(Clearwisdom.net) There is one particular event that I'll never forget. Before the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started its full-scale persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999, I went to an exercise site daily. On weekends, we also shared experiences and understandings of the Falun Gong teachings after the exercises. One day, some practitioners mentioned that our exercise site assistant had sent away an elderly lady who'd come to learn Falun Gong. I spoke out, “How can she drive away new people?” I went up to her and said, “We can't drive away people who come to learn Falun Gong!” She replied, “She was practicing another qigong exercise.” I said, “But we don't have the right to drive people away.” She gave an additional explanation, but I was too angry to listen.
I wanted to report this to our local assistance center, but didn't have the courage. I saw an assistance center staff member passing by while I was hesitating, so I told her about it, hoping that she would pass it on to the assistance center. However, she said calmly, “Please talk to your site's assistant again.” I replied angrily, “I've already talked to her, and she wouldn't listen to me.” She replied, “Please talk to your regional assistant and let him handle it.” I said that it was useless to do that. I felt that our site assistant had a very good relationship with our regional assistant, and would support the site assistant's position on the matter.
The next day, I ran into another practitioner from the assistance center and told her the story. She said, “Please look within yourself.” I was really angry. Driving away new people was the assistant's fault, and I was safeguarding the Fa and rectifying the situation. Why did they ask me to look inward? I didn't say a word, and just left.
Quite a while later, I thought about this again after completing a Fa-study session at home. I realized that I'd felt all along that the reason for my actions was to safeguard the Fa. Actually, I was safeguarding my own notion, which caused me to be impulsive and irrational. My notion was impulsive. I would have been calm if I'd been aligned with the Fa. I took safeguarding my own notion as safeguarding the Fa. For a cultivator, it's very dangerous to safeguard and follow one's own notions, and become irrational in doing so. From that moment on, I've been on guard to watch for any thoughts about safeguarding my own notions under the guise of safeguarding the Fa.
While continuing to look inward, I also realized that I had a bad thought toward the assistance center as a management office. Though I kept saying that the assistant was not an official, in my heart, I still treated it as an official position. When an issue arose, I followed a non-practitioner's approach to report the problem to a higher level official. Not having a clear understanding of the assistant's and the assistance center's role was an indication that I didn't have a clear understanding on the Fa.
From the process of looking inward, I found more besides my attachments mentioned above. Since I felt that the site assistant was wrong and my understanding was so righteous, why didn't I have the courage to talk to the center assistant? Why did I ask other people to report the issue for me instead? This was due to my impure thought. I thought of taking over the site assistant's position out of jealousy.
I am sharing this with fellow practitioners because I've seen many practitioners with attachments that are difficult to recognize, trying to validate or safeguard themselves. They focused on their own understanding and safeguarded their own notions while trying to cooperate on Fa-validation, thereby creating separation among practitioners, causing interference and disruption to Fa-validation as a whole body. They put more thoughts into safeguarding and validating themselves instead of doing the three things well. To solve this problem, we need to calm down and study the Fa, look inward, and let go of our sense of self, in order to harmonize with the whole body.
