Accepting Criticism

Recently many practitioners have seen me as overbearing and controlling when I deal with other practitioners. I speak in a dominating way. Even if my point is good or if the enlightenment may be strong, I make it hard for people to listen to me by not considering them and being too focused on my own point of view. Another practitioner said that oftentimes I have a good idea, but nobody will follow. The idea will then be presented by someone else, and people will work together well and get it done.

This kind of behavior undermined the very thing I was trying to achieve. Recently local western practitioners in my area have been trying to improve our western environment and when I would share my understanding or try to initiate or motivate practitioners in a certain direction, I would often end up offending them. I believe that this was because I would speak with too much emotion and treat my understanding as something very important. I felt things were urgent or important and I would push that sentiment on others and then they would just get offended and turn away from the group environment all together. This in effect undermined my original intention of helping to improve the original group environment. Master said that we shouldn't treat ourselves as someone above other practitioners. When I can really do that, I feel like they are my fellow practitioners, not a group of people who should follow me. Then I can see Dafa harmonizing our environment and it is much more powerful.

I used to think that the practitioners who would leave were practitioners who couldn't keep up with the current of Fa Rectification and that that was their issue. "Some will make and some won't" was my attitude. Then recently a practitioner who had left in the past came back to our group and told us why she left and why she came back. She was talking as if she was making general criticism about many practitioners yet she was looking directly at me the entire time.

On the surface I was thinking that I am serving Dafa and my fellow practitioners but really I am trying to satisfy my understanding of Dafa. Although it didn't seem to me that I was trying to satisfy my human interest, I see that although my understanding was that of a cultivator I was still pursuing with a human heart. I am impassioned about my own understanding, and treating Dafa and the Fa-Rectification with sentimentality.

I was attached to my own things. I was even in my own mind weeding out practitioners who didn't meet the requirement. My conduct was that of a being of the old forces

Recently I had a great breakthrough in my cultivation. I could see many shortcomings and a few fundamental gaps and deviations in my cultivation. They seemed quite big when I enlightened to them and I could see my past cultivation over a certain period of time. It was quite difficult to bear seeing many shortcomings and also seeing the problems that my shortcomings had caused. It was stirring in my heart and I was like a boiling pot of anger. I was trying not to take it out on my mother and just send righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil anger inside. This did work and helped me to calm down.

After leaving my home to run some errands, I was driving on my own and then began unintentionally reflecting. I kept seeing my shortcomings and the problems I had created from a different perspective, and my heart kept breaking time and again. I knew that I was just breaking through another level and it was natural to feel that way. As we progress we will look back and see our past imperfections. But this did not ease that much of the pain because this time the majority of the pain was out of deep regret of letting the old forces use my attachments to interfere with Teacher's Fa-rectification.

I was only looking at a certain segment of my cultivation. I saw it as a certain "cycle" of my cultivation. I call it a cycle as it is something I feel that I have gone through many times. The cycle refers to a process of my cultivation state that goes through time and again. For example: My emotions, notions and desires would be strong and filthy in the beginning of the cycle then they would gradually go from filthy, to dirty, to not so dirty, then clean, then light and lighter and then they would be gone. At the end of each cycle, I always break through with some enlightenment in my cultivation. Then I would wake up the next morning or after a nap and feel as though I was back at the beginning of my cycle and starting all over again.

While I was driving my car my broken heart turned back to boiling anger as I began to see many of my past cycles all at once as if I was just looking at my palm. It was all very clear and frustrating as I could see the many times the old forces had used any and all of my shortcomings at any point of my process to interfere. This was not only heart-breaking, making me cry, but I became very angry and began punching my car steering wheel to alleviate the pain and frustration.

I felt as though I was a pawn of the old forces. In fact I was just very emotional and going to extremes. But regardless I still felt as though this was an arrangement by the old forces. Later I calmed down and was able to see things in a more balanced way. Yet I still felt like this "cycle" was something that was beyond my control.

For the next few days I felt very discouraged as I lingered in this state.

In the past I passively accepted this cycle as my "process of my cultivating into a divine being." But I couldn't anymore.

Our human side is given to us so that we may be here and take part in the Fa-rectification and save sentient beings not so the old forces can use it at every chance to cause interference.

I have had many conversations with the old forces before but they are all almost the same. In one instance, I was with two other practitioners driving on our way to send righteous thoughts at the Chinese consulate, and we were hit from behind by another car. None of us where hurt, nor did our hearts move. The other person was hurt and we took care of him. The ambulance took away the hurt person and we had to wait for over an hour for the police. When the practitioner was finally finished all the paper work for the accident it was 6:11 pm and righteous thoughts just finished. I pointed this out to the driver and that practitioner said that's nothing. I got a 300 dollar ticket because my license expired 8 months ago.

Right away I told the old forces that they were terrible, then they replied. No we are not. Yes you are I said. She is falling short in her cultivation and we have to point it out to her. Her cultivation is responsible for countless living beings. I quickly saw this point of view and almost agreed. Then I said to them that they had interfered with three practitioners going to the Chinese consulate to eliminate evil. This is your real fear and you can't hide it. What you did was interfere with the Fa-rectification and that's wrong. They said nothing after that. So really they were trying to save some evil beings from being eliminated at the Chinese Consulate so they can continue what they want to do.

This really angered me because the old forces used the parts of practitioners that were not so good or just the human things that were simply part of this process to interfere with the Fa-rectification.

Master said, "I told them not to do this a long time ago. For any being, let alone human beings, no matter how high a being he is, as long as he's a being within the cosmos, I can rectify him during the Fa-rectification, from his fundamental nature, from the origin of his existence and from all the elements that constitute his being eliminating the impure and turning those things around." ("Teaching the Fa at the Great Lakes Fa Conference in North America")

So my current understanding of all this difficulty of mine is to be clear each time something that happens that is not good for the Fa-rectification or that tries to interfere with me or other practitioners. I must be very clear that I do not accept any of it. I acknowledge this principle as unwavering and true, then I tell the old forces directly.

Furthermore, not accepting their interference or not accepting their arrangements wasn't good enough. Master said: "Did you know that I don't recognize at all this evil test that the old forces arranged?" ("Suggestion")

When I was originally preparing this sharing I stopped typing, closed my eyes and told the old forces that I don't even recognize them at all, and in an instant I found myself sitting in nothingness. I was a little scared. What was there for me to believe in? After a little discomfort I thought of Master and became more scared. Quickly I told Master that I completely believed in him and nothing else. At this point I felt gong rush through my body, the dimension of nothingness filled with shining gong and I saw a Chinese character shining in my Tianmu. I quickly wrote it down as I didn't know what it meant.

Later some practitioners told me it meant life and birth (Sheng). Later I realized that this was a new beginning for me.

To realize that I need to have faith in Master may not sound like realization worthy of a 4 year practitioner during the final stage of the Fa-rectification. After not recognizing the old forces at all I found myself floating in nothingness and I was a little scared because I honestly didn't know what to believe in at first. After searching myself I saw why.

My faith has never been so pure. When I first read the Fa and watched Master's nine-day lecture it just made perfect sense to me. I didn't need to believe. I always told people that even if I don't believe it, it is still the Law of the universe. Even if I don't believe it, it is the truth. Master is in this world, his book is in my hands and it makes complete sense.

After Master lectured on the Fa I would just follow the principle and see its power. If I didn't understand I would just wait until I did. Once I was sitting in this dimension of nothingness and I didn't have anything, I saw that I had a hesitation of believing in Master without any thought. But once I overcame it I was renewed.

It seemed that fundamentally I had faith in myself to harmonize myself with Dafa. Yet even with all my effort and much more it still was not enough. I see this most clearly as I was floating in nothingness. Even though I could do the right thing, it was still just me. It was just me, all by myself, with nothing. Yet with complete faith in Master I was reborn as a new being in the new universe, and I felt like I had everything.