(Clearwisdom.net) The Fa rectification is progressing rapidly and the overall situation of practitioners validating the Fa in our area is gradually getting better. Every practitioner is validating the Fa and saving all the beings in their own surrounding environments. However, during the Fa rectification ending period, some local practitioners are still having problems: rarely studying the Fa, unable to keep a calm mind studying the Fa (I'm one of those), barely cooperating with others, not paying attention to self-cultivation, and not doing the three things required by Teacher. Some practitioners feel that their efforts validating the Fa can replace their cultivation totally. Therefore, they are not paying enough attention to their individual cultivation.
It has become a common phenomena now to meet and distribute Dafa materials with each other. All we talk about are our experiences with our Fa-validation projects. I'm not saying that this sharing is not important or unnecessary. Rarely do practitioners discuss how they looked inward and cultivate themselves during conflicts or how they deny the arrangement of the evil when confronting interference. Even when practitioners share experiences of their cultivation, what they usually say is, "I'm showing off" or "It is my competitiveness." The most common suggestions given those practitioners frequently persecuted and/or interfered with by the evil is "disintegrating the evil, eradicating it, or denying it."
There is no doubt that we should eradicate the persecution and totally deny the interference and arrangements by the old forces. However, fellow practitioners are so used to eliminating only the superficial parts of the evil that they do not dig out their own attachments. When some practitioners are confronting interference they say things like, "The evil took advantage of me, but I don't know how to find my attachment," "I'm jealous," or "I have the mentality of showing-off." That, basically, is all the effort we use to look inward for the source or notions. This attitude has become a major problem in our local group of practitioners. We should study the Fa more diligently and improve ourselves accordingly to turn this passive situation around.
Whole or almost whole families of Falun Gong practitioners could cooperate with each other to validate the Fa in various environments and sacrifice what is necessary to save the sentient beings. Family members usually neglect cultivating their minds during conflicts among us because of affection and qing. We often condemn each other for the shortcomings we see, instead of taking the opportunity to cultivate ourselves. We even justify this attitude as "helping others." We have wasted the cultivation opportunities Teacher arranged for us again and again. We have given the evil the advantage to enlarge our attachments to interfere with and persecute us freely. The result is the evil's interference with our efforts to validate the Fa.
My husband, also a practitioner, and I have all sorts of attachments, emotions, and human mindsets that often cause conflict. It is not rare for us to argue over some trivia instead of treating those issues from the Fa. For a long while, I was hoping our family could create a good cultivation environment where we both always looked inward and cultivated our own hearts. From time to time, I feel it is very hard to share with my husband about the Fa. I blamed him for not looking inward or cultivating himself. Even when I told him my thoughts, he still refused to change. I shared about my situation with another practitioner. The fellow practitioner told me, "You treat him only as your husband, not a practitioner." In the beginning, I didn't agree with this assessment. Later I realized I had indeed trapped myself in the family relationship. As a practitioner I should cultivate myself under every circumstance.
In the maze of human life, everyone is seeped in qing from the very moment of one's birth. We love our parents, brothers, and sisters. We treat anybody who hurts our family as our enemy. I realized this mentality, derived from human emotions, is indeed characterized by selfishness. This material is profoundly rooted in our minds. If we do not break this mentality, we can't treat our family members as ordinary beings, using the standard of the Fa. For me, this is a new understanding about qing and how to remove it.
Based on my new understanding, I have also realized that the conflict between practitioner A and me originated from this qing. We were classmates and I have known practitioner A for over 25 years. We had a very intimate friendship and had even done some business together. We attained the Fa one after the other. In the beginning, we kept encouraging each other and were able to share cultivation experiences frequently. I can hardly recall when we started feeling our hearts were alienated. Many times I tried looking inward to find out the reason. What I found is that this was caused by my show-off mentality. I used to talk about the understandings I had enlightened to. I thought she didn't understand the Fa well and lacked her own opinion. I kept pointing this out to her. Gradually, we became estranged from each other.
During the Fa validation period, we were both busy saving sentient beings in our environments and rarely met. I discovered she had lost the good temperament that I felt a Dafa practitioner should have when we did meet. I didn't understand what had happened. I had the one thought that at least I shouldn't behave like her. Once she told me, "Do you realize you have looked down on me for a long time?" I was surprised when I heard this. She continued, "You made me feel that I couldn't cultivate well. I could tell it from the way you looked at me. Do you know how much that hurt me? Sometimes, I tell myself that I have to cultivate well to show you that I'm capable. But, other times I felt my motivation for cultivation was totally wrong." I was so sad after hearing this comment. I blamed myself for bringing so much trouble to her. I should look inward to dig out my attachment.
For a long time, many bad attachments have occupied my mind. Among them, my jealousy is the most serious one. I always tried to speak ahead of others when sharing with fellow practitioners. Sometimes I couldn't wait for other practitioners to finish talking and would just go ahead and interrupt them. I feel rather good when fellow practitioners praise me for how good my enlightenment quality is. I always help others improve and then take credit for that improvement. I often feel that I have saved so many people. The truth is that only the Fa can save and change people, not me.
I would not say a word when someone applauded another practitioner in front of me, but I would feel uneasy. I was not happy for others who were good, but felt unbalanced myself. Isn't this jealousy? I kept finding the shortcomings of others and always believed that I was better than they. I never realized I had such strong jealousy.
This attachment caused conflict between practitioners A and B. After the persecution began on July 20, 1999, we often validated the Fa together. I used to only think about B's shortcomings and attachments. Every time I met B, I felt so uncomfortable. I looked inward many times but couldn't find my real attachment.
Once I dreamed that B and I were flying. I would not spare her a glimpse while she circled around me in a small aircraft smiling. A stranger seemed to play a joke on me by pouring half a cup of vinegar on me. I was so angry that I turned away from B. Then B flew so close I could see her face smiling at me. I suddenly realized that I was wrong. All my uneasy feelings about B disappeared once I woke up. I only felt regret and knew the dream was a hint from Teacher. It helped me to realize that my jealousy towards B originated from my selfishness that evolved from this qing. That was the time to remove that qing. I should treat A and B the same way as I treat any other practitioner. Compassion came to me after I removed this qing from myself.
Many times I told Teacher in my heart, "I'm able to remove this attachment." Afterwards I would not feel that attachment anymore when fellow practitioners talked about A in front of me. I know that after I upgraded my heart, the material substance of selfishness of the old universe was dismissed.
The evil will take every advantage to enlarge our attachments to cause conflict and distrust among practitioners. Any gap in our cultivation will give evil the excuse to persecute us.
"I'm going to tell you that no matter what kind of conflicts arise, or what kind of situations emerge, it's bound to be that we have gaps in ourselves. That's for sure. If there weren't a gap nobody could exploit it. When there's a xinxing friction among our students or disharmony when you're cooperating with each other, and it doesn't matter if it's something big or small, I'm telling you, it's definitely demons exploiting the gaps." ("Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference," April 2003)
A few days ago, my husband's nose suddenly started to bleed. This had never happened before. His first ordinary thought was that this little bit of blood would help cool him down. Then he had another thought, "I'm wrong. This is persecution. I should deny it. I should deny any arrangement by the old forces." Then he recalled the "Fa" taught by Teacher.
"When you encounter ordeals during your cultivation, you have got to cultivate yourself and look at yourself--that doesn't mean acknowledging the ordeals arranged by the old forces and trying to do well amidst the ordeals they've arranged, that's not the case. We negate even the very emergence of the old forces and everything that they've arranged; we don't even acknowledge their existence." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2004 Chicago Conference")
Three other practitioners arrived and sent forth righteous thoughts together to remove the evil. The evil was dismissed and two hours later his nose stopped bleeding. After experience-sharing, my husband realized how serious cultivation is and his lack of looking inward during his daily life. All of us regarded that day as a new starting point to look inward, our find attachments, and encourage each other, recalling what Teacher said:
"Cultivation is just awfully grueling, it's incredibly serious, and if you get just a bit careless you might fall and be destroyed in a day. So your thoughts really have to be proper." (Zhuan Falun)
My husband has really changed since that day. He doesn't speak loudly anymore and always looks at his own heart first when any conflict comes his way. I used to believe that I was helping him to improve. When he refused to accept my help I would get angry, lose my temper, and speak badly to him. During conflicts with others, I asked others to look inward, but I couldn't cultivate myself in the same way. Is this a characteristic of the old universe? Only trying to change others and not ourselves? What really happened is that I excluded myself from the cultivation environment.
How can we tell if we are cultivating on the path arranged by Teacher or the path arranged by the old forces? Here is my personal understanding. The conflict itself is not a bad thing. The key is whether we can realize that Teacher utilizes these conflicts to expose our attachment and let us know it is time to remove it. If we are able to look inward at that moment find the attachment and remove it, we are indeed on the path arranged by Teacher. If we refuse to look inward and are unable to give up our selfish attachments, then evil has the advantage and we are on the path arranged by the old forces.
Some fellow practitioners said, "We have to give up our attachments. Otherwise, how can we reach Consummation?" All the beings of the celestial body we are associated with will assimilate to the Fa when we have eliminated our selfishness and attachments! So cultivating well is also a means of offering salvation to other beings and completing our own worlds.
