Fa Teaching Given at the 2010 New York Fa Conference (Questions & Answers – Part 1 of 2)
Li Hongzhi
Sept. 5, 2010 ~ Manhattan
Disciple: In Hong Yin II, what is meant by “The Four Great Elements have weathered away”?
Master: I can explain this, but I think this question doesn’t have much relevance to our present tasks that have to do with saving sentient beings. What Shakyamuni meant by “the Four Great Elements” was earth, water, fire, and wind—the fundamental cause of a universe’s generation in a certain realm within one cosmic body. I just made it clear that in a certain realm it was the Four Great Elements that were the fundamental cause behind the creation of that universe. But still, that was not the ultimate, truly fundamental cause. With the cosmic body progressing through the stages of formation, stasis, and degeneration over the long course of time and reaching the point of degeneration, things appear as if in a process of weathering away.
Disciple: Korean Dafa disciples in the mainland miss Master.
Master: Thank you all. You needn’t put such things on the question slips. I know that you all miss Master, and Master misses you! (All disciples applaud loudly)
Disciple: Beijing Dafa disciples miss Master ever more as the end draws nearer.
Master: I’m going to skip reading slips like this aloud. I’ll just select the ones with questions to read.
Disciple: Dafa disciples send Master their greetings from Beijing Agricultural University, China University of Geosciences, Beihang University, Beijing Forestry University, and…
Master: Let’s not send up more greetings, as they take time to read out. Thank you all. (Disciples applaud)
Disciple: The entire body of Dafa disciples in Nanchang, Guangdong, Hunan, and Xi’ning send their greetings to their magnificent Master.
Master: I’m going to skip reading the greetings, and proceed to answer questions. I want to start with questions—answering questions.
Disciple: The entire body of Thailand students send their greetings to Master.
Master: Another greeting. Thank you all.
Disciple: Ziyang, Sichuan province, Chengdu… (Collective laughter)
Master: Another one.
Disciple: How can we remove as quickly as possible the notions and attachments formed by living among ordinary people?
Master: (Laughing) Amidst challenges, or when things can’t be resolved, people are always trying to think of some tactic to use. But there is no shortcut, in fact: you have to truly put cultivation into practice, and cultivate in line with the Great Law. If a person wants to move toward godhood, and yet he’s thinking, “Let’s see if we can find some special kind of shortcut” (laughing), could he possibly be progressing by really, solidly doing cultivation? That doesn’t work. You have to truly, solidly cultivate if you are to go higher.
Disciple: After Master taught the Fa last time at the Washington, DC, Fa conference, many disciples in the mainland realized that they too should cooperate with the coordinators unconditionally. They went so far as to seek out former site coordinators and assistants to ask them to serve as overall coordinators now, despite the fact that these former site coordinators and assistants in many cases have never truly stepped forward.
Master: Before, in the mainland, those Dafa disciples who served in positions of responsibility at practice sites were not in those positions on account of having cultivated particularly well, but rather, because they had the ability to carry out such work and the desire to do so. It has to be cultivators who handle cultivators’ things. It’s not enough to consider only how good someone is at handling things; whether he is able to cultivate also needs to be looked at. This is something that can never, ever, be changed.
When I last taught the Fa, I expressly added a line about, “that pertains to Dafa disciples outside of mainland China.” The circumstances in mainland China are different, so I was not addressing the people there.
Disciple: The students in the mainland who are diligent are busy clarifying the truth and saving people, and don’t have enough time to study the Fa or do the exercises, which leads to getting persecuted. Some students, on the other hand, invest the majority of their time in studying the Fa and exercising, and rarely clarify the truth. Many are like this. In this kind of situation, how long will it take before we are able to save enough people?
Master: Basically, you’re saying some just clarify the truth but don’t study the Fa, while others just study the Fa but don’t clarify the truth. (Everyone laughs) This is precisely an excuse that the old forces use to persecute Dafa disciples. [That’s what happens] if you fail to really balance these two things, as Dafa’s saving of people is not something an ordinary person can carry out. It has to be a cultivator. So, you must study the Fa, cultivate, and become a cultivator. It doesn’t count when an ordinary person does it, and he doesn’t gain that mighty virtue. Then if you, as a cultivator, fail to carry out this task and just study the Fa, have you not considered the purpose of studying the Fa? It is for your own success as well as to save sentient beings. By studying the Fa you gain the Fa yourself, but do you only want to gain—to gain the benefits of Dafa? In other words, if, while Dafa disciples are being persecuted and Dafa is being maligned, you won’t stand up and say a few words of support, are you worthy of gaining the Fa? That’s the idea.
Disciple: Some Western students in northern Europe ask that people adopt a calendar-based approach to studying Zhuan Falun, and…
Master: There should be no such thing. What’s best for you is to have a set time for studying the Fa. Studying the Fa together is the form that I have given to you. But, you must be diligent about studying the Fa, and study often, and only then can you not lose your bearings, can you walk your path correctly, and do well what you should do. Don’t alter the manner of studying the Fa. Simply read it straight through. Don’t go and start something different, trying to be novel. I think it’s human thinking that leads people to pick and choose which part of the Fa to study or to come up with a new approach to Fa-study.
Disciple: In our area there is a Shen Yun promotions coordinator who, for various reasons, doesn’t come out anymore and is rather depressed. Could Master say a few words?
Master: I’d rather not pass judgment. (Everyone laughs) As long as this affair has not ended, Dafa disciples are still in the midst of cultivating themselves and passing through trials, and whether or not the person has what it takes is being observed. I don’t want to block his path. Each person is arriving at his own insights, and each is cultivating. While what you see is that he doesn’t come out now, you should know that he’s going through some hard times, and in the midst of a trial. Everyone will go through that during their trials. The crucial thing is how the person handles himself.
Disciple: One fellow cultivator says that not trusting the top person in charge equates to not trusting Master. Is that right?
Master: I would like to talk to you all again about this. What I spoke about was the principal person in charge of a project, or the main person in charge of a region’s Dafa Association. This is very important. As for the persons in charge at levels below, or in charge of specific locales or certain departments within a given project, it’s not that critical. However, as our Dafa disciples, since Master asked that you change your state, then you should do as I’ve described and listen to your management, and follow their command, since after all how each department does things is ultimately coming from the directives of the main person in charge. Let me repeat how this works one more time: I am referring to the main persons in charge—the persons in charge of major projects and initiatives, and the top person in each Dafa Association—not the various departments under them, or the different practice-site and Fa-study coordinators under a given region’s Association. They’re not who I’m referring to. They don’t assume responsibility for the entire project. But with that said, you should still follow and do a good job carrying out what the persons in charge of various locales and the various departments or divisions within a project say, since many of them were asked to take the approaches they do by the top person in charge. If there really are serious problems, however, you can always report it as normal. But, over the years, you have formed a habit whereby you always think poorly of some people, and you have had a hard time putting an end to that attachment since you have become accustomed to looking outward. I want to undo this state, and eliminate that substance for you. You can’t go on like that. The time for that has passed.
So why did I not say anything before? Well, consider what your state would have been if you had done what I’m asking right from day one. If you were to just do whatever the person in charge said, you would not have walked your own paths. Moreover, if the person in charge had led you off-track, you wouldn’t have realized it. And if the person in charge didn’t himself have any ordeals to go through, he couldn’t have cultivated. Do you understand my point? That is why I taught you as I did in the preceding years, and didn’t raise this issue. Now, however, the people in charge have gone through ten years of ordeals, and that cultivation process, and passed through many trials and walked their own paths. The vast majority know how to handle things. We now need to change that state of yours. And with this, eliminate the attachment you have to habitually looking outward, searching outward, and looking at the person in charge any time problems arise. Before, you got in the habit of looking outward and always disapproving of the person in charge, and even up through today, you still don’t approve of him. (Everyone laughs) That’s no good. You have to accept him. Now, as to the people in charge, some really have done a poor job. While some have done poorly, the majority have done a good job. So, Master is still keeping an eye on things.
Disciple: Some fellow cultivators have pointed out that while I am working for one of our media, I also agree to do programs for fellow cultivators at other media. Does this mean I am not focusing on doing one thing well?
Master: Our Dafa disciples are shouldering many tasks at the same time. If you can do one thing well, while managing to do another thing well at the same time, then go for it. But if you can’t complete one thing, yet are taking on something else, then you won’t be doing either thing well. So you have to figure out how to balance these things. There’s an expression in northeastern China, which is: “A blind bear picking corn.” (Everyone laughs) By “blind bear” northeasterners mean a bear, so, how exactly does a bear go about picking corn? He breaks off one ear of corn and stuffs it under his arm, then tries to stuff another one under the same arm, then picks another one and tries to stuff this one under the same arm again, only to end up having one ear in the end. (Everyone laughs)
Disciple: Recently in the mainland an excellent cultivator, who was a coordinator in a certain location, suddenly experienced what took the form of sickness karma, and he passed away, leaving many heartbroken. The cultivators who were close to him are reflecting on what part they had in it, or are there other reasons?
Master: After going through so much persecution, and traveling so far down your paths, you should all know how these things come about. You can ask your fellow cultivators, and get clear on things.
Many arrangements like this have been made by the old forces. Of course, when the arrangements were being made, the student was not aware that it was old forces doing so. At that time, Master had not yet designated them as old forces. So the student agreed to the arrangements, and they were cemented as such. At the time, some believed that it was just how things should be done, and so they signed on to certain things. And when the appointed time arrived, the old forces had a handle, so to speak, to grab on to and persecute him. There have been other scenarios as well. For instance, many people have done their cultivation by watching others and simply following suit instead of walking their own paths. The old forces thus make the person depart early, and use the occasion to see how people react and see if they keep cultivating. Since cultivation is something that you must do proactively, out of your own will, when you are tempted by profit and gain, or when you suffer the wrenching pain in connection to your reputation and emotions, you must really be able to readily let go of those things, and only then will things work out for you. So, when you all do well after seeing someone else do well, or don’t do well after seeing him not do well, and all of you are like this, then you are as good as thrusting that person into peril. In that case, your human attachments hasten his departure. The old forces thus seize upon this, and don’t let him live, for their stance is that he affected a great many people who looked to him and didn’t really cultivate. Were those people really making the grade? Could they really cultivate? Was their cultivation real or not? Only when a person does his own cultivation does it count. So, they really seize upon this handle, and it’s hard for Master to do anything about it. That’s because they have seized upon a principle, and say, “Look at all those people—who among them is really cultivating? We have to get this person out of the way.” This is why it’s imperative that you walk your own path in cultivation. You absolutely must cultivate yourself.
Of course, there are more than just these two scenarios. Some people have long harbored an attachment to illness, which is likewise dangerous. That’s because some people think that their illnesses will go away by practicing Dafa, and that they have a protective shield over them—“As long as I join the ranks of Dafa disciples, I won’t have illness, and won’t have anything to fear.” What a strong human attachment! But has that person carried out real cultivation, then? Or is he treating Dafa like a protective shield? Even if that wasn’t how the person was initially thinking, it’s still an attachment.
But, don’t we need to be free of all omissions if we are to cultivate to the point of Consummation? We cannot have any omissions in terms of human attachments. Any human attachment is a problem. All must go. Any of them can lead a student to encounter unfortunate things. I trust that many students are well aware of this, having gone through as many ordeals as they have. I don’t need to explain further. These issues are all things you have overcome on your paths.
Disciple: Some Dafa disciples in China won’t step forward after having been persecuted, but, having disciples who lag behind will drag out the Fa-rectification process. Could we ask Master to enlighten us on this?
Master: They won’t delay it, for time waits for no one, after all. It’s just that Master is continuing to provide opportunities, and we can wait for you during the process in between. However, the true, great, final moment cannot be delayed.
Disciple: At this point in Fa-rectification, how can Dafa disciples in the mainland do better? They ask me to send greetings to our revered Master on their behalf.
Master: Save sentient beings, clarify the truth, do what Dafa disciples are supposed to do, and cultivate yourselves well. Don’t go looking for some kind of novel approach. Don’t mess around with those inferior means. Simply do the three things with confidence and dignity. Thank you for the greetings. (Applause)
Disciple: Could Master please explicitly instruct us again on the Fa principle of not collecting funds. For example, some projects outside of China need funds, and some students put in money and some contribute labor. Does that count as collecting funds?
Master: When I talk about collecting funds I am primarily targeting the situation in mainland China, in fact. Problems are rare outside China, though in Taiwan there have been a few exceptional cases of people taking advantage of Dafa disciples’ gaps. But in mainland China, the crooked people like that are many, and so I was mainly addressing the state of things in the mainland. So in other places, such problems are rather uncommon. Some Dafa disciples have come together and contributed funds so as to start a certain project, but that doesn’t count as collecting funds; they haven’t solicited funds from other people. So that doesn’t count. Of course, some Dafa disciples who are business owners and some who are financially very sound, have given some of their money to support Dafa projects, and this, again, is different from collecting funds. In these cases the person is proactively, out of his own heart, doing so, and it doesn’t impact anything since his finances are sound. So it doesn’t count as a problem. Don’t start up memberships, and don’t go around soliciting donations from our students. Whoever does this is doing wrong.
Disciple: Recently, in some places students have had rather severe bouts of sickness karma. Some students have raised the idea of having everyone send righteous thoughts and reaching a benevolent solution with the being that’s causing the sickness karma. Is this interpretation of “benevolent solution” and this approach to it correct?
Master: Dafa disciples are compassionate, and Master’s law bodies are benevolently resolving your many positive and negative karmic bonds. This kind of thinking isn’t wrong, but one needs to consider whether the situation is indeed how you see it, or whether you are doing it for lack of a better choice and with inadequate righteous thoughts.
Some people who used to have illness did recover as soon as they started cultivating Dafa, and they really were cured. But, in order to remove your attachments and test whether or not you have what it takes, the old forces cause you to have pain wherever the focal point of your former illness was, or have a relapse, with the symptoms even being the same, all to see whether you believe in Dafa. How are you to handle it when that happens? Human or divine—the difference lies in one thought. If what arises is a righteous thought, and you take the position that all of this is false, that it’s the old forces meddling, and you remind yourself of how long you’ve cultivated Dafa for and that no such thing is possible, if that thought truly comes from within, instantly the problem will vanish. But this isn’t just something you say and then are able to achieve. That kind of unwavering righteous thought comes from within you, and it is not superficial or just lip service. Suppose some people think, “Oh, Master told us what to say, so that’s what I’ll say,” yet your heart is unsteady, or you are just doing it for Master to see, and have not reached that realm yet. In that case, when that thought of yours does come forth, it will not be able to budge them and have the strength to defeat the old forces’ things. So it won’t work. Only with a righteous thought produced by cultivation will it turn out well.
Precisely so that you can handle such things well, I have never stopped telling you to sincerely study the Fa and do real cultivation, for once the righteous thoughts are strong, you will truly have the god-like might to split a mountain in half—split it with but one thought. Just see if the old forces dare to meddle then. When your righteous thoughts arise, nothing can block your path. It is thus primarily students who haven’t been very diligent, who don’t study the Fa frequently, or whose minds are elsewhere while studying Fa who have been interfered with the most and persecuted the worst. That’s always the case. The Dafa disciples who have cultivated well, however, truly cannot be interfered with—not even in the least. Moreover, their righteous thoughts are strong, and they are helping others at the same time. They are truly helping Master rectify the Fa.
Disciple: Many students in mainland China regard protective charms emblazoned with “Falun Dafa Hao” on them to be essential materials for clarifying the truth, and the first thing they do upon meeting someone is to pass these out. Yet they don’t clarify the truth in depth.
Master: That’s of course not right to do. You are passing those out not knowing what that person is up to—“Here you go, take one!” (Audience laughs) Maybe that person you gave it to was just persecuting Dafa disciples in a labor camp a minute ago, so why would you give him one? What are you protecting him for? To keep him safe, so that he can carry on with persecuting Dafa disciples? What you need to do is to clarify the truth to him, to get him to understand, and cease doing bad things. Once you have truly saved him, then give him a protective charm. This needs to be done in depth and in earnest. Saving people is not the same as passing out flyers, whereby every flyer given out counts.
Disciple: When students in the mainland see family or friends experiencing serious illness, they tell the person to recite “Falun Dafa Hao” and assure him that he will be healed.
Master: Speaking in terms of the present circumstances in the mainland, if the person [who is told that] really has the courage to, in that evil setting, recite it—and even recite it aloud—then he will be healed. (Audience applauds) But, there is no guarantee that it will work if a person recites it in a less oppressive setting. The reason is, when one has the courage to come forth and speak well of Dafa in [a setting] where there is pressure from the evil, it is different from just going around and saying the same thing in America. If you go out in public here and yell, “Falun Dafa Hao!”, even the police might follow your lead and give a wave of support (audience laughs) since there’s no pressure. But that said, if when the person says “Dafa Hao” it comes from his heart, then it will have an effect. Thus, the kind of outcome it has depends on the person’s intent and what he is thinking, as well as the surrounding environment. If circumstances are good, things are relaxed, and there’s no pressure, then it depends on the situation. This is where a person’s heart is the determining factor.
Disciple: Some mainland Chinese who have never practiced Falun Gong leave China, hoping to obtain some form of resident status. They come to our practice sites to learn the exercises, and at all sorts of activities take pictures. They lie to the government when applying for refugee status. Also, some of our Dafa disciples have provided reference letters for their family members [to apply for asylum]. Does doing this accord with the Fa’s requirements?
Master: Dafa disciples debated about these things a lot when the persecution first began. Here’s how I see it. [Figuring out] whether the person is genuine is the government’s business, and as Dafa disciples we have no administrative authority in the matter. If the person wants to learn, and wants to do the exercises, would you refuse to teach him? You still have to teach him. What’s key is that along the way you clarify the truth to him. Helping him get clear on things is key.
In general Dafa disciples are kind, so, if that person wants to have pictures taken, let him, and same for if he wants to learn. Indeed, though, if in that case he uses Falun Gong to gain political asylum, then he is indebted to Falun Gong, and from that day forth he must not do anything bad to Falun Gong. If he does, he will immediately suffer retribution. He will have to pay back the debt, and pay it off in equal measure. He made it out of China and to the U.S. by using Falun Gong, and so he will have to repay that much in kind. Perhaps he will break some law and be repatriated, or receive retribution of an equal magnitude. At present, some lawyers are holding classes for learning Falun Gong, and even tell people to study Zhuan Falun to improve their chances of getting a refugee status. Whatever the lawyer’s motive, he incurs a massive debt to Falun Gong. But, looked at from another angle, getting people to learn Dafa isn’t doing a bad thing. Though these [asylum seekers] left China to make money or earn a living, and profiting is their top priority, even then, in the course of [doing those deceptive things] they are sure to come to some understanding of Falun Gong, and for this reason we generally aren’t too concerned. It’s the government’s role to concern itself with such things, after all, not ours. So do your best not to get involved and form negative karmic bonds with those people.
Disciple: Master, I’d like to ask, when we share together about promoting Shen Yun, should we broach the subject of improving xinxing rather than just discussing work?
Master: Right. With whatever work it may be, if Dafa disciples can manage to have somewhat stronger righteous thoughts, things will go better. Of course, that doesn’t mean that it’s okay to ignore pressing work and focus solely on Fa-study. It would be a problem if you did that and, by the time you finished studying, the person you needed to get ahold of was gone and the business at hand couldn’t get done. You shouldn’t be too dogmatic about anything. The Fa is something you definitely need to study, in the right setting and at the right time, and it’s something that you need to give due treatment.
Disciple: Are the thoughts and personality that were formed in us over the course of time old-force arrangements? If it creates significant interference for one’s Fa-study, how is one to fully break free?
Master: The thoughts and ideas, or the various notions that form in your brain, were all formed over time in the course of your interactions and encounters out in the world. And the older one is, the more one has amassed. In mainland China, there are more and more bad phenomena, and they are increasingly apparent. People have noted that mainland Chinese kids are startlingly different from kids overseas. Kids from the mainland know about everything and are very crafty. Indeed, bad things of every sort are coming about in that society, and there is no moral baseline for anything—be it the newspapers, the media, people’s conduct, or the things people say. The little kids’ heads there are inundated with a lot of inappropriate things, more than kids who live outside of China, and they are thus a lot more like adults in that sense.
Whatever enters a person’s mind stays there. Human beings have memory. While we call it “memory,” and it sounds like something conceptual, it is in fact something really, truly material. When people say things, or when someone explains something to you, or tries to convince you of something, “yap, yap, yap”—a steady stream [of things] pours into your head. Real substances are actually being hurled toward you. When some people get really upset and keep raising objections, they are in fact repelling all those things. Of course, what Dafa disciples do is good for people, and our speech stems from righteous thoughts, so what comes forth from our mouths when we speak are lotus flowers. By contrast, none of what forms inside ordinary people amidst society at large is very good, and upon entering one’s body those things will in fact dominate a person. People may say that it doesn’t matter what they see with their eyes, and that they can just stop looking at something if they no longer want to see it. But that’s not true. When your vision makes contact with something, that thing has entered. That’s because any thing can replicate itself in other dimensions, so the longer you look at something, the more it enters. No matter what it is, be it on television or on a computer, it enters once you look at it. As more of these bad things are loaded up in your brain and body, they end up dominating your actions. Your speech, your mode of thinking, your perspective on things—all of it will be affected.
People are the product of their environment. This is true without exception. And this is something that not just cultivators understand, as the older generation of ordinary people realized this, too, at one time. In one’s cultivation, the stored-up things are gradually removed. But if you want to remove it all in one shot upon starting to cultivate, generally speaking that’s not possible. The reason is, it takes more than one cold night to form ice three feet thick: the things that have formed are hard to purge in one shot, for you haven’t sufficient heat and haven’t reached the point of being able to melt it. So you have to make many attempts on it before you can melt it away. If you cultivate well today, that much will thaw; cultivate well tomorrow, and that much more will be melted away; cultivate well the following day, and that much more will melt. And it will continue, little by little, till the point that your righteous thoughts are truly sufficient. At that point the amount of heat you generate will have increased, and you will be able to fully melt it away.
Then how is it that bad thoughts seem to recur in a person after he had apparently purged all such things? And what’s more, every day he is sending righteous thoughts to clear those things out, yet they keep surfacing—how come they never get eliminated? Indeed, that stuff didn’t enter in just one day (Master laughs), and nor was it formed in an instant. That’s why. Some people may figure that in that case, perhaps if they ask Master for help, Master will just remove it all for them. But wouldn’t you then be asking Master to cultivate on your behalf? In the end, it wouldn’t count as your cultivation. And whatever is not counted as your cultivation means that you didn’t cultivate it, so there would thus be omissions in your cultivation. So upon your return to the heavens, how would the multitude of gods react after looking over your cultivation? In many cases, if you don’t handle something through your own cultivation, if you don’t gain that mighty virtue, and if you haven’t suffered the hardship [that accompanies cultivation], with Master clearing things out for you every step of the way, then the heavens won’t receive you. It’s unacceptable if you still have debts that aren’t paid. What is owed must be paid—it’s a law of this cosmos. Master can pay back a portion for you, and he can clear out from your mind what should be cleared out, but, you yourself must cultivate that part which you are supposed to in the cultivation process, and endure the little bit that you are supposed to endure. It will not pose any danger to you, but you must grasp what cultivation is and how to go about it. Only when you come to new insights and improve does it count as cultivation.
Disciple: May I ask Master to please talk about the importance of The Art of Truth, Compassion, Tolerance exhibit?
Master: The exhibit’s importance is the same as that of other projects, as all are efforts by Dafa disciples to clarify the truth and save people. That being the case, it’s the same as other projects.
Disciple: Venerable Master, I, your disciple, do media work. My question has to do with the specifics of our planning. For example, when doing television packaging design, many things are not done in a traditional manner and feel highly commercialized. They aren’t things that existed in ancient times. How are we to reconcile the need to walk the path of Dafa disciples with the need to be professional?
Master: With ordinary tasks, just concern yourself with carrying them out. The way things operate in society now is bound to reflect our times. But if you decide to create things that are completely ancient in character since back then there was nothing modern in society, then you will find that nobody buys your things. (Audience laughs) You don’t have the circumstances for it, after all. Today’s society is what it is. Just go about things in a normal fashion, and it won’t count as your fault. There is no need for Dafa disciples to actively promote [ancient things.] It will suffice for you to just play a positive role. You can cultivate in any setting, remember, and what you cultivate is yourself. When you are tempted by profit and gain, when you are faced with choosing between good and evil, or a choice of right and wrong, and when faced with deciding between what you should and shouldn’t do, there is always the question of where you place yourself. Just concern yourself with making good on your practice, and cultivate. Having read the book and studied the Fa, and having kept on cultivating and reading the Fa without letup, it is now a matter of whether you can handle yourselves well out in society.
What is studied in today’s schools are such things, and these are the same things one does in the setting of the workplace. So there is no issue. This society is what it is, so all you can do is go about things as best as possible. Otherwise, if you don’t work and support your family, then what? What if mere survival becomes an issue? Imagine if I told you to all now go and start wearing ancient clothes and doing things the ancient way. (Audience laughs) That’s not something I would ask you to do. The times are what they are. In the future, mankind will return to what it traditionally was, for sure, absolutely. But right now that wouldn’t work. And that especially holds true when saving people. You have to fit in with society in order to save people, or you will fail in that endeavor. If you’re taking some peculiar approach, people see you as weird, and if nobody understands what you say, how will you save people?
Disciple: What do we need to do in order to make Shen Yun become more popular in higher-end society, and have better results?
Master: You need to try and see for yourselves what works as you carry out the actual work. Each region’s situation is different, and each ethnic group is different. Some are former communist countries, some have always been normal societies, some are regions with a thriving economy, and some have poor economies. Also, each group of people forms different culturally-conditioned notions while living in society. Thus, the Dafa disciples in each locale have to handle things themselves. Bringing Shen Yun to perform is not something that I’ve made mandatory for you, for this too is but one project for saving people. Dafa disciples’ resources are limited, and so if this is something you want to do, you definitely need to do it well—otherwise don’t do it. I’m not asking every city the world over to put on Shen Yun. What I’m saying is, if this is something you really want to do, then you must do it well. Otherwise, don’t do it.
Some people think we did pretty well with Shen Yun this year since we didn’t lose money. They’re all happy about it, but Shen Yun ended up losing money. Do you know where the millions of dollars that it takes to run Shen Yun each year come from? Dafa disciples all know that bringing Shen Yun can save people, that it can achieve this, but if you don’t act responsibly towards Shen Yun, then it’s a problem. Shen Yun brings about a change in conditions for the Dafa disciples in each region it goes to, and advances the cause of saving people, but you, in turn, have to provide Shen Yun with the conditions that it needs. If you decide to bring Shen Yun, then really ensure that you do it well. And since it is Master who is personally guiding Shen Yun, if your area doesn’t do well it will very quickly get back to me.
Disciple: At present, the children of many Dafa disciples are caught up in ordinary things. What are we to do?
Master: Indeed, human society is one big dye vat. Society is contesting with Dafa disciples for people. And this even applies to Dafa disciples’ kids, who live in this setting too: bad things are trying to drag them down. If the child does not cultivate, or doesn’t have a good environment, then he really won’t be able to ward those things off. Yet a Dafa disciple’s responsibilities are enormous, and so we must not only save the world’s people but also those close to us.
Disciple: Could Master please talk about Sound of Hope’s relationship with our other media.
Master: There’s nothing special about the relationship, as in every case it’s a matter of Dafa disciples running a project and working to reach a common goal—to save sentient beings. Do it wholeheartedly. If you are going to do it, do it well. Otherwise, don’t do it. If you do it poorly, the evil will laugh at you, Dafa disciples’ reputations will be hurt, and it will have undesirable consequences. So, whatever it is you do, you really must do it with all due seriousness.
All the paths that you cover as you validate the Fa, each and every thing, are recorded in the book of history. The things that you accomplish are being given a final appraisal by gods and by Master’s law bodies. And the quintessential things among those are precisely what constitute your path, and they are your mighty virtue, what you have used to establish your paradise. What Shakyamuni enlightened to, by exploring and verifying, was “precept, concentration, wisdom.” As you know, that was his way of cultivation, and it encompasses what he arrived at over the course of his disseminating the Dharma for forty-nine years. Every god has his own things that he enlightens to by exploring and verifying, which he arrives at from the Great Law of the cosmos, and it is through them that he perfects himself and creates his own paradise. All of what each Dafa disciple does is being looked after by gods, and each has gods giving him a final appraisal.
Disciple: The advertising sales people at NTDTV’s head office require that reporters do free commercial and industrial news features for certain companies.
Master: [So this is about] doing news features for free. If you want to build a good relationship, or if there is some sort of commercial deal that is mutually beneficial, then it’s fine to do that. But if that’s not the case, then there is no value in doing it free of charge. If in the course of doing this [free] news feature people are saved, then I don’t object. Why do it otherwise, if it can’t achieve that? Since the question slip worded it in that manner, I have to respond along these lines.
Disciple: Your disciple can’t figure it out. Won’t this compromise NTDTV’s brand image, or should reporters just cooperate as best they can regardless and help the sales team to use this approach to engage potential clients? Should the sales team try to raise their professional standard as quickly as possible, such that they could be independent in selling advertising?
Master: There are really a lot of things that NTDTV needs to do better with. Look at how things are handled in Shen Yun, and you can see that people can’t just do whatever they want. It’s a problem if your meetings can’t resolve the real issues. But I’d really rather not have anything to do with these kinds of specific issues, as these are things on your cultivation path that you need to handle well. If you don’t handle them well, however, it truly will have a big, negative impact on Dafa disciples’ saving of sentient beings.
Disciple: The project my team works on has never inquired with Master. Our project is currently at a critical juncture, but the coordinators cannot come to an agreement, and the conflicts are large, causing the project to get stuck.
Master: Then just do things according to the wishes of the top person in charge. I’ve seen this problem many times before, with you stumbling along in this manner and taking one fall after another. But what I hope is that after taking a fall, you will all learn something good from it. Don’t always take away bad things from your experiences. When you learn bad things, you are in fact using human thinking to consider things, and becoming more cunning, and sly, which means you are becoming worse. I have spoken with you before about what a bad person is: he is someone who is cunning. Whereas someone who is kind-hearted and whose thinking is not that complicated is a good person. You need to think about things in a constructive manner, and when you stumble look for the reason as a cultivator would, asking, “Where did I go wrong?” Only by evaluating things with the Fa will you be able to learn good things from your experiences. If you can really manage to do this, things will definitely go well. And if all of you can do so, I don’t believe your project can go wrong. It’s just that you haven’t looked inward, or learned good things. Or in other words, you haven’t talked things over in the manner that Dafa disciples should.
Disciple: When choosing Dafa projects, is it considered wrong to take into consideration which would allow one to put to use what one has learned well or which would be most beneficial to one’s improvement, as opposed to being persuaded [to join a project] by that project’s leader? I ask because they want to find capable disciples to work full time, whereas I believe that the best way to interact with mainstream society and its influential, ordinary people is by having an ordinary job. Would Master please help provide clarity on this?
Master: Seen in light of the objective task of saving people, it’s not a problem to “take into consideration which would allow one to put to use what one has learned well… in choosing Dafa projects.” Supposing your expertise is computers, and you go out there to solicit advertisements [for our media]. Of course, if you know that it is something you are also capable of doing, then that’s fine. In other words, anything that we’ve learned and put to use which can play a significant role in saving people is of course excellent. If you conclude, however, that while at an ordinary job you can have a greater impact saving people, then of course there’s nothing wrong with thinking that way. These matters are simple, actually. Whatever you decide to do, do it well. The persons in charge of some projects really go all out to recruit people since they have a severe shortage of manpower. “Who cares what you’re good at, as long as you can come on board, great!” (Audience laughs) Your paths are for you to walk. I’ll refrain from speaking up even when you stumble. It will be great when you truly know for yourself what to do.
Disciple: Because of the shortage in manpower, various projects compete with one another for and fight over the limited staff, instead of improving the cooperation among them.
Master: When you badly need to find someone suitable, but cannot, you tend to make haste to recruit someone to start on the work. I realize that this is a challenge you’re now encountering. I am observing these conflicts.
Editor’s Note: The remaining half of the Question & Answer portion is being translated, and will be published soon.