main consciousness to cultivate. Please do not interfere with his
main consciousness. After he finishes cultivating, you will have a good place to
go. If your interference causes him damage, I'm not sure what kind of future you
will have." To our surprise, several days later when we urged him to study the Fa, he
became agitated and blamed us for interfering with his Fa study and truth
clarification duties. We were very puzzled and wondered why he did not
understand our good intentions. Teacher said this in the lecture "Touring
North America to Teach the Fa, March 2002": "You all want to be responsible to Dafa, and your intentions are good.
But often you don't mind yourselves, and it's very possible you have some
ordinary human attachments." Teacher often reminds us to look inward whenever we encounter problems. When I calmed down and looked inward, I noticed that in the process, I was
sometimes irritated and my heart was moved, and at other times I felt I was
wronged and thought, "How could Practitioner A treat me like this when my
intentions were good." I understood that if I did not have any human
notions and truly had good intentions toward Practitioner A, even if he did not
realize it then, he would not be so irritated with me. I also wondered whether
there was any other attachment we did not notice. I discovered that
"feeling wronged" was a result of not letting go of the
"self" and the notion of "if I had good intentions toward you,
then you should treat me well." A true practitioner should not be moved. If
everything we did was based on the Fa, then the power of the Fa will manifest. When I urged Practitioner A again to take Fa study seriously, he replied
abruptly, "I know what you all think. You think that I'm not cultivating as
well, that I'm not as enlightened, and do not have as much virtue as you
all." (At the time I did not think I had those thoughts, but when I calmly
looked inward, I noticed I did think of myself as being "higher" than
Practitioner A.) After listening to his words, I guessed that he recognized
where he was lacking. I felt happy and said to him, "I really don't think I
have those thoughts. If I do, then I will rid myself of them. Dafa can harmonize
everything. It's whether my understanding is based on the Fa or not. It's not
about you being good or bad, high or low." A few days ago, I read on the
Minghui website that a well-know practitioner was illegally
arrested. I was very surprised initially. After I read the experience
sharing articles from practitioners around her on "Minghui Weekly,"
I understood deeply that her illegal arrest was caused by many of the
practitioners' human attachments. After listening to what I said, Practitioner A became quiet and continued to
make CDs. And I kept searching for any attachments we had failed to recognize.
Suddenly, a thought came through - a practitioner pointed out in his Minghui
Weekly sharing article that many practitioners' human attachments pushed a
pile of undesirable matters in another dimension onto the practitioner who was
well-known. So, did our group have any undetected thoughts that caused
Practitioner A to behave in certain way? I remembered suddenly that, before I moved to this area, I had always hoped
that Practitioner A could make more truth clarification materials so that I
could take more with me. If other practitioners had similar thoughts and did not
consider Practitioner A's actual situation and whether he had the time to do the
three things well and accommodate our needs, then our thoughts could
have actually caused him to be busy making truth clarification material and not
have the time to study the Fa. Some practitioners even asked for a certain
amount of truth clarification materials for their next pick-up and Practitioner
A always agreed to it. Furthermore, if practitioners' thoughts of admiration for
Practitioner A contained too many human attachments, then this probably made him
reluctant to change the way he did things. I felt really bad about it, since we
all thought that it was Practitioner A who did not have a good enough
understanding. How could we solve the problem with this kind of mentality? When I shared my understanding with Practitioner A and another concerned
practitioner that was living with me, I felt that something surrounding me was
suddenly pushed away. And whatever we said to Practitioner A afterwards was not
too hard for him to accept. Of course, since Practitioner A exhibited the
problem, there must be factors stemming from him, but that is not the main issue
we are discussing here. Here, I'd like to remind fellow practitioners who are
busy making truth clarification material to study the Fa no matter how busy you
are, and to remind some practitioners of your attitude in regards to Fa study:
Do not let the old forces take advantage of the loophole. At present,
Practitioner A is able to concentrate on studying the Fa on a daily basis. Through this incident, I realized that it is quite hard to change oneself.
However, because we cultivate in Dafa, we can look inward whenever we encounter
problems and measure all our thoughts, words, and actions against the Fa. If we
can truly and seriously be responsible to the Fa and to ourselves, then nothing
should be that hard. I remember several years ago, when faced with the evil
forces, practitioners always said that we are all "a particle" of Dafa.
Only when we get rid of the "self" and melt together as one body we
can manifest the mighty power of Dafa. Like sawdust melting into molten iron,
any devious element can be made upright and the evil elements that cannot be
saved will disintegrate immediately, causing tremendous changes through to the
surface dimension. The above are my limited understandings from cultivating in the boundless
Dafa. Please kindly point out anything inappropriate. |