(Clearwisdom.net) A few days ago when I went to a town to gather facts on the ongoing persecution there, an elderly practitioner recounted the brutal torture she suffered during her detention in 2007. Several prison guards stripped off her clothes and shocked her continuously with more than ten electric batons over the course of three days. As a result, she lost consciousness on numerous occasions. Moreover, the guards forced toothpicks under her fingernails and toenails. Afterwards, all her nails fell off.

After listening to the practitioner's stories, the guards' atrocities infuriated me and I couldn't help but develop hatred towards them. All I thought about was how to expose the guards' crimes so as to help accelerate their due karmic retribution. After I returned home, the following passage from Master's Fa suddenly flashed in my mind during the sitting meditation:

"Disciple: We would like to tell the federal government that for a long time now these violent thugs have targeted us, tried to provoke us, and threatened us for our faith.

Master: It's not just an issue of faith. It is that the wicked CCP is behind these things. Actually, people know already even without your telling them--even the police know it. I've been thinking about something, though. Our students who are in Flushing, the ones on the front lines, have a good starting point--to stand up to the evil. That is really good, and I do affirm that. But, do you perhaps rush into things a bit? Calmly think things over, and broaden your mind a little. If you can really regard everyone as a sentient being that we want to save, and then you try to save them, see if things change. It's definitely no coincidence that the evil emerged in Flushing and has made people do bad things. It must have come about to target our students' omissions. Don't blindly go battling against their human sides. Your goal is not to defeat them, but to save them. Do things with compassion and a calm mind, and then see how it goes."

("Fa Teaching at the 2009 Greater New York International Fa Conference")

I realized that I still lacked compassion and my capacity was too limited. I didn't treat those guards as beings to be saved (the few extremely bad people are exceptions to this type of treatment). The purpose of the evil using them to persecute Dafa disciples was to have them commit crimes against Dafa and Dafa disciples, thus, eventually have them destroyed. From this perspective, those guards themselves were also being persecuted. After I changed my attitude towards the guards, I added one thought during my sending forth righteous thoughts to eliminate all evil factors that were controlling the guards to do bad things. I felt my whole field was becoming more peaceful, filled with the energy of compassion.

Then, I pondered on a related matter: why did the persecution get even more rampant in places where local practitioners had put in great effort in exposing the evil? I figured that it was a lack of compassion on the part of local practitioners which may have caused this. If Dafa disciples still hold a combative mentality and hatred, they not only cannot disintegrate the evil, but also allow the old forces an excuse to intensify the persecution. As a result, many beings can't be saved, and time and again they have to struggle with the arrangement of being manipulated by the evil to do bad things. Master said,

"Compassion is an enormous energy, the energy of righteous gods. The more compassion that is present, the greater this energy becomes, and it can disintegrate anything that is bad." ("Fa Teaching at the 2009 Washington DC International Fa Conference")

I thank Master for this hint! Please point out anything that is inappropriate.