(Clearwisdom.net)
Greetings, Respected Teacher! Greetings, Fellow Practitioners!
I truly appreciate the Minghui (Chinese version of Clearwisdom) website for providing practitioners in China with such a great platform for us to have a chance to share our experiences under the current special environment in assisting Teacher with the Fa-rectification and saving sentient beings. I'm honored to be able to assist Teacher with Fa-rectification and become a Fa-rectification period Dafa disciple. Here I'd like to share my limited understandings from the following few perspectives.
1. With righteous thoughts and righteous actions, I denied the old forces' financial persecution.
I was fortunate to start to practice Falun Dafa in 1996. It is our great Teacher who scooped me up from hell and cleansed me. I used to have so much karma that I could barely take care of myself. Now I'm very healthy and I have become a Fa-rectification Dafa disciple on the path to godhood.
I used to work at the headquarters of a very profitable company. With Teacher's compassionate protection, I stumbled through the past few years when I validated the Fa. Now I'm here. During the Fa-rectification process, due to our insufficient understandings of the Fa and the attachments that we hadn't let go of, we were all persecuted to differing degrees. Most of the young fellow practitioners in my area were fired. When they suffered, their families did, too. Not only that, the authorities extorted money from their families, which made things even more miserable. This caused damage to Dafa work and created hurdles for saving sentient beings. I'm very sorry about this situation every time I think about it.
For a while I didn't pay enough attention to Fa-study. I also had attachments that I couldn't let go of. The old forces took advantage of me and I was illegally arrested. While I was detained, I met other practitioners who were fired for safeguarding the Fa. They had no income anymore, which caused difficulties for themselves and their families. Some other practitioners who hadn't been fired yet thought they'd be fired when they were released and were consequently planning to set up their own businesses. I didn't understand this issue from the Fa at that time, but I never thought I'd lose my job. After I was released, it was on a holiday, and then I went back to work. I stopped by my boss and other managers' offices and told them that I'd returned. I had never visited some of the managers in their offices before. Initially, my family worried that I might be depressed. In fact, we did nothing wrong. We simply insisted on justice for Falun Dafa, using our rights given to us by the Constitutions.
A few days later, all the managers in my company had a meeting. They all agreed that I was a very righteous person and that I was good at my job, so they allowed me to return to my original position. It might have seemed on the surface that I got my job back because my work from before was impressive, but, in fact, it was because of my righteous thoughts and righteous actions and because I had never recognized the old forces' persecution. Teacher helped take care of everything for me.
Even though I got my job back, they didn't give me the bonus that I deserved. My salary was at the lowest level, too. Still, I didn't complain about anything. I acted just like before, like Teachersaid in Zhuan Falun, "...these employees come to work early and go home late." "They do diligent and conscientious work, they're never picky no matter what work their supervisors assign them, and they've also stopped fighting to benefit themselves." When I was with coworkers, "we don't gossip, and we don't say negative things." (ZhuanFalun) I always followed Teacher's Fa since we Dafa disciples are Fa particles and what we say and do all represent the Fa and validate the Fa.
When the persecution started, orders came down to "Crush [Falun Gong] economically." The authorities have been exploiting economic avenues like firing practitioners, withholding their salaries, extorting funds from practitioners' families, and other ways to try to eventually ruin everything for sentient beings. Practitioners do need to have money and funds to validate the Fa and save sentient beings. It caused a lot of difficulties and interfered with the task of saving sentient beings when many practitioners lost their jobs and had no source of income due to the persecution. It also created barriers for those everyday people who hadn't learned the truth from getting saved when they saw those practitioners' difficult situations.
Teacher said, "...matter and mind are one and the same." (ZhuanFalun) When I came to realize this issue from the Fa, things changed for me. One day my boss asked me to fill in a form for my promotion. I was promoted to a position one level higher with a monthly salary increase of about 150 yuan. One month later, my boss asked me to fill in another form for a promotion with a salary increase again. In less than a year, my salary reached the highest level because of the two promotions. Changes will follow when we improve on the Fa and remove our attachments since Teacher controls everything.
In the past few years, practitioners have been brutally persecuted. What makes it possible for the persecution to be carried out? The huge amount of money at the Party's disposal. On every "sensitive" day, especially during the Olympic Games, besides rampantly and illegally arresting practitioners, they'd assign one or two people to closely monitor each and every practitioner on their blacklist. They were able to do this since they have the money to pay for it. Therefore, we need to cut off the Party's source of income.
When we have enough money, it serves as our economic base to save sentient beings. I learned that it's a lot of work to make truth-clarification materials. I wanted to take over some of other practitioners' burdens and reduce their workload. I had a computer already and I know how to work with computers. When other practitioners heard about my plan, they helped me to set up a small truth-clarification material production center. They taught me how to connect to the Internet, download materials, edit content, and print out flyers. My home became one of those thousands of truth-clarification material centers around the nation. It's been running smoothly since 2006 and it's been providing some of my fellow practitioners with materials that they need to save sentient beings. Later, in order to make it more convenient to make materials, I bought a laptop so I can print out materials at practitioners' requests. Before when material centers needed funding, we'd each donate some money. Now that I have a decent income, I can purchase things that are needed at the center, from paper to printers, using my own money instead of asking fo practitioners' donations.
2. Coordinate with each other to eliminate the evil persecution
Since the persecution started on July 20 1999, many of those practitioners that went to Beijing to appeal to higher authorities or clarified the truth to save sentient beings were persecuted to some degree. At that time, we felt helpless and didn't know what to do when we heard a practitioner had been "illegally detained" or sent to a forced labor camp. We thought it happened because they didn't do well or had omissions in their cultivation. Unintentionally, we were separated and we followed the path that the old forces arranged. Therefore, the evil was able to take advantage of us, which caused many losses to our saving sentient beings.
Teachersaid, "You're all disciples in the same practice, and you're giving your all for the cosmos' Fa-rectification, so you should cooperate well with one another." Teacher alsosaid in this lecture, "The next person's things are your things, and your things are his things." ("Teaching the Fa at the Washington, D.C. Fa Conference 2002") Through studying Teacher's Fa, I saw my problem. I was determined to follow Teacher's Fa and be strict with myself.
One night, a senior practitioner was arrested when he went out to distribute informational materials. When I heard about it, I immediately sent forth righteous thoughts that we would definitely not allow this persecution! We are one body. To persecute him is to persecute me. With our continuous sending forth righteous thoughts, he came back the next day. After that, every time we heard about a practitioner being persecuted, we'd first help him or her by sending forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the persecution. We don't pick on that practitioner's problems anymore. Instead, we cooperate with each other unconditionally.
One evening I went to a practitioner's home. Her child cried and told me, "My mom was taken away by the police." I said, "Don't be afraid. We have Teacher's protection. Your mom will come back." I asked Teacher for help and sent forth strong righteous thoughts, "We will NOT allow the evil persecution!" I took their Dafa books to safe place right away. Then I went back to her home with another practitioner. We were trying to re-locate the truth-clarification materials. However, just when I was about to leave with the materials, someone knocked on the door. It was the police coming to search her home! There were so many materials that we didn't have a chance to take all of it with us. I told her child, "We are safe with Teacher's protection." She asked me to leave quickly and she'd stay home. When I got home, I didn't rest the whole night. I sent forth righteous thoughts continuously and I solemnly told the evil, "Those materials are our weapons to save sentient beings. We will not allow the evil to use any sort of excuse to persecute Dafa practitioners." Teacher strengthened my righteous thoughts to be very powerful and capable. The next day I went to her community and continued to send forth righteous thoughts near her home to eliminate the evil. Two days later, she was released without giving in to the evil. It turned out that her child didn't allow the police to come into their house and therefore all the materials were safe. How magnificent Dafa practitioners' children are! That practitioner had been clarifying the truth at the police station. She had very strong righteous thoughts, too. Teacher said, "For Dafa disciples as a whole, in the process of validating the Fa, when you work together in concert, the Fa power is great." ("Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference") When we cooperate with each other, Teacher will dissolve the tribulations for us.
3. Look inside to eliminate the evil's interference
I had studied the Fa for many years. However, when I was faced with problems, I wasn't able to always look inside. Instead, I often blamed others. I liked to be praised and I didn't like to be criticized. I was like this at home and I often exposed these attachments when I worked with fellow practitioners as well.
Once my printer didn't work anymore. I was very worried since fellow practitioners were waiting for materials from me. What should I do? I read the user manual very carefully and tried all the tips in the manual. I still couldn't figure out what went wrong. Eventually I had to ask another practitioner to come help me with it. While checking the printer, he said to me, "This is an evil interference. You should look inside when you encounter such issues." I wasn't happy when I heard that and thought, "This is obviously an issue with the printer. Why should I look inside?" He checked the printer very carefully but couldn't find out what went wrong, either. We had to take it to the maintenance center. The technical people there opened up the printer but didn't find anything, either. The printer simply didn't work. It took them a whole morning to find out that a little metal part was stuck. They pushed it a little and the printer returned to normal. Then I said to him, "See, the printer malfunctioned." Now I have realized that I said it because I didn't agree with him that I should look inside.
That night I read Teacher's "Teaching the Fa in the City of Los Angeles." Teachersaid in this lecture, "Cultivation is about looking inside yourself. Whether you are right or wrong, you should examine yourself." I realized that I should have looked inside. Previously when I read this line, I always wondered, "We should look inside when we were wrong. How come Teacher asked us to look inside even when we are right?" Now I know. Just like what happened to the printer, it appeared that I was right since the printer did malfunction. However, it actually happened because I had an attachment of not being willing to look inside and not willing to accept fellow practitioners' criticism. Therefore, the evil took advantage of me and made the printer "break." Otherwise, the printer would have worked just fine. From then on, I always reminded myself that I should listen to Teacher and look inside whether I'm right or wrong. However, sometimes I still forget to look inside until I am interfered with by the evil, which shows I still haven't strictly acted according to the Fa.
One day I went to purchase some printing accessories after our group study. On my way home, my chest hurt. Initially, I didn't pay attention to it. I endured the pain and continued home. But the pain became worse and worse. I thought maybe I was hungry, so I ate something. The pain became unbearable. I felt as if my heart was being pulled out. Suddenly, I realized that it must be evil interference. Eliminate it! Still the pain was horrible. Before I started to practice Dafa, I had many different illnesses. But this time, the pain was beyond words. Then I thought, "Why not look inside?" I started to think about what I had said and done in those recent few days, "Maybe I should have shared with the senior practitioner from the Fa that it was the evil persecution. I shouldn't have been vague. I should have told him that I didn't plan to work in the factory anymore since it's too time consuming and it didn't leave me enough time to work on the three things any more." Just then, I suddenly felt something running away from my heart and a sensation like clear water flowing filled my heart. My chest didn't hurt at all anymore, as if nothing had happened. I knew it must be that Teacher had again helped me eliminate the evil that was persecuting me. I stood in front of Teacher's picture with my hands in heshi. I couldn't hold back my tears. I had let Teacher down again--I bothered Teacher so much.
It was an unforgettable lesson. Only through paying attention to what Teacher said about looking inside will we not be interfered with by the evil and will we able to save sentient beings. Looking inside is such a great tool for us to improve ourselves!
