(Clearwisdom.net) The evil has been persecuting Dafa and Dafa disciples for almost eleven years. Throughout the eleven years of resisting the persecution, Dafa practitioners have effectively restrained the evil by clarifying the truth to people and exposing the persecution using peaceful, rational means. This keeps those who work for the wicked Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from committing more crimes against Dafa and Dafa practitioners, thus preventing them from damaging themselves further and giving them a chance to survive for the future. It also enables the sentient beings to see through the persecution to distinguish good from evil, allowing them to be saved.
As such, practitioners should step up to counter the persecution, and expose the crimes committed by the CCP. This is something we should not avoid along our cultivation journey of assisting Master.
However, there are still huge gaps in exposing the evil in certain areas. Many practitioners don't wish to or dare not participate in exposing the persecution. They regard the issue with dread. Consequently the persecution in those areas hasn't been diminished a bit. When the practitioners in an area fail to maintain a good cultivation state, the evil runs rampant. The result is often more persecution in those areas and fewer opportunities for sentient beings to be saved. It holds back Master's Fa rectification process.
Master has asked us to expose the evil and told us about the importance of doing so in many of his lectures after the persecution began on July 20, 1999. In other words, exposing the old forces has been included into the Fa principles.
The persecution arranged by the old forces is an affront to Master and the Fa rectification. It imposes degenerated things from other dimensions of the cosmos into ours and therefore must be eradicated. If a practitioner who is persecuted doesn't expose the evil, how could his deeds be viewed as assisting in Master's Fa-rectification? How could his thoughts be assimilated to the Fa? How could he be responsible for all the righteous lives and elements existing in the universe? Being fearful of exposing the evil is in fact protecting the evil and all the degenerated elements in the universe.
If practitioners within or outside of China don't expose the persecution, what will be left to restrain the evildoers? How could the righteous forces in this world take effect? How could the sentient beings see through the persecution to distinguish good from evil, to wake up from the lies and to be saved? With no one exposing it, when will this persecution be ended? If a practitioner encounters persecution, it means he hasn't eliminated all of his attachments and human notions, which has allowed the old forces to take advantage of the loopholes. Not only does the persecution inflict losses to group and individual cultivation, but it creates hardship in saving sentient beings as well. Exposing the persecution to the public makes up for the losses and transforms what's bad into good. So why not do it? Some practitioners fail to differentiate good from bad. They think exposing the evil is for the good of others. In fact it is for our own good.
Despite many excuses some practitioners may come up with, the fundamental cause of not exposing the persecution is the fear of being persecuted again, or of losing something. It is deeply rooted in selfishness, which in fact protects and nourishes the evil. Some police officers are driven by their greed to persecute Falun Gong practitioners. Although they know Dafa practitioners are good people, the more they persecute them, the more "rewards" they get. If no one dares to step up and expose the evil, those wicked people will become ever greedier and escalate the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. Our area is such an example. Each time a practitioner is arrested, the police use forced labor camps as a threat to extort at least 10,000 yuan from the family. One time they arrested a practitioner from whose house they failed find any Dafa related materials. Nonetheless, they demanded that the family pay them money in exchange for the practitioner. The family was unable to do so, so they sent the practitioner to a forced labor camp.
Master's Fa-rectification will soon come to an end. How can we meet the standards of Dafa disciples if we are still afraid of this and that, and even afraid of exposing the persecution? Some practitioners may have done well in this at a surface level, yet when a critical situation appears, the first thing they think of is protecting themselves instead of Dafa and fellow practitioners.
Master emphasized through his comments ("Master's Comment on a Student's Article" November 2003),
"I hope all Dafa disciples and new students in Mainland China will do this well."
What Master requires of us directly affects our cultivation improvement and the building of our mighty virtue to reach Consummation. Master has left us the best of everything in the universe. My fellow practitioners, if we firmly believe in Master and the Fa, let us do what Master requires of us without any reservation.
