(Clearwisdom.net) The police took away practitioners Wu Lin and Yao Xiaoan on the night of December 25, 2004. They had just finished shopping and had returned to Macheng. Shortly after that, practitioner Li Chunmei's computer, containing information pertaining to Falun Dafa activities, was broken into. The next day, early in the morning, the police broke into six more databases of other Falun Gong practitioners in Macheng, and stole all their computers and printing equipment, Falun Gong materials, and some money. Fourteen practitioners were apprehended and the total cash lost was over 200,000 yuan. On the 27th of December, except for a few practitioners who were tried in Macheng, the practitioners were expelled to other places. These arrests and confiscations of materials greatly compromised the information Falun Dafa practitioners were using in their activities in Macheng, causing great losses.

We should learn from this painful lesson. Every practitioner in Macheng is responsible. We should look inward for the reasons based on Teacher's Fa.

Based on what I saw, I believe the following are the main reasons for the arrests and troubles:

1. The information bases were too big and too concentrated in one area, while communication was unorganized. Clearwisdom Net had constantly stressed that we should build smaller scale information bases and spread them out to different locations. Our large information base should be a streamlined communication system in which it is absolutely prohibited to share the sources of information. This is not the same as preventing practitioners from sharing with each other. However, in Macheng, the communication between practitioners was sloppy, and even the last person in line could identify the person higher up the chain who had asked for the information. No one cared about this serious security breach, and some even thought it was a good thing because they bragged, "Practitioners in Macheng are not scared." This was actually the manifestation of human notions and the attachment of showing off. These practitioners did not acknowledge how serious cultivation is during Fa-rectification, and were not being responsible to the Fa and other practitioners.

2. Many practitioners arrested at this time were considered doing very well in their practice by other Macheng practitioners. We need to think twice about the term "outstanding practitioners." Teacher said:

"Let me tell all of you that you absolutely must not do that and absolutely must not think that way. Cultivators can't take other human beings as their role models. They must take the Fa as the teacher! (Applause) As soon as you start doing things [like I described] and thinking in that way, two problems will surface. One is that you will likely push that student to a place where there is no way out for him. And it's likely the old forces will lead him to have problems and even make him leave us early in order to test other students. [They'll think,] "You're all looking to him. With things like this, are you still going to study, and are you still going to cultivate?" Under circumstances like this, there are really some students who think, "If even he couldn't make it, will I be able to?" They waver. Isn't that the old forces taking advantage of gaps? [In that situation] even I, your master, can't say anything! The old forces say, "Take a look. See how that test ended up? What we did was right, wasn't it?" So when the righteous thoughts are not strong, people's minds waver. You absolutely must be on guard against that! You should take the Fa as the teacher. You can't look at how well a certain individual has cultivated and as a result learn from that person instead of the Fa.." " Teaching the Fa at the 2004 International Fa Conference in New York (Questions & Answers Section, Part I)")

3. Many practitioners preferred to wait, ask, and depend on others to get information rather than building a small information base in their own homes, which they were capable of doing. They thought it was too dangerous to have their own information base. This was the attachment of "self" taking effect. This resulted in other practitioners who run information bases having too much information. Further, this approach could not guarantee regular Fa-studying, exercising and sending of righteous thoughts.

4. Most of the practitioners working on the information bases often thought that the more things they did, the more mighty virtue they gained. So these practitioners would rather be busy and exhausted from working than assign the work to others, thinking that other practitioners were not reliable. They even took over work from outside of the county instead of helping other counties to establish their own local information bases. Helping the other counties would also have meant improving as one body.

5. The Clearwisdom website repeatedly stressed that there shouldn't be any cash saved in the locations of the large information bases. It is better to spend the money and go get more when needed than putting all the cash in one place. Practitioners from Macheng made this mistake and caused the loss of more than 200 thousand yuan. This was money accumulated bit by bit by all practitioners to save sentient beings.

6. Truth-clarifying materials were severely wasted. Many practitioners gave out materials like it was to accomplish a task. They thought giving out more materials meant standing up for Dafa and totally ignored efficiency. For example, one person was given 8 CDs and never watched them. This created an illusion and extra pressure for the practitioners who were making materials. They thought there was a shortage of materials and thus, they put in more time and effort to make materials.

7. Some practitioners were careless, irrational, and did not pay close attention to security issues. They said that there had not been any problem since the information base was established three years ago. Plus Teacher said the evils were becoming less, and so many people started to ignore the security issue. They frequently visited the information base, spoke in loud voices, and did not pay attention to safety at all. When other practitioners pointed out the problem, these practitioners became upset and accused others of being fearful and of not having reached as high a level as they had.

8. Most people didn't look inward. They did not judge others by their xinxing level, but instead on how much and how well they did the Dafa work. Teacher repeatedly stressed that,

"You must be a Dafa disciple doing Dafa work..." ("Teaching the Fa at the Washington, D.C. International Fa Conference").

We should not ignore individual practice and advancement; however, many people did not pay attention to this, and instead focused on the work itself, ignoring the sacred and magnificent meaning of why we do "the three things".

The above lists my own analysis and conclusions on why this incident happened. I might not have considered everything. If we look at what is actually going on behind these obvious reasons, we might be able to see that many people held all kinds of human notions when doing Dafa work. These notions include showing off, zealotry, and the pursuit of one's personal mighty virtue. It all comes down to being selfish, treating Fa-rectification practice with human notions, being irresponsible to other practitioners and Dafa, and not clearly acknowledging the basics and seriousness of Fa-rectification cultivation. When the loopholes of the whole group reached a certain size, the evils would have the opportunity to sneak in and caused great damage and losses.

In the process of clarifying the truth, some people always used their own views to judge others. These people thought their methods were good and must be applied in order to have a better outcome. Hence, these people think there are some gaps and inward struggles within the practitioners. I think that this idea is a rather extreme way to view it. Every practitioner has a different character and ability, so everyone might have a different way to deal with the same problem. As long as the method is based on the Fa and can have the effect of validating the Fa, there is no need to argue because all the methods can accomplish and harmonize each other. The key is how we improve based on the Fa and to totally give up the self to form a harmonious invincible body.

We should all wake up after this painful lesson and stop being attached to ourselves. Let's give up human notions and rectify our every single thought, word and action and melt into the Fa! When we all can view ourselves as particles of the Fa and form an unbreakable body, the evil will not have any place to sneak in, and will soon disappear.

The above is my own understanding based on my level. Please kindly point out anything that is incorrect.

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Notes: After the arrest on December 25, the police are still using despicable means to arrest and persecute other practitioners involved. To date, at least 18 practitioners have been arrested and many others have lost their homes and have nowhere to go. Every local police station was ordered to participate in this persecution. We have listed here all the people who participated and all the phone numbers of the local police stations. We ask all Dafa practitioners to send out strong righteous thoughts to suppress and clear away the evil and help all the imprisoned practitioners be released without charges!

Zhu Buoru, Director of the Hubei Macheng City Police Department: 86-713-8920518 (Home), 86-13607250338 (Cell)

Huang Shaokui, Assistant Director of the Hubei Macheng City Police Department: 86-713-8922882 (Home), 86-13100746528 (Cell)

Lo Zisheng, Director of the Macheng City 610 Office: 86-713-2951252 (Home)

Macheng City Longchiqiao Police Station: 86-713-2912509
Macheng City Nanhu Police Station: 86-713-2912992
Macheng City Gulou Police Station: 86-713-2912410|Macheng City Baiguo Police Station: 86-713-2625210, 86-713-262542
Macheng City Songbu Police Station: 86-713-2062324, 86-713-2062344
Macheng City Yanhe Police Station: 86-713-2981248
Macheng City Prison: 86-713-2955173