(Clearwisdom.net) I obtained the Fa before the persecution began on July 20, 1999. Due to my shallow understanding of the Fa, at first I was only practicing on and off and was not diligent at all, but when the persecution began, I stepped solidly onto the path of cultivation. However, because my cultivation was not solid before the persecution, I tended to use all kinds of excuses to cover up my own attachments. I always thought that I had abilities, and hence I felt proud of myself. Because of that, I did not study the Fa diligently. As a result, on my way home from work one day, I was secretly arrested by officers from the National Security Bureau. They said that they would search my house. I had planned to meet with some practitioners that afternoon so that they could pick up materials that I had printed at home. The night before, I had worked late, and the materials, the copy of Zhuan Falun that I read every day, a printer, and other truth clarification materials had not been put away in safe places. Worried, I realized that I must send a message to those practitioners in order to keep the losses to a minimum.
Silently I asked Master to help me. This was my first confrontation with the police, and I was sure that they would try to keep my arrest a secret from my fellow practitioners in order to use me to get some information. Therefore, they allowed me to use my cell phone to contact my family. I took this chance to tell my family that I had been arrested. At that moment, my only thought was to alert the other practitioners to not come to my house and for my family members to put away the materials. But I had no thoughts of stopping the police from going to my house or from persecuting me. As my family prevented the police from entering my house, the practitioners left safely. My family members also quickly moved some Dafa books, all the movable hardware, and a new printer to a safe place. However, because my thought at that moment was not very pure and righteous, the computer that I used to do Dafa tasks, two printers, and some truth-clarifying materials that I had made were confiscated. Since I refused to cooperate with the police, they wanted to illegally detain me in a detention center. Because I only held the thought that the detention center was not a place for a practitioner to be in, but I failed to negate any thoughts of living under any kind of police surveillance, a few days later I was put under house arrest for six months.
This incident reminded me of another that happened two years ago. One day, after I gave a colleague some truth-clarification materials, he turned the materials in to the authorities at my work place. A leader at the work place told me that they were planning to report me to the local 610 Office. Without hesitation, I immediately told him that he would not do so. It turned out that he did not report me at all and never mentioned it again. One single thought brought about two different consequences for two similar incidents. From these experiences I realized that it is vital that Dafa disciples keep every single one of our thoughts righteous. Our merciful Master has told us this in "Dafa Disciples' Righteous Thoughts are Powerful" in Essentials for Further Advancement II:
"Actually, every Dafa disciple has abilities. It's just that the abilities do not manifest in the surface dimension, so they think that they don't have supernormal abilities. But regardless of whether they can manifest in the surface dimension or not, when a person's True Thoughts come forth, they are very powerful."
Master gave me powerful abilities, but I had failed to use them well. I felt very sorry for myself. On top of the unnecessary trouble I brought to my own cultivation, I had also added a greater burden to fellow practitioners when they had to take over my tasks. Furthermore, I also indirectly hindered our entire group in our efforts to save sentient beings.
I hope that fellow practitioners will all learn from my lesson. When problems occur, let's all remember our ability to use powerful, spontaneous righteous thoughts and walk well our path in assisting Master in offering salvation to sentient beings.
