Transcend Everyday People's Way of Thinking By a Dafa practitioner in the US
(Clearwisdom.net) In April 2003, Master said, "But you often emphasize the results instead of fully explaining to
them the facts that you should explain during that process. Only when all
people know the truth that they should know are you really validating the Fa
and clarifying the facts. Wherever a problem surfaces, go tell people the
facts, and you shouldn't be doing it just to push the lawsuit forward but to
tell them the facts. And if the lawsuit is stuck somewhere, then that must be
where it needs you to clarify the facts, and then maybe the lawsuit will
naturally go forward." ("Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa
Conference") I have realized that in this lecture Master pointed out some of our
attachments that manifested during the trial of Jiang, and also pointed out the
right direction for us, which is highly instructive for much of the Dafa work we
are doing right now. Everything in the Three Realms was created for Dafa. The purpose of the
lawsuit against Jiang is to clarify the truth more thoroughly, more systemically
and in greater depth. Truth clarification is not a complement for the legal
procedure. On the other hand, when Dafa practitioners as one body have a basic
common understanding of what we should clarify and how to clarify it, when we
clarify all the key facts to all governments, organizations, groups and
individuals who should know the truth, we would promote the court's
understanding of the lawsuit against Jiang. Then, practitioners who are engaged
in the legal work of the trial and our attorney can use their professional
knowledge and skills to a greater extent. In the first paragraph of "Lunyu" in Zhuan Falun, there is a
sentence, "... humankind must fundamentally change its conventional
thinking." For a long time, we have formed habits of thinking and doing
things as ordinary people. Especially when doing things, ordinary people
encourage detailed investigation and persistent exploration. During the process,
they study the details and come up with different methods in order to reach a
certain goal or achieve a certain result. However, most of these habits are what
we must continuously overcome and transcend in the course of cultivation. The lawsuit against Jiang processed by a federal court in Illinois, U.S. has
been through a lot of ups and downs since it was first filed, and generally we
focus our attention on what approach we should take in order to win the lawsuit.
Of course, there are also other elements at work. As a Fa-rectification
disciple, I want to bring up some issues that have to do with our fundamental
way of thinking, so that we can all reflect upon the problem. When we took the progress of the lawsuit against Jiang as the sign of
progress of the Fa-rectification, did we really look at it from the Fa
principles or was our selfish mentality of wanting it to quickly end and our
emotions at play? Many ordinary people look at the greater social climate before they make a
decision on something they are concerned about. They take things that they can
see as the criterion, and base their estimation on that. Are there many Dafa
practitioners who estimate the finish time by observing political and other
events in the ordinary society? Is it true that they have not yet eliminated the
attachment to time and to the completion of the Fa- rectification? We are the lead actors in this great play in the human world. However, many
practitioners are not clear on Fa-rectification and the principles of Fa-rectification
cultivation. They used to sincerely hope that clear-minded ordinary people would
step forward and "bring us justice," "restore our
reputation" [This is different from what we are doing on the surface
during truth-clarification]. Their minds rely heavily on ordinary people and
other people, yet they are not aware of it themselves, and the result is that
their omissions are taken advantage of by the old forces and the persecution is
escalated. Master has told us about the premier of China, the sixteenth Party
congress, and later the worsening results at the Geneva human rights conference,
all of which happened as a result of our attachments. A series of losses to
saving people took place because of shortcomings in our cultivation. The fact
that they continuously take place shows that we are far from having cultivated
well in this aspect, and we have not paid enough attention to it. When we first
start planning something, oftentimes our intention is good, but we become more
and more attached as we dig deeper into it, and in the end we forget about our
true goal. Obviously, we should not make the same mistakes again and again, and
that would mean that we don't study the Fa well enough. Other than relying on people in power, governments, organizations,
technology, and scholars in the ordinary society, Dafa material sites and other
Dafa practitioners, is our habit of being attached to doing things still very
strong? When difficulties and even interference come up, we often concentrate
our effort on the quantity and technical details, and on changing others and
external factors. Sometimes, even our goal in exchanging experiences with fellow
practitioners and in clarifying the truth is to change the other person, so that
our work at hand will progress as smoothly as we had planned. Therefore, we
often grow anxious and emphasize whether the work was done according to our plan
or our hope, and in the process we are not willing to calm down, look inward and
find the root cause to the problem in our heart from the perspective of
cultivation. At the same time, it is also easy for us to be near-sighted and
forget about the whole picture and the role of parts in a whole, and we forget
about other elements that take advantage of our gaps and interfere with us in
other dimensions. Master pointed out in "Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the
Metropolitan New York Fa Conference", "For a long time now some students just haven't gotten rid of their
fundamental attachments! And as things have piled up, at the end they aren't
able to overcome them and their tribulations get big. When problems occur,
instead of searching for problems in their xinxing, fundamentally
improving themselves, or truly letting go of the matter and coming through in
an open and dignified manner by another route, they focus on the thing at hand--"Goodness...
why is it that I still can't overcome this thing? I've done better today, so
it should have improved a little. Tomorrow I'll do even better and it should
improve some more." He can never let go of that thing. On the surface it
appears that he's letting it go--"Look, I'm doing well now." You're
doing well now but you are doing well now for its sake. You aren't
doing that for the purpose of doing what a true Dafa disciple should do!" The twists and turns that have happened during the lawsuit against Jiang in
the U.S. and Belgium are in fact great opportunities for Fa-rectification
disciples, no matter how the behind-the-scenes helpers of the old forces plan to
obstruct and "test" us in a destructive manner. If Dafa practitioners
can treat it with righteous thoughts, truly improve our understandings on the Fa,
improve our xinxing through looking inward, look at the lawsuit against
Jiang and the trial from the point of validating Dafa and saving people, the
whole situation would change in a fundamental way. To be more clear, if our
cultivation state is good, our understanding of the truth is clear, and we have
clarified all of the truth that we should clarify, the lawsuit against Jiang
would naturally take a turn for good, and maybe the technical demands would not
be so strict. This is different from any ordinary person's case. Jiang has
persecuted so many Dafa practitioners and ordinary people, he absolutely cannot
escape the trial by history and by people. It is only a matter of time. The
lawsuit against Jiang and the trial both exist for the purpose of enabling
people to learn the truth. With the lawsuit, it is very convenient for us to
clarify the truth; if this formality did not exist, we would still need to
clarify the truth. Taking a step backward, this doesn't mean giving up our pure initial goal or
our sacred mission to save people, it means to jump outside of the specific work
and conflicts, return to the Fa and calmly understand the whole picture, the
whole body, what the relationship is between parts and the whole body, and what
we can do to ensure the purity and righteousness of our starting point. Posting date: 11/1/2003 |