(Clearwisdom.net) Several practitioners have recently been illegally arrested. Our local Fa study group decided to send righteous thoughts towards the police officers who had carried out the arrests. We focused our attention on them in hopes that they would receive karmic retribution for their bad deeds. We did this for a while, without any apparent results.
When I studied the Fa, I noticed that my state of mind was not right. I was sending righteous thoughts with a feeling of resentment and a desire for vengeance. With these human emotions, I lowered my cultivation level to that of everyday people, while at the same time strengthening the bad factors of the interference. As a result, my sending forth righteous thoughts was ineffective. Teacher said:
"If you don't let the evil's interference sway you, bad factors won't arise from you, the evil will become trivial, you will become towering and massive, and your righteous thoughts will be ample. That's truly the case." ("Fa Teaching Given at the Epoch Times Meeting")
Teacher has told us that our purpose is not to dissolve the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or to stop the persecution, but to save more sentient beings. Teacher said:
"Calmly think things over, and broaden your mind a little. If you can really regard everyone as a sentient being that we want to save, and then you try to save them, see if things change." ("Fa Teaching at the 2009 Greater New York International Fa Conference")
In "Fa Teaching Given in Manhattan," Teacher also pointed out:
"Everything that you do goes towards your cultivation, for this is the form that our cultivation assumes--a formless kind of form. All that you encounter in society is within the scope of your cultivation, and it is meant precisely to see how you handle things. Then confronting this persecution is, naturally, also within the scope of your cultivation."
My understanding is that we should expand our hearts to the point that, "It encompasses everything and leaves out nothing." (Lunyu in Zhuan Falun)
A practitioner once told me that when a team leader of the guards, who oversaw practitioners being persecuted, became ill and was hospitalized, some practitioners said that he had finally received karmic retribution for his bad deeds. However, one elderly practitioner who had been severely tortured by this guard said calmly, "I'm going to save him." This practitioner then went to a florists to buy flowers for the guard. The owner of the shop was curious as to why an elderly man would want to buy flowers for someone else. The practitioner then explained how he had benefited from practicing Falun Gong, and that Dafa taught him to be a good person. He also told the owner how he was persecuted by the CCP, and that the guard who had persecuted him was deceived by the CCP and was now in the hospital. He added that he wanted to save this guard so that his future would not be ruined by the CCP. The shop owner was very moved after hearing this and wanted to give the flowers to him free of charge. But the elderly practitioner insisted on paying for the flowers, and so the owner only charged him for the cost of the flowers.
The guard was very surprised to see the practitioner. But when he noticed the elderly man's benevolent gesture and the flowers he brought, he felt guilty, and invited him into the room. Under the practitioner's strong righteous thoughts, the hospital staff and other patients there, quietly listened to him tell them the facts about Falun Gong. Some people had tears in their eyes, and the guard said that from that day forward, he would stop persecuting practitioners and do his best to protect them.
Teacher said:
"The Dafa disciples of the world together encompass the whole earth, with each person having a certain reach. All of what you encounter and meet with owes to factors that are present within your expanse. If you can have sufficient righteous thoughts, you can then be towering and massive within your expanse and suppress any bad things that might exist there. Were every Dafa disciple able to achieve this, the entire world would change, since each of you assumes responsibility for a large expanse in this world and represents a certain segment of sentient beings." ("Fa Teaching Given at the Epoch Times Meeting")
