(Clearwisdom.net) Recently, Master told us about real and fake fashen in the "Fa-Lecture During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference." I want to share my understandings with fellow practitioners after reading this lecture.
Looking back at the path of Fa-rectification we have gone through, the issue of truth and deception has always been present right from the beginning of our cultivation. The issue of enlightenment also exists throughout the process of cultivation.
When Master first began teaching the Fa, another qigong master would always hold his class nearby, because it involved the issue of which practice we would choose and of enlightenment. People who studied other qigong before have to face the problem of "no second cultivation way." This was also an issue involving enlightenment.
During Fa-rectification, the old forces arrange so-called tests for us, while in fact they want to destroy Dafa practitioners and poison people's minds. Therefore, ever since July 20, 1999, whether we can distinguish between truth and deception has become a determining factor in whether we can truly break away from the old forces' arrangements and be worthy of being "Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples." For countless sentient beings, whether they can distinguish between truth and deception determines their own future. After July 20, 1999, the evil employed all propaganda machinery to create a world wide defamation campaign against Master and Dafa, and they spread outrageous lies among the people. Discerning the truth and deception marked the beginning of people's decision in choosing their path of returning to their true selves. Our clarification of the truth has become a beacon of light, which helps people to make the distinction.
As I walked the path of Fa Rectification with Master up to this point, I deeply felt that the issue of truth and deception exists everywhere.
1.Truth and deception in appealing in Beijing
False impression and untruthful reasoning: The evil declares that appealing in Beijing affects normal government function and the image of the country and disturbs social order. How can practitioners conflict with ordinary people?
If you think this way, you are walking into the illusions set up by the evil old forces. What is the truth? If there were not any persecution against Dafa and Dafa practitioners, no practitioner would need to appeal. The truth about appealing in Beijing is to clarify the truth and validate Dafa.
False impression and untruthful reasoning: The evil wants us to believe appealing in Beijing leads to arrest. Detention centers, custody centers, jails and labor camps are good places for us to improve. We would attain a high level if we were illegally detained.
All of these were arranged by the old forces. If we acknowledge them, we would be acknowledging the old forces' arrangements, which means acknowledging the old forces.
The truth is: Master said,
"Some students suggest that the best practice of cultivation is to get placed into a detention center or a labor camp, or get sentenced to jail in order to validate the Fa. Students, it is not so. Stepping forward to validate the Fa using many different approaches is a magnificent act, but this absolutely does not mean that you have to be arrested by the evil. If that were the case, why would those students who step forward to make appeals demand the release of all those innocent students who have been arrested, detained, sent to labor camps, or sentenced to jail? Getting arrested is not the purpose. Validating Dafa is what's truly magnificent, and it is to validate Dafa that you step forward. Since you step forward, you should try to succeed in validating the Fa--this is the real purpose of stepping forward. When the evil ones ask whether you practice Falun Gong, you may ignore them or use other ways to deflect their questions. Don't voluntarily let the evil take you away" ("Rationality," Essentials for Further Advancement II).
In order to find excuses to persecute Dafa practitioners, the old forces put the notion inside practitioners' heads that you are great only if you break out of police custody. Fellow practitioners think it's their own thought and they truly think they would be great only if they break out after being arrested. This is another illusion set up by the evil. If you acknowledge it, you would be acknowledging the old forces' persecution and the evil would look for opportunities to persecute you.
"A Dafa disciple completely opposes everything arranged by the evil old forces." (Dafa is Indestructible," Essentials for Further Advancement II) Master arranged a path of Fa-rectification for us above the arrangements made by the old forces, therefore we simply do not allow or permit them to arrest us. "Humans aren't worthy of testing this Fa, and neither are Gods. Whoever touches it commits a sin." ("Teaching the Fa at the Great Lakes Fa Conference in North America," Guiding the Voyage)
2. True or false impressions relate to having a good or bad environment
When you hear the evil has launched a counterattack, you immediately become nervous, which means you are walking into the false appearance set up by the evil. If you eliminate the evil with a nervous mentality, the power of righteous thoughts is reduced. If you are always nervous, the environment may indeed tense up. Master said, "As I've said, everything that happens today in the ordinary society is the result of Dafa disciples' thoughts." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A.")
If instead of being nervous, you think, "It's hard to find them, this time they jumped out themselves. It's a great opportunity to eliminate them." Your heart remains unmoved by the false appearance created by the old forces, and you think, "I am not within it and I won't walk into the trap." With a calm and harmonious mind, you eliminate the evil with benevolence, with great power. Large amounts of evil are eliminated and the tense environment will not exist.
3. Distinguishing if the unrighteous state of your body and the unfriendly attitude people hold towards you are true or false appearances
Suddenly, you feel unwell, which makes you feel nervous, and you wonder what is going on. You may think it is karma elimination. When such a thought comes into your mind, you have already been fooled by the false appearance arranged by the old forces, and they will continue to persecute you, even to the extent that they will try to destroy you. If a practitioner notices people around him getting into trouble or his relatives suddenly having problems, and he thinks this is for improving his xinxing, he is truly deceived by the false appearances created by the old forces, and they will cause trouble after trouble, with each worse than the previous one.
When you suddenly feel unwell or when you encounter trouble around you, think, "There is no tribulation for personal cultivation any more. It must be persecution by the evil. Eliminate it straight away, at the same time look within and find out what the evil is targeting, and eliminate it." Master said, "Except for newer students, from July 20 of 1999 on, Master hasn't created any personal-cultivation type tests for you, and that's because overall your personal cultivation has changed in the direction of saving sentient beings and validating Dafa." ("Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference")
4. Distinguishing if the evil is directly persecuting a Dafa practitioner's body
There may be some deeply hidden attachments or messages from the old forces as well as human notions that are yet to be dug out, and you have not realized them and are still trapped in them. Consequently you are being persecuted by the evil and will show various kinds of unrighteous symptoms. Over time, the evil will directly possess your body and persecute you. One practitioner displayed an unrighteous state for quite some time, and one night, all of a sudden he started to say things that nobody could understand. This lasted for several dozens of minutes. Then he said, "I shall leave in ten minutes." He kept stealing glances at the clock with a dark look on his face. Ten minutes later, he was himself again and he also looked in good spirits and his health also improved a lot. When asked about what had happened, he could not remember any of this. Some practitioners, as soon as they hear about possession, deny it, saying, "It is impossible. How could Dafa practitioners be possessed?" Master said the head of the evil, "is truly a mask" ("Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference") Dafa practitioners have no difficulty understanding about the rotten demons being banished to hell and the old forces and the evil possessing human beings to continue their wrongdoings. Then we should also be able to recognize the occasional possession by the evil of Dafa practitioners who have been lacking righteous thoughts for a long time. This is also to expose the evil.
5. Distinguishing if one is truly sticking to one school of practice
Some practitioners study the Fa attentively every day, and never accept any other practice or qigong books, thinking that they are doing very well in sticking to one school of practice. However, in their spare time, they like reading certain books on how to be a decent human being or books on Buddhism, thinking that these books are beneficial for cultivating the heart, because one should try to be a good person to start with in cultivation. In fact you have already been fooled by false appearances.
Cultivation is a serious matter, and one must stick with one school only. You have already attained such a profound Fa, and yet you still think you have not found guidance to be a good human being. This only shows that you have not studied the Fa well, and you should be more diligent in Fa-study and cultivating your heart. What are the criteria for a good human being among everyday people? As far as Dafa practitioners are concerned, these criteria should not be the impure principles of the old universe, but Dafa's requirements of the human dimension.
6. Distinguishing if every single thought is true or false
Because we have fear, the evil will take advantage of this loophole to create false appearances. Some practitioners, when doing work for Fa-rectification or clarifying the truth, do not want their families to know about this and are afraid that they might bump into their family members. Once such a thought occurs, and you fail to realize that this is manipulation of the evil and it is the evil that has created such imagination, then the evil will have a loophole to take advantage of and will arrange for your family members to know about what you are doing, and you will bump into them. It will also try to control your family members in different ways to interfere with you, and to persecute both you and your family members.
However, if when fear arises, and you can see through the false appearance and eliminate the fear and worries as well as the old forces and the evil behind these messages, you will see totally different results. You yourself will have elevated and your family members will have avoided persecution. Some practitioners have certain strong attachments and have been taken advantage of and suffered direct persecution by the evil. There is a young practitioner who has a very hot temper, and for a long time he was unable to let go of his fighting mentality. As a result he was often taken advantage of by the evil. He would unknowingly look very angry, and take out his anger on whomever he came across. There was anger in what he said and yet he did not even know it himself. He often caused discord among the people around him and he would attack any one who pointed it out to him. After the evil behind his anger was eliminated, he went through an immediate change for the better, and he looked kind and his speech also became gentle and soft.
In order to improve as one body, a practitioner went to talk with another practitioner who had shown unrighteous signs. He found the field in that practitioner's home very bad and thought that he would not like to go there again. He did not realize that it was a false appearance created by the old forces to interfere with him, and consequently he indeed felt unwell. After looking inward, he found his attachment, dug it out, and his symptoms disappeared. A few hours later, the symptoms reappeared. What was going on? The attachment was found and the evil was eliminated. Why did the symptoms reappear? He continued to look inward and realized that it was the evil attempting to weaken his righteous belief, and it wanted him to doubt the effect of his earlier looking inward. Once he realized the false appearance, he erected his palm and started sending forth righteous thoughts. The symptoms immediately disappeared and they never reappeared afterwards.
7. True or false states of working and coordinating with each other
"Actually, you know, back when I taught you the Dafa, during the classes a lot of human thoughts were sent out from the audience down there? The reacting thoughts in some people were really bad, but I didn't look at any of that. I just look at your positive side so that I can save you. If I were to look at all of your negative side, how could I save you? The more I looked at it the angrier I'd get, and then how could I save you? (Applause) So in any situation, don't be affected by human-type behavior, don't be affected by human thoughts, and don't be affected by the feelings and emotions in this world, either. Look more at the positives in others and less at the bad things."
(Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference)
Whether we work on Fa-rectification or discuss with each other, there should be coordination. When other practitioners' method or enlightenment is different from yours, can you control your every single thought? Can you distinguish between true and false appearances and not let the evil take advantage [of your gaps]? Can you do as Master has taught us? Can you do it with grand compassion and tolerance? When something happens, the old forces may have arranged some notion through your experiences in past lives, or may directly inject a thought into you. If you cannot tell the false appearance immediately, many attachments may come out: complaining, anxiety, and the fighting mentality will get in to enlarge your attachments, and increase the conflicts to cause trouble. "Those rotten ghosts intent on disrupting the Fa really like it when you're in disarray." (Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference) Thus, when we work with each other, we must look inside in time. We should give up attachments and get rid of them. We should eliminate the evil old forces behind the attachment. Then we will be able to form a harmonious field of coordination. As one practitioner said, "At the last moment of Fa-rectification, we must be in perfect harmony with each other, supplement each other, and form a impenetrable body."
8. Truly respecting Master or not
Some practitioners still have a lot of loopholes, and have not given up their fundamental attachments. They have been cultivating according to their feelings. They feel that Dafa is good according to some limited understanding of Dafa, and they still hold on to their attachments and human notions. They are doing well in the three things that Master requires us to do, but they have not upgraded their understanding from the emotional level to the rational level.
"...they remain at the perceptual stage in their understanding of me and Dafa, always being grateful towards me for the changes in their bodies and for the manifestation of supernormal abilities--that is an ordinary human mindset. If you do not want to change your human state and rationally rise to a true understanding of Dafa, you will miss the opportunity. If you do not change the human logic that you, as an ordinary human, have formed deep in your bones over thousands of years, you will be unable to break away from this superficial human shell and reach Consummation." "If every one of you can understand the Fa from the depths of your mind, that will truly be the manifestation of the Fa whose power knows no boundary--the reappearance of the mighty Buddha Fa in the human world!"
The evil takes advantage of the practitioner's attachment and makes him have the tribulation of an abnormal physical state. He always thinks that 'as long as I firmly believe in Master, believe in Dafa, do a good job in the three things that Master requires us to do, and oppose old forces' arrangements, the old forces will not persecute me'. In fact, he does not look inside at all. He studies the Fa with attachments and pursuit, and always studies the part that he feels conforms to his current state. When other practitioners try to help him to improve from the principles of the Fa, he will resist, repel, or refuse the part of the Fa that he has not enlightened to, or that he feels does not concern his current state. How much selfishness and sentiment are contained in this! Every word and sentence of Master is the Fa, and can guide us in our cultivation. Although you have not enlightened to its principle, you must study it and accept it with respect. You must remember that it is the Fa, no matter whether you have enlightened to it or not. When you resist, repel, and refuse to accept it, it is the worst disbelief and disrespect of the Fa and Master. How big the omission is there!
"All of the old-force beings respect me absolutely! Even though they created some obstacles to my Fa-rectification, they've never done anything bad that directly targets me, because they respect me. So, for those students of ours who are momentarily in a fog and whose states of mind aren't right, think about it, once you become disrespectful of me, the old forces will do ruthless things to you, and they'll think that this person is just awful."
(Fa-Lecture During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference)
Fellow practitioners, please don't just respect the Fa and Master on the surface, while doing things that do not respect the Fa and Master. That will be taken advantage of by the evil, and you will have done what a Dafa disciple should never do, which is to give the evil the biggest excuse to persecute us.
Dafa disciples are one body. We should improve together and follow what Master has taught us.
"When you're able to walk a righteous path, that means your righteous thoughts are strong, you're doing things according to Dafa's requirements, and you're doing things according to Master's requirements, then you are negating the old forces, and you are walking your path in a righteous way. Those rotten ghosts intent on disrupting the Fa really like it when you're in disarray, as the old forces' whole goal is to have all this end up according to their arrangements. I'll tell you, when all that you're doing today is in line with what I taught you to do, then that's not letting them take advantage of your gaps and not allowing them to find excuses for persecution."
(Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference)
