(Clearwisdom.net) Recently I heard that someone organized practitioners to take turns sending forth righteous thoughts around the clock to eliminate evil in their local areas. Each practitioner continuously sends forth righteous thoughts for one hour. Then another practitioner takes over and continues doing so. Someone made the claim that this way the evil would not have time to regain strength. I heard there were already twenty-four practitioners who have joined this effort and that the plan would supposedly be carried out on an even larger scale. Each participant would, at a fixed time, send forth righteous thoughts for one hour. The participants plan to persist with this effort until the time when the Fa rectifying the human world arrives.
Regarding the above way of sending forth righteous thoughts, I have some comments and want to share them with fellow practitioners.
If one assumes that only by sending forth righteous thoughts through non-stop relay can we achieve the purpose of "not letting the evil have the time to breathe," I would say that this person has gone to an extreme in his or her understanding of the Fa!
Master has never mentioned sending forth righteous thoughts this way. Neither have Minghui website editors promoted this. Eliminating the evil does not rely only on this manner of sending forth righteous thoughts. We eliminate evil while we do the three things well. Overall, the evil has been eliminated to the degree that less and less remains, as Master reminded us. But it is not the case that once we erect our hands in front of our chests that evil beings are knocked down, and that once we put our hands down they can catch their breath and stand up again!
The majority of the practitioners - in addition to the time they spend taking care of their daily work and daily life - have limited time for Fa study, practicing the exercises, sending forth righteous thoughts, and clarifying the truth. If each of the practitioners who have participated in this activity finds one more hour to send righteous thoughts (some of them are scheduled to send forth righteous thoughts during the night), they may possibly have to shorten their Fa-study or the time available to do other Dafa work.
Master said,
"As you know, the persecution that Dafa disciples in Mainland China suffer is quite severe, so each student has to truly, clearly realize what his responsibility is, and when he sends forth righteous thoughts he has to be able to truly calm his mind and truly produce the effect of righteous thoughts. So this is something extremely critical, extremely important. Then if every student is able to do that, I can tell you, with five minutes of sending forth righteous thoughts together, the evil in the Three Realms will never exist again--that's how important this is." ("Fa-Lecture at the Conference in Florida, U.S.A." on December 29, 2001)
Master also said,
"Question: During the first five minutes of sending righteous thoughts, could we do the purging with the formula Master taught us?
Teacher: When you send righteous thoughts you shouldn't keep reciting the formula. You just need to recite it once and it'll work, except for in special circumstances. If you feel that you can't become tranquil and you readjust your righteous thoughts, that's okay, but still it's just for that moment. Actually, when you can truly be tranquil, one thought is more than enough to shake Heaven and Earth, there's nothing that it can't do, and it's as if it immediately immobilizes and restrains everything covered by your domain; you're like a mountain, and you instantly restrain them. You shouldn't always have an unsteady mind. You can't achieve that when your mind is unsteady." ("Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference," April 20, 2003)
Based on the above Fa I understand one very important point - we need to calm our minds when sending forth righteous thoughts. Only then can we achieve good results. After calming down or reaching tranquility one can send forth righteous thoughts for as long as one can naturally persist. Sometimes, when one's state is particularly good, one can send forth righteous thoughts for a very long time, however, one must not try to achieve this state through pursuit. Neither can one reach this state by presetting the duration of his or her sending forth righteous thoughts.
If every practitioner is asked to send forth righteous thoughts for one hour, I guess some would experience leg pains after some time and would have a hard time concentrating, so the result of eliminating evil would be not be that good. If at this time one can relax one's legs and study the Fa calmly and then positively readjust one's state, this person's sending forth righteous thoughts for several minutes may be even more effective than his or her sending forth righteous thoughts with an agitated mind for one hour. During the past several years, all of the Minghui/Clearwisdom editors' notifications about sending forth righteous thoughts have mentioned only "five to ten minutes" or "at least five minutes."
Some practitioners even have hard times doing well with the four daily times of sending righteous thoughts. They frequently become drowsy, particularly at those times during the middle of the night. Some practitioners now want to send forth righteous thoughts for one more hour early in the morning and also persist in doing so over a long period of time. Is this not the same as practitioners' personally adding more difficulties to their own cultivation? Will it interfere with what Master has arranged for the practitioners?
"Question: Is it true that we don't need to send righteous thoughts at set times?
Teacher: Didn't the Minghui website announce that all Dafa disciples around the world should send righteous thoughts as a group at certain times? I think that's a pretty good idea, and so why don't you do that, then. When it comes to any other specifics, you can do things according to the different situations in different regions." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2004 Western U.S. Fa Conference" on February 28, 2004)
This Fa teaching made me realize that in terms of sending forth righteous thoughts together we have already met the requirements if we can do well the four times of sending forth righteous thoughts on a global scale, as is informed by the Minghui/Clearwisdom editors. Except for unusual circumstances, we have also done well to do this the several times that local practitioners have organized. There are exceptions - as in some special circumstances we need to increase the frequency of sending forth righteous thoughts toward specific targets over a certain period of time, or even need to do so at the beginning of every hour around the clock. However, it is still not necessary for every practitioner to send forth righteous thoughts for one whole hour. One can remain flexible and adjust the duration of sending forth righteous thoughts based on one's own situation. Of course, it is desirable if some practitioners have more time or have very good cultivation states where they do not need to sleep much and they do not feel drowsy, even when they get up in the middle of the night to send forth righteous thoughts. I will not discuss the specifics in this article.
When we organize practitioners to send forth righteous thoughts long-term, I suggest not doing it this way. We should not mix our human notions with sending righteous thoughts. Will sending forth righteous thoughts in the hours right after midnight be more effective than doing so at other times? What are the underlying Fa principles? If the effect is not better, why not plan it for other times so it will not impact the practitioners' rest?
I hope that every practitioner who has participated in this activity can search within him or herself and understand from the perspective of the Fa whether his or her participating in this activity is based on his or her understanding of Fa principles or on his or her intention to copy others. If the latter is the case, let us study this paragraph of Master's Fa,
"Question: ...recently the woman has insisted on changing the way to send righteous thoughts. She altered the order of the five-minute segments, changing the first five minutes from purging all the bad thoughts in her own mind to eradicating the dark minions. And she makes other students follow her formulas.
Teacher: See, here we go. (Audience laughs) It caused her to form attachments--see what happened now? You led her to do things her own way. That's why I tell you that you need to study the Fa a lot and use the Fa as your standard. Whenever a person cultivates well in some regard, that's because she has cultivated well in the Fa, not because she is better than the Fa. So if you follow somebody's example instead of learning from the Fa... [remember that] before the person has finished her cultivation she still has flaws, and when she's good in one regard it doesn't mean she's good in every regard. Now it's really happened, you've triggered the student's attachment. Be careful with this type of thing." ("Teaching the Fa at the Meeting with Asia-Pacific Students" on April 12, 2004)
This is my personal understanding. Please point out anything that is not correct.
February 28, 2007
