Greetings Esteemed Master and fellow practitioners.
First of all I would like to thank the organizers of this Experience Sharing Conference for giving me this precious opportunity to share my experience with you all.
My husband and I learned Falun Dafa together in 1996 when we were in Beijing. We strove to cultivate our xinxing and tried to be kind in accordance with the requirements set by Master. This brought various benefits to our workplaces and families. In July 1999, the evil descended from the skies. When facing lies and false charges against Dafa, my husband and I decided to write to the Chinese Central Government to clarify the truth to them about Falun Dafa. However, we were severely persecuted and narrowly escaped death in the forced labor camps.
I left China in 2005. At the time, I still worried about the safety of my husband and child since my husband was in China and my child was young. So, I did not dare to step forward to expose the evil persecution. However, human methods of caution cannot protect practitioners. My husband was arrested once again in May this year. From my husband's arrest, I realized that due to human concepts and sentiments, I did not walk on the right path, that is, to expose the persecution, clarify the truth and negate the arrangements by the old forces. As a result, my husband was sent to a forced labor camp for the second time.
Now I'd like to share with you my experience, so that you can draw a lesson from it and walk on the right path in the remaining precious period of time. Please kindly help me understand any attachments I may have.
We Can Only Walk Well on the Path Arranged by Master When We Believe in Master and Dafa without Any Reservations
Everyone knows that we should not take the path arranged by the old forces, and that we should walk on the path arranged by Master. How can we walk well on the path arranged by Master, then?
Master said in Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A.:
"Of course, each one of our Dafa disciples says that we don't recognize the old forces' arrangements, but that's not something you just say--you have to follow the requirements of Dafa and the Fa-rectification. 'I absolutely will not acknowledge any of those things you arranged in the past, old forces. I don't even acknowledge you.' When your righteous thoughts are very strong you can purge it and you can reject their arrangement"
As for righteous thoughts, we cannot simply pay lip service to it; we really need to put it into practice as part of our cultivation.
At the beginning of this year, a practitioner was arrested in China. I encouraged her family members to expose the evil's persecution. Her daughter, who was also a practitioner, did not want to do it out of fear. I even blamed her for her strong human thoughts. However, when it came to my attitude towards the arrest of my husband, none of the righteous thoughts I required of other practitioners existed anymore. Instead, my mind was full of human thoughts and concepts. At the very beginning, I had the mentality of hoping for luck. I thought that the evil had no evidence, so they could not do anything. At the same time, I sought help from my everyday connections in China. I gave myself the excuse of getting my husband out first and then exposing the persecution and the evil deeds later. The practitioners around me offered to make phone calls and write letters. However, I thought that what the practitioners offered to do might play an adverse effect to the help I sought from everyday people. Therefore I did not let them do it. Looking back, isn't it clear that I trusted everyday people more than our fellow practitioners?
About 20 days later when I called a practitioner in London, she talked to me about the rescue of Li Xiangchun. She said that because of the large scale rescue efforts by the practitioners outside of China and because they exposed the evildoers to the maximum extent possible, he came back righteously and nobly. At the time, I felt that Master used her words to give me hints so that I could take the opportunity to expose the persecution. However, owing to my human thoughts that I found hard to let go, I still dared not expose the evildoers on a large scale. On the one hand, I was afraid that the evildoers might retaliate if I made them angry. On the other hand, I knew that I must expose the evil deeds according to Fa's requirements. Therefore, I did expose the evil deeds but with reservation. This was truly a demonstration of holding onto humanness with one hand while holding onto Buddhahood with the other.
Since I had such a mentality, the evil reinforced this phenomenon. My friends in China told me that because my husband's arrest was published on The Epoch Times, they did not want to help me anymore. Once again, this blocked me from exposing the evil forces. When I learned from internal sources that my husband had been sentenced to two and a half years of forced labor, I felt like I had received a blow to the head. I had to face my fundamental problem: my belief in Master and Dafa.
Prior to this, if someone said that I had a problem with my belief in Master and Dafa, I would certainly get angry since the doubt would be an insult to me. Now, I finally realized that believing in the existence of Master and Dafa does not mean that you really believe in Master and Dafa. Only if at the critical moment, you still dare to do things in accordance with Master's Fa without any reservation, then you truly believe in Master and Dafa. Master always teaches us that exposing the evil forces is what they fear most. But the manifestation in the human world is that if you expose the evil forces, they might retaliate. Then do you really believe in what Master has said, or do you believe in the human manifestation? If at this critical moment, you still believe in the things you can see and touch while believing in Master's Fa only from the perspective of principles, but fail to really follow it in practice, can this be called true belief? Only one hundred percent belief in Master and Dafa is the righteous thoughts of Falun Dafa practitioners.
Master said that if we do not cooperate with the arrangements by the old forces and validate the Fa righteously and nobly, then the evil forces would not persecute us. However, when confronting the outwardly strong evil forces, I began to fear and did not want to have any conflict with the evil forces. I even tried to use my contacts to save my husband. As a result, I suffered more severe persecution. Actually, the persecution was not because I offended the evil forces in this dimension, but because I cooperated with the evil forces in other dimensions.
I had a better understanding of the issue later on. Since Master has stated explicitly the Fa about exposing the evil forces, the old forces created a false impression of being persecuted if we expose the evil forces. Their argument is that since Master has stated the Fa clearly, you only need to copy it. Then can this be counted as your cultivation? Therefore they came to interfere, sabotage and shake the righteous belief of the practitioners. If we begin to feel uncertain and dare not do things in line with what Master has taught us, then we will fall into their trap. What Master has said is the Fa, which is the only truth in the universe, while what we see in the human world is just illusions. Therefore, we should do things according to the Fa taught by Master without any reservation.
After going through this tribulation, Master's Fa is no longer the theory I used to direct other people with. Instead, I planted it deep into my heart and it has helped me to enlighten to what the righteous belief of a practitioner should be. In the days to come, I used my righteous thoughts to rescue my husband, help him to break through the arrangements by the old forces, walk out of the detention center righteously and nobly, and do well the things a practitioner has to do.
Let Go of Human Concepts, Melt Every Thought into the Fa and Be a Qualified Practitioner of Master
Master warned us ten years ago in "Cautionary Advice" (Essentials for Further Advancement):
"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."
At that time, my shallow understanding was that it had nothing to do with me since Master was talking to those practitioners who had very strong human thoughts. Now I found that I had a lot of human concepts but I had failed to notice them. For example, I had a concept that those who are in high positions of power can solve the problems. I lived in China for many years and had several experiences in having everyday people's things done by inviting high officials to help. This was just like what Master said in the article The Closer to the End, the More Diligent You Should Be:
"To this end, as they gain experience people come to form notions about life; and those experiences, in turn, come to fortify these notions as people live out their lives."
Actually there will be serious consequences for relying on everyday people. Master cited the example of that Premier changing from good to bad to tell us that we should not rely on everyday people. Master also cited the example of over-relying on the United Nations. As a result, a country which violated human rights became the president of the UN Human Rights Commission.
When I first came to the United States and began the initiative to rescue my husband, I knew that I should not rely on everyday people. The process of rescuing him should be one of exposing the persecution and clarifying the truth. I met a lot of warm-hearted everyday people who expressed their willingness to help, including some high-positioned and influential people. At that time, my attachment of relying on them emerged and a thought of reaching certain outcomes through them quietly came into being. Then, the situation of the human world changed following my mind-intent. The other person would suddenly leave on an errand or change their minds, saying that they were unable to help.
As a matter of fact, Master said a long time ago:
"You're cultivators, and all changes come from your cultivation and the Fa-rectification; everything that you yourselves validate and enlighten to, and everything that you'll receive, all this comes from what you have done on your path. Absolutely don't think about any favors the old forces might do for us, or about how the ordinary society might help us. You are the ones saving the ordinary people's society, and you are the ones saving sentient beings!" (Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A.)
I had another human concept. I believed that the success or failure of a Dafa project depended on the organizing ability of the person involved and his professional skill. This might be true in the human world, but not in our cultivation. Since I did not let go of this concept, I failed to be actively involved in some Fa-rectification activities. I would think that it was not my profession, so I was unable to do it. Actually when we achieve good results in validating the Fa, it is not related to how wise our methods in this human world were, nor how capable the practitioners involved were, but because we were in line with the requirements of the Fa and our xinxing had improved as a whole. Therefore, the power of Dafa would naturally unfold in this human world. Aren't there many elderly practitioners in China who could not read and write, but were able to easily process the truth-clarification material using a computer?
I realized that, in reality, Master has prepared everything for us in the Fa. As long as we keep ourselves in the state of a practitioner and have every thought on the Fa, all the difficulties will be readily solved and everything will be arranged in an orderly fashion, so we only need to follow the mechanisms. However, if we are in a human state and use human thinking to do things, we will be interfered with. What we do will be less effective, problems will arise in various aspects, documents will not be saved and there will be something wrong with the computer. Any unrighteous state that appears in the process of rectifying the Fa is caused by our attachment. Even the interference by the evil forces occurs when we fail to maintain ourselves as solid and unshakable as diamond. Otherwise, the old forces will have no way to create any interference.
At the last stage when the Fa-rectification current reaches the surface level, the Fa will set higher requirements for practitioners. It requires us to have every thought on the Fa and only then can we walk well every step without deviation. How can we keep all of our thoughts on the Fa, then? My understanding is that we must study and recite the Fa everyday with a calm mind. Whenever our mind is free, for example, when we are waiting for people or riding on public transportation, we should not give free play to our imagination. We should recite the Fa, such as Lunyu or Hong Yin, to assimilate to the Fa with our mind and body all the time.
As a practitioner, if you can truly study the Fa well, then you will take less detours. I hope that you can learn a lesson from my experience, and cultivate solidly. Master said:
"What you do then, with a pure heart, will be the best and most sacred."
("Further Understanding" from Essentials for Further Advancement)
We have been on the path of Fa-rectification for seven years. This seven-year period is also the process of Master mercifully and laboriously saving us. Master has given us opportunities one after another and allowed us to use all sorts of methods of this dimension to validate the Fa, purify ourselves and return to being virtuous. All these are beyond the description of human language. Let's cherish this predestined opportunity to cultivate and strive forward, and walk well the last leg of our journey.
