(Clearwisdom.net)

Master said ,

"My overall impression is that most Dafa disciples have matured; the way in which they are cultivating has matured; the understanding cultivators have of cultivation has matured; and the rational behavior that comes from a progressive decrease in human thoughts has, likewise, matured. When all Dafa disciples are like this, the evil will be completely eliminated and Gods and Buddhas will grandly manifest." ("Mature")

Master's Fa has deeper meanings at higher levels. At the time I did not understand it deeply. I only understood at the surface level that Master was encouraging us and pointing out the path for us. At the same time, I personally knew that we must mature in our cultivation; we must be mature in our understanding of cultivation; and we must be rational and mature in our ways of doing things for Dafa. Then, just from the surface of these words, how could we achieve maturity? For starters, we can be more diligent in eliminating human notions and attachments by recognizing what is the true self and what is not the true self; automatically searching within, and doing the three things well. This would help us to achieve a higher grade of maturity in Dafa cultivation .

Later in many of Master's Fa teachings, he mentioned that Dafa disciples had gained maturity. When Master published "Stirred by Reflection" on June 29 2010, I finally realized the deeper Fa meaning of "maturity" and understood its importance.

It also showed me the importance of believing in Master and the Fa even when we have yet to enlighten to the deeper meanings. When Master said that Dafa disciples had gained maturity, then that is the case. Dafa disciples no longer are at everyday human levels. If we did not do well in something, then we would just make it better. If we did something well, then we have validated that level of "maturity" and validated the Fa as stated by Master. The path that every Dafa disciple takes will mature them and help them assist Master in Fa rectification and saving sentient beings.

How I became more mature in the cultivation process of doing well in the three things:

I. Studying the Fa A Lot to Cleanse Notions

In January 2007, I ended my fortnightly traveling to the north and managed to establish an informational materials production site in my home.

At the beginning of the year, fellow practitioners A and B and I studied together and looked for a way to get on the Internet. However, as they had not yet mastered the skill, they were getting very anxious. At the time I did not remind them to study the Fa more, and instead, I spent more time on trying to not hurt their feelings. They practiced the steps of getting online day and night, but they still just could not remember them. At that time I did not want to bother the technical practitioners again, because I knew clearly that they were very busy. But I also did not want my fellow practitioners A and B to be anxious and feeling bad. Facing their issues, I patiently taught them again and again every day. Within three months, just as they were able to master the skills, fellow practitioner B was arrested by the local police station and was unlawfully sentenced to two years in prison. The Fa-study site and material production site came to a grinding halt.

I was awakened by these series of incidents. I regretted that I did not remind both practitioners to study the Fa more and improve their xinxing based on the Fa. I regretted that I felt so introverted. Because I was a new practitioner it was really my cultivation state of being too submissive and over-humble that nourished my fellow practitioners' cultivation state into something dangerous. Over those days I calmed down to study the Fa more, and searched within to cultivate myself. At the same time of trying to rescue fellow practitioners and submitting the persecution facts online, I told myself in my heart, "From now on, I will not say that I am a new practitioner again; I must mature soon. I'll only listen to Master's words and fulfill what Master wants."

The next day I had a phone call from practitioner A and was told that practitioner B had been arrested. The next day I discussed with fellow practitioners about rescuing him. From the surface it looked like a relative of another practitioner reported B. After practitioner B was arrested, when practitioner C went to practitioner A's family, he said that practitioner B was arrested because he had human sentimentality toward practitioner A, which was a gap in his cultivation that led to his arrest. This caused many human notions in our group to surface and within that period of time, some negative things were formed and became pretty strong. How could we rescue fellow practitioners in this kind of cultivation state? One could clearly see the bad results of sending forth-righteous thoughts in that state.

At the time I did not know where any of my fellow practitioners' homes were, but under Master's guidance I was able to find the practitioner's home to join the discussion. I asked Master to help me and it was truly miraculous that I was able to find the house. I pointed out that when a fellow practitioner is arrested, it is most important to form one body, discuss the rescue, send forth righteous thoughts, and search within. When I said these fundamental principles, practitioner A got angry. She thought that I was trying to protect practitioner C from being blamed by the other practitioners. Another practitioner also said, "Is she just the same as practitioner C?" In that situation I tried hard to talk to everyone, but I could not get our conversation back on the Fa.

One month later, practitioner B was sentenced to two years in prison, and practitioner C was also arrested. What should we do? I began to search within, and I found that because I had been helping fellow practitioners to get on the Internet, I was not able to study the Fa as much as before. Without the support of Fa principles, my suggestions were very weak in front of fellow practitioners. Although what I said was right, without the Fa's power, they were not as microcosmic as fellow practitioners' fields and could not give a righteous effect.

I also found many attachments, like wanting to rely on others, anxiety, and trying to rescue fellow practitioners with human ways. In other words, what I had was still human sentimentality toward fellow practitioners. When I found these attachments, I was shocked. I realized why Master told us that nothing is coincidental, and that we must search within no matter what we see or hear. I also realized that compassion is eternal, and human sentimentality is something that is the least reliable.

After fellow practitioners were sentenced to jail, I stopped relying on others. I sent out persecution reports in time to uncover the persecution facts and expose the evil. From that day on, I insisted on studying the Fa more and to use the Fa to cleanse all my human notions; I insisted on sending forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil beings and factors that would dare to persecute Dafa practitioners. When it was time to study the Fa, I would call fellow practitioners to study the Fa together.

Practitioner B's wife is also a practitioner but sadly not very diligent. After her husband was arrested, she almost stopped studying the Fa. Whenever she goes to see her husband in prison, she stays at my place. At first she came to my home with a closed mind. She would always say, "You all are from the same Fa study group and distribute flyers together. How come none of you were arrested? Why was only my husband arrested?" I was not moved when she said these things. I treated her very nicely. With her negative thoughts she still came to my home quite often. She never paid for the cost of transportation and she wanted me to go with her wherever she went. I treated her with a friendly and compassionate mind and tried to understand her suffering. I shared with her and hoped to resolve the hatred in her heart. Even when my mom was sick and needed my care day and night, I still treated her the same when she came to my home. After a year and a half, she said to me, "Others all say that you are literate and very able, but I think you are the most foolish ever." From her eyes, I saw a sincere look of being concerned. I told her, "We are practitioners who follow the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. This means that we need to be the kindest people and have to think of others before anything we do."

Once we were told that we could go visit the detained practitioners in jail. Another practitioner and I went, together with practitioner B's wife. But when we got there, the police said that we could not visit because practitioner A would not give up his faith. I said in my heart, "What you say does not make sense. Since we are already here, we must see him." I stood in the lobby and sent forth-strong righteous thoughts to disintegrate all the evil beings and factors that persecute Dafa disciples; all the Dafa disciples who are illegally detained must be released unconditionally. I cannot describe in words the feeling I experienced at the time. It was incredible and I felt Master's help deeply and his enormous compassion. While we were waiting to see the practitioner, we told the police about the persecution. The police captain suddenly asked me, "Do you also practice Falun Gong?" I stared into his eyes and sent out righteous thoughts. He immediately turned around and changed the subject as if he'd forgotten what he said. Although that time we did not see the practitioner, I believe that everything was an opportunity for me to improve.

II. Saving Sentient Beings on Horseback; Eliminating the Evil With Just One Wave of the Hand

Since I began practicing cultivation, I often dreamed of warriors riding horses galloping on snow and ice. The warriors looked majestic, solemn, and unstoppable. I realized that Master was hinting at me to be more diligent.

In April 2007, my older sister, niece, and mother all learned the Fa one after another. I felt happy and at the same time, felt the responsibility to help them. My sister had practiced a folk cultivation for 17 years and she thought she already achieved something. After she obtained the Fa, she realized that it was nothing compared to Dafa. But the compassionate Master straightened out all these matters "by preserving the good part and removing the bad part" (Zhuan Falun). Since my sister was not required to cultivate her xinxing in the folk cultivation practice, her xinxing level was not any different from an everyday person. After she obtained the Fa, she was severely interfered with by external forces.

At the beginning of last year, I returned from my hometown and established a Fa-study group with local practitioners. My sister joined the Fa-study group. When she read the Fa, she would make a couple of mistakes in every sentence she read. We were very patient and kindly corrected her. It took a year and half until she could finally read Zhuan Falun smoothly. Also, since she is the oldest child in my family, she has formed a bitter and suspicious personality and always wanted to be in control of everything. For example, every day she would want to know who I had talked with, which practitioners I had seen, and what I had done, etc. She would then comment on everything based on her everyday standard instead of the Fa's standard.

With fellow practitioners as well as in society, I could feel what Master described in "Tempering the Will" of Hong Yin, "Each and every barrier must be broken through,
and everywhere does evil lurk." I understand that everything I encounter is good and an opportunity given by Master for me to improve. But somehow in my home I did not know how to cultivate. I did know to search within, forbear, and I even knelt in front of her in severe conflicts; but I forgot to send forth-righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil factors and beings that were taking control of her and interfering with me. Thus this situation lasted a long time.

Master said ,

"For a long period of time the sentient beings in Dafa, especially the disciples, have had a misunderstanding of the Fa at various levels regarding xinxing improvement. Whenever a tribulation comes, you do not see it with the side of your original nature but view it completely with your human side. Evil demons then capitalize on this point and inflict endless interference and damage, leaving students in long-term tribulations. As a matter of fact, this results from an inadequate understanding of the Fa by your human side. You have humanly restrained your divine side; in other words, you have restrained the parts that have been successfully cultivated and have prevented them from doing Fa-rectification."(Expounding on the Fa" of Essentials for Further Advancement)

Master's Fa suddenly awakened me. I did not want to stay immersed in human sentimentality anymore. After I realized this, I insisted on sending forth-righteous thoughts to clear the interfering factors and soon I was able to get back to the normal state of a practitioner.

When my sister and niece began to learn the Fa, I felt how precious a being becomes after obtaining the Fa. I am a veteran practitioner compared to them. I knew that I had to act righteously and if I was able to do it, then everything around me would change. This way, fellow practitioners as well as new practitioners around me would be able to feel the enormous compassion of Master and the sacredness of Dafa. They would then be firmer in their belief in Master and Dafa. In other words, all of our words and state of being are to validate the Fa.

Now, I no longer stop practitioners from independently walking their own path of truth-clarification. Instead, I treat them as a part of a whole, and as a particle of Dafa. No matter whether we are producing the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, other materials, distributing Dafa materials, or clarifying the truth face to face, we are always one body. No matter if it is far or near, or however much time it takes, or how difficult the condition is, they have never fallen behind. Wherever we go, we try to save sentient beings, and magical things have happened to us many times. We stay close behind Master, while fulfilling our responsibility of saving people. We also remind and help each other, and this way we are able to walk on the path until this day. Now my sister sends forth-righteous thoughts almost every hour. She knows that I am busy doing other projects, and she has taken the responsibility alone of distributing Dafa materials in many residential areas.

In the local region I was able to open up the situation for clarifying the truth and saving sentient beings, and establish a loose environment for diligent cultivation. But the fellow practitioners' situation in my hometown continued to remind me that there were places that I was not doing so well. By coincidence, I had a chance to get in touch with another practitioner in my hometown. We shared based on the Fa and our understandings both improved on the responsibility and missions of Dafa disciples. I asked for help from Master and eventually we were able to set up a home-based material production site. Now in my hometown there are 3 or 4 more material production sites.

One day after I sent forth-righteous thoughts, I was half asleep and saw a handsome youth. He was wearing traditional clothing and he jumped onto a maroon horse. I knew that was me. In this great battle between good and evil, I will assist Master in Fa rectification, complete the things that I should do as a Dafa disciple, disintegrate all the evil things, and save all the predestined sentient beings.

III Getting rid of human notions and forming one body, cultivating the universe under the direction of Master

Last March, I attended a small experience sharing conference that fellow practitioners from other areas organized. After the conference I realized that Fa-rectification had moved forward a step further. After helping former practitioners return to the path of cultivation, we formed a Fa study group and cultivated as one body. To save sentient beings with greater efforts is our prehistoric vow and responsibility, and it is essential. Four or five fellow practitioners that attended the Fa-study group felt the huge responsibility and mission. We decided to form a local coordination group so that we could help more former practitioners cultivate in Dafa again and join the effort of assisting Master in Fa-rectification and saving sentient beings, improve as one body and facilitate what Master wants.

Since these fellow practitioners were doing the three things required by Master in their cultivation environment respectively, a sudden role switch caused a change in the environment and external conditions, which became an opportunity for xinxing improvement and a challenge for each of us. The process demonstrated the extent that we believed in Master and the Fa, and also exposed the battles between Buddha nature and demon nature. During the process of xinxing improvement, Master protected us as we faced the tribulations imposed on us by the old forces. We always held on to one thought: we'd follow Master's teaching and the path arranged by Master. We encouraged each other by understanding there wasn't a "no" in our cultivation path. We did not have the thought that one practitioner was better or higher than another. We were all from different starting points; levels, states or environments and we held hands and walked on the cultivation path to assist Master in Fa-rectification and saving the sentient beings. We harmonized as one body unconditionally.

Despite our good wish, we cultivated step by step. We had different understandings of Master's Fa at our respective levels, and if we regarded these different understandings as requirements on others, then we were limiting our thoughts and could not go forward. During the conflicts caused by these limitations, we often thought we were right and others were wrong, we might even get attached to others' attachments and the old forces might take advantage of the loophole. We decided to have a weekly Fa-study and experience sharing, just for five or six of us. We were anxious and fellow practitioners in the neighboring area also worried about us. We felt confused and wondered: "Did we do the right thing? Can we do the three things well with this state of cultivation?"

Since last March I started to write articles on experience sharing. To avoid embarrassment and separation caused by pointing out the attachments of others face to face, I tried to give them a hint on the Minghui website to help them to wake up from the communist party's ideology of struggle, communist language, labeling people, and nit-picking faults with everyone else but oneself.

In front of this one practitioner, no one dared to speak. If you spoke she would pick the attachment in your words. When you spoke more, she could always find more attachments in you. Some fellow practitioners and I felt it was quite unreasonable. At the beginning nobody dared to speak, and gradually some practitioners quit the group Fa-study.

What was I to do about it? After I finished the writing of experience sharing I repeatedly read it and I found that the language was too sharp. I needed to modify it, and the modification process became a cultivation process for me to look inward. I studied the Fa with a calm mind, I modified the article draft and looked within myself unconditionally. As Master told us there was nothing accidental in cultivation. Why did she nit-pick on me? Why am I so attached to what she said? I said when the coordination group was set up: "to form one body, you are stone, brick and all kinds of material, then I am mud. Whether stones are sharp or round, I will unconditionally harmonize and cooperate so that we can build an indestructible wall. " My wish seemed very good, but after closer scrutiny I found there were some human factors in it. My wish was not pure enough, I also wanted to prove myself and I was not mature in cultivation. For example, we are not stone or brick and I am not mud. We are particles of Dafa, just like Master's gong, we have the ability to save sentient beings and disintegrate the evil.

After I changed my human notion, the situation improved. In fact, if we have the desire to form one body in saving sentient beings, Master does the rest. Everything follows the automatic mechanism, every cultivation state was the natural state of one's Fa study and looking inward, and it's never forced or personal. I understand that I need to expand my capacity and never stay too long at one level. Master wants us to achieve Consummation, and we must harmonize Master's expectation and become mature.

But during our cultivation process the evil is persistent, and takes advantage of the attachments of fellow practitioners to interfere with local practitioners' cultivation. At the end of last November some fellow practitioners invited practitioners from another area to attend a long-term touring experience sharing conference. Participants varied from a dozen people to nearly thirty. The conference was held thirty to forty times in 2009. They expanded the scope of experience sharing and included fellow practitioners from other cities. Many practitioners who had not studied the Fa and some new practitioners adored a certain person, and they did not follow the Fa and learned from these practitioners. The fellow practitioners who shared their experiences also showed themselves off and validated themselves, and their egos started to grow. The series of experience sharing severely interfered with the cultivation of fellow practitioners arranged by Master, and also affected fellow practitioners' distribution of truth-clarification materials and saving sentient beings.

How could I solve this problem? Some practitioners were very anxious and we sent forth-righteous thoughts with fellow practitioners while communicating with them. In other dimensions there was a battle between good and evil, a fight with the old forces for fellow practitioners. However the practitioners who participated in the conference were very excited and they did not listen to us. With human emotions we did not solve the problem. During April of 2010 we drafted a proposal to urgently remind fellow practitioners. We discussed and edited the draft over a dozen times. We really could not touch the negative side of fellow practitioners, and after modification we published it on the Minghui website. When the editorial of Continue to Walk Well the "Great Way Without Form" was published on April 26, 2010 the problem was basically solved and our fellow practitioners returned to the cultivation path.

At the beginning of September 2010, fellow practitioners in adjacent rural areas requested help in clarifying the truth. Because the local rural area was huge with many households and most of them deeply poisoned by the evil CCP, and there were only a few local fellow practitioners, the truth-clarification was hardly done. After three of us discussed it we found the situation urgent and realized our responsibility to save these sentient beings and disintegrate the evil. It took nine days from the beginning till we could distribute the truth-clarification materials in the evenings. Fellow practitioner A organized and B coordinated and I was preparing the material and checking the site in advance. Finally I led fellow practitioners to the distribution sites. Other practitioners used their strength to quietly cooperate with the operation. When we finished distributing booklets of Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, the truth-clarification weekly and discs and stickers, it' was already midnight. When I knew that all fellow practitioners were safely home, I burst into tears.

I wrote the following message to a fellow practitioner: No matter what predestined relationship we formed when we descended through each level of the universe and reincarnated, we must improve together and remind each other so that we can fulfill the prehistoric vows and do things that Master requires and return home and reach consummation.

Some things are not necessarily perfect during the process, but as long as our thoughts are righteous and we cooperate well, the more consistent the more powerful we are in saving sentient beings, and the better results we have. I also deeply understood what a fellow practitioner told me: coordination is not job, it is cultivation. Coordination is not to cultivate others, control other people and tell them what to do; instead it's to cultivate ourselves solidly and do the right thing we are supposed to do. Coordination is to complement and harmonize when finding something inadequate or incomplete. Along the way of cultivation I realized that firmly believing in Master and Dafa is the process of becoming mature, during which it's inevitable for us to get rid of attachments, look inward and do the three things well in order to become mature.

Master's Fa-lectures are frequently published, and we study them over and over again in our group study and share our experiences. We feel more specifically our responsibility and mission as Dafa disciples during Fa-rectification. We study the Fa together, share experiences and encourage each other. We will certainly walk the cultivation path well arranged by Master and will not fail in our predestined mission.