Western Practitioner: Becoming More Solid in My Faith

(Clearwisdom.net)

For many years I have been trying to figure out why our projects were not more successful. For too long I focused my efforts on planning and finalizing the project based on how it would look to others on the surface. Things had to be perfect in my eyes.

I would still share with others in the project to try to convince them to follow my way because I still felt that due to my experiences in life that I knew best and that it still mattered how things went on the surface level.

I wanted things to be done my way. I would rewrite a statement that someone already wrote because I felt my way would touch people's hearts best. I would re-situate a banner or dance group in the parade because I thought my way would have the best effect.

When Master taught about putting down my own ideas in order to harmonize and work together, I heard Master, but I did not fully enlighten to the true depths of why Master taught this principle.

This attachment and lack of understanding of Fa manifested into a dangerous state that made me even start to doubt Master.

I had big fears about one particular project and how I felt the people we were trying to reach would misunderstand the content of our message.

I took it upon myself to raise this issue with other practitioners. I shared with them that it may be better in saving people if the message was edited.

I started to write emails to the project office with my concerns. When I did not get any reply I wanted to push harder to get my concerns to Master as I felt an urgency that this was a serious issue and that I was being responsible in trying to protect the project. I started to get angry because I felt those I emailed were not taking this issue seriously enough and were not being responsible to Dafa.

Then one day I was reading the Fa-Lecture During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference where Master said:

"...when it comes to the Fa-rectification and what I choose, all beings' harmonizing and completing things according to my choices and contributing their best ideas and approaches--not to change what I want, but to harmonize and complete things according to what I've said--is the best thought a being in the cosmos could have."

This hit me like a hammer in the head. I had been trying to change what Master had created to suit my own human ideas on how things should be based on my own human understanding and fears. It was clearer to me now that the message was crafted to save people based on Master's requirements and standards of Fa. It was me and my understanding that did not meet the requirements and this is why I had fear.

This issue also woke me up to an even bigger realization, that I had no idea what Master meant when He stated: "to harmonize and complete things according to what I've said--is the best thought a being in the cosmos could have."

I did not know how to harmonize and complete things according to what Master had said. I couldn't remember Master's Fa on this process.

I then read the Fa teaching in Florida way back in 2001 where Master said:

"Let me tell you, all those who remain and that can persecute Dafa and Dafa disciples are due to our students themselves. Students who haven't taken sending forth righteous thoughts seriously: the evil in the dimensions that you are supposed to shoulder and be responsible for has not been eliminated. That's the cause. So you must take sending forth righteous thoughts seriously.

Master continues by stating:

"...how well each person does in the process of his cultivation, his improvement, and his understanding, and how well he does in the Fa-rectification is directly related to his own cultivation."

It was then crystal clear to me that when Master says, "to harmonize and complete things according to what I've said," if we want to harmonize and complete our projects then we have to understand the importance of personal cultivation and how our success or failure in our projects is due to our lack of cultivation, and that this is the true reason why the persecution has not ended yet.

As I understand it, if each student can clearly realize what his responsibility is when sending forth righteous thoughts and be able to truly calm his mind and truly produce the effect of righteous thoughts together, then in 5 minutes the evil in the Three Realms will never exist again.

I knew the concept that my shortcomings and attachments might affect the overall success of certain things, but I never knew the seriousness of this reality on a deeper level.

In "Teaching the Fa at the Meeting with Asia-Pacific Students" in 2004 in New York Master states:

"...with a lot of things you do, when you are free of human notions your own attachments won't get mixed in. If, beyond being responsible to the Fa, you have no human attachments, none of your own things, and none of your personal factors mixed in, then you are sure to do that thing well. Whereas once you've mixed in your own factors, then you can't do that thing well.

"A Dafa disciple's responsibility is to validate the Fa. Validating the Fa is cultivation, and what you remove in the cultivation process is none other than the attachment to self."

Master continues:

"The more you put you first or mix in [factors of] self, the less mighty-virtue you have, and that's why it is less likely that you succeed at things or do them well. Dafa's things should be the most sacred, and that's why the less you have of your own notions and involve your own factors, the better you can handle them and the more likely you are to succeed."

To me this directly targets the issue I am facing.

When Master tells me to cooperate well, when Master tells me to take criticism better, when Master tells me to look inside, and I don't do it diligently with every opportunity that arises during personal tribulations, then I have not weeded out the deep attachment to self. So, when I do things, my attachment to self and the factors within the attachment to self are in the way and my righteous thoughts are weak.

This makes complete sense because our failures can't be explained any other way.

Looking back on projects I have done I had become so excited whenever we had a big victory in the public eye only to realize later that the actual effects of the victory on the surface were very short lived and forgotten, and the victories were not continually repeated.

I realized that after all these years I was still locked due to my own lack of cultivation. My stupid human worries continued to interfere with me. I held anger in my heart about other practitioners for all kinds of selfish reasons.

Although my anger and frustration on the surface looked like I was concerned about the environment, my actions were not a sign that I was being responsible to Dafa or to the environment. It was instead my own deep attachments that were being targeted by the old forces to further add interference.

Master also tells us that the old forces do not dare tamper with the Fa rectification. Instead, they do dare to interfere with practitioners who have attachments. They then exploit these attachments to make the practitioners themselves ruin things.

The old forces are very sly. I have realized that they target each of us with custom made things that appear to perfectly target our personal and individual attachments.

Someone attached to lust will see things everywhere that will try to make him fall.

Someone attached to anger will meet people that will push his buttons.

Someone attached to vanity will see things everywhere telling him that he is the best.

Someone attached to jealousy will be jealous of others because the seed is within him.

Someone attached to competition will fight with others if things don't go his way.

These situations are created especially for us by the old forces because we still have seeds within us that will spark an emotion and they are so deep that we don't even realize they are there.

In all his teachings Master never tells us how to carry out the specifics of our many projects. He only tells us how to raise our levels and how to cultivate so we can think more like righteous gods.

Through Zhuan Falun and Master's other writings, He constantly corrects us to help us break through our cement-like human thinking. Still, I do not try to cooperate well all the time. I still do not take criticism better at every opportunity. I still sometimes handle tribulations like an everyday person. And worse yet I still do not even know that these things are the reason my righteous thoughts are low and why I am not more successful in my projects.

When I dug even deeper, I saw that my inability to be diligent when faced with these attachments is directly because I don't fully believe in what my Master has taught me all these years, so I do not take the necessary steps to change my conventional thinking and battle my human attachments. I still take Master's compassion and warnings for granted.

Put more seriously, I still do not believe in Master 100%. I might say that I do, but when issues like this arise, I can plainly see how I still do not follow what my Teacher says closely in all aspects of my cultivation. I do not accomplish things according to how Master has taught us by diligent personal cultivation, so how can I possibly say that I believe in Him 100%?

In reality if Master was standing right beside me and told me to go north I would go north. If Master said go west I would go west. Why is it so hard to just follow what He says when it comes to cultivating daily?

I believe that our future success in everything we do is based 1000n our faith in Master and the ability to not just simply enlighten to a Fa principle and then forget it an hour later, but to fundamentally understand the importance of personal cultivation and how it is directly related to our righteous thoughts and the success of all our projects.

I must remember not to change what Master wants, but to contribute my best ideas and approaches to harmonize and complete things according to what Master has said, which is the best righteous thought a being in the cosmos can have.

In my understanding how much I can do this is the true display of the level of faith that I have in our Teacher.

I feel Master's enormous compassion for not only saving people, but for giving practitioners around the world another great opportunity to further succeed in their cultivation. Thank you.