(Clearwisdom.net) I obtained Dafa in March 2000 and thereafter, though my body had significant changes and my previous illness disappeared, my understanding of Dafa was still limited to the perceptual stage and I didn't fully understand the sacredness and magnificence of Dafa. I was even still attached to everyday people's matters - this TV show was interesting and that method was amusing. However, our compassionate and magnificent Master never gave up this one disciple and he compassionately saved and patiently guided me. One day in 2004, one article on the Minghui/Clearwisdom website woke me up and made me realize that I could not continue in such an ignorant way and that I had to change my everyday people's notions in studying the Fa. Shortly after, when I was visiting a practitioner, this practitioner told me that the local practitioner who used to help produce truth-clarification materials had to leave the area and hoped that I could help take up the slack. I only had a shallow understanding of computers and knew nothing about the Internet, but I agreed anyway. Very soon I used my limited savings to buy the equipment. Then I watched a video program that taught about using computers. After gaining some understanding of the Internet, I started to try to get on-line. First, I tried to get on some everyday website and it worked fine. Then I immediately tried to open up the Minghui/Clearwisdom website and everything worked smoothly.
From this incident, I felt that maybe we had made some prehistoric wishes that at certain time period and under certain circumstances, we would do certain things. But since our xinxing did not improve, our levels could not improve either, and thus the things that Master has arranged for us to do could not be completed. Everything was arranged by Master in good order. It is similar to running a relay match - one person's slow speed will affect the whole team's speed. Therefore, we should really strictly require ourselves as a genuine practitioner and do the three things well. We should not hold on to human things in one hand while trying to reach Buddhahood with the other hand.
1. Letting of our egos and not validating ourselves
In this big dye vat of everyday society and this maze, everyday people always think about themselves whenever they work and they always think about themselves whether they run into good things or bad things. For example, "What gain and loss will I have in this incident? Will I be hurt? What meaning does it have for me?" When they finish something, they will immediately show off to others that they are capable and talented. Even if they don't show off on the surface, they still feel pleased in their minds.
We also have such mentalities among practitioners. Once we develop the attachment of showing off and validating ourselves, we even forget about cultivation of speech and always want others to know how capable we are or we are always afraid that other people don't know about the good work we are doing. When we talk about what we have accomplished in the past, we feel we are remarkable and even our tone changes. I also have such an attachment. When I help practitioners solve some problems, I always feel I am capable. Actually, it is not the case. Everything is granted by Master and maybe one is supposed to reach such a state at his or her current level and should have this ability. Maybe because we are not diligent enough, we have not fully developed the abilities that we should have obtained and some of the things that we could have done could not be accomplished or are not done at all, which hinders us from validating Dafa. Therefore, we should let go of these attachments and evaluate ourselves with high-level principles, not by everyday people's principles. All of our wisdom is endowed by Dafa and Master gives the wisdom to us because we have cultivated Dafa. That everyday knowledge is too trivial before the magnificent Buddha Law, so what are we still showing off?
2. Looking within when encountering problems
A while ago, I learned from fellow practitioners that some Wuhan practitioners were persecuted for using a special technology to get on-line. As a result, their local practitioners thought it's unsafe to use such technology and then abandoned it.
I would like to share my personal experience with fellow practitioners relating to this issue. I remember that when I just started to learn to get on-line. After I got on-line, I thought: I hope I will not be discovered and caught! What should I do if I were caught? This was broadband and they had our name and address when the phone was installed. When I went on-line with such an attachment, several days later I found I could not get on-line any longer. I didn't look inside, instead I started to look outward and tried to look for someone to help me. I could not find assistance from my local area and tried to look for help from practitioners in other areas, but the problem still could not be solved. I felt helpless and could only go home. On the second day after I went back home, when I practiced the exercises, maybe due to Master's hints, I suddenly realized my thought when I got on-line-- getting on-line with fear and mentality of pursuing luck. Right! It was due to this thought that I could not get on-line. I immediately eliminated that thought and tried to get on-line again and succeeded. I enlightened to it that our practitioners are doing Gods' things in the human world, not doing human things as human beings. When we do things, Master is watching us and the evil in other dimensions are also watching us. When our thoughts are not correct and our righteous thoughts are not strong enough, evil will control bad people to cause damage. Therefore, Master tried to protect His disciples, so he made me not able to get on-line with the poor mental state I had.
Therefore, we should not make a judgment based on such phenomena. Was the above-mentioned incident in Wuhan really due to a mobile phone problem? Or did it occur when some practitioners were taking a bus or doing other things, e.g. checking ID, luggage inspection, etc.? He (She) told other practitioners and of course, the practitioners heard about this incident and maybe tried to remind other practitioners to be more careful out of good will. However, some practitioners use the so-called experience that they develop in everyday society to make a judgment that if you do this, then that situation will occur and thus they dare not go online or only do so with fear. Every practitioner has a different path. The incident that happens to you will not necessarily happen to him. And something that happens to him will not necessarily happen to you. Therefore, we should not use the same incident as a rule for ourselves and everything that we run into aims at our own attachments.
3. Do not focus on formalities
In the environment of Mainland China, we need righteous thoughts to establish a group Fa-Study environment. We should not pursue any formality when we study the Fa together, and it should be able to genuinely play the role of group study, otherwise it will bring inconvenience to fellow practitioners and ourselves. I observed two study groups near my place. One group study is like this: before the time set for Fa study, practitioners usually talked about some everyday people's issues. Right after the Fa study finished and before the sharing started, practitioners stood up and started to leave. Thus even those practitioners who wanted to share could not continue. Even when they have sharing, they just talk individually and could not achieve the purpose of a genuine sharing. The other study group's situation is also relatively complicated and some practitioners even speak in a supervisory tone. We are all one particle in Dafa and we gather together only to maintain a cultivation environment that enables us to improve as one body. It should be good enough if we can coordinate with each other and the environment needs us to maintain it together. Dafa coordinators are not everyday supervisors, and we should really let go of such an attachment. However, shortly afterward, the two study groups stopped under the evil's interference. Therefore, we cannot attach to formality in any issue, and we need to solidly cultivate.
4. We should be upright and unafraid when doing things
Under the evil's persecution, security is very important. Some practitioners try to protect themselves in a human way. For example, some practitioners don't dare to give you something on the street and always try to find some seemingly hidden location and they seem to feel that they are always being monitored. Actually, those seemingly safe places are not necessarily safe because your speech and behavior are not conforming to normal standards (but I don't mean to say that we cannot protect the safety of some very conspicuous things). Aren't there inter-personal relationships among people? If you do things openly and nobly, as modern people are busy with making money, who will care what you are doing? If what we give out are things commonly used every day or some purchased goods, we will feel confident and maybe won't think about whether it is safe or not. But we feel nervous and fearful if we hold things related to Dafa and maybe think: "They don't know what I am holding." Why? In fact we are putting ourselves in the position of being persecuted and in doing so, we are recognizing the old forces' arrangements. We think, "As long as we study Falun Dafa and distribute Dafa materials, we will be persecuted." Aren't we recognizing the old forces' arrangement? However, who will know what you are holding? Through studying the Fa, we know that without the control of evil beings in other dimensions, human beings can do nothing to deities, then why do we still feel afraid of humans? The evil entities in other dimensions also see our attachment and they will control evil people to cause damage. I think this is probably the underlying reason that in some areas a large number of idle people are hired to monitor Dafa practitioners.
Therefore, we should cultivate and rectify every thought of ours to genuinely and completely deny the old forces' arrangement and not leave any loopholes for evil to exploit. Our real security comes from Dafa and we will have real security if we can strictly follow Dafa and Master's requirements to do things without reservation.
