(Minghui.org) It is very important that we pay attention to rectifying ourselves according to the principles of Falun Dafa while validating the Fa in our daily lives.
When I first started at my workplace, we did not have a section head, so I took on all the responsibilities in our office, including submitting and settling expense accounts. I did a good job and all the accounts were clean and clear. I also kept up with Fa study and sending righteous thoughts in my spare time.
Later, it was decided to appoint a head for our office. Because I had been persecuted in the past for practicing Falun Gong, someone from another office was appointed to the position. The new head of the office often ordered people about on his own terms.
In the past, all extra income was handed in to the finance department, which would later allocate the funds back to us to use. After the new head of the office came, he changed the rules and used the extra income as he needed. Although I did not say anything, I became rather passive at work.
Looking within, I realized that my passive attitude stemmed from jealousy, as well as a show-off mentality and self-validation, and I'd failed to conduct myself as a Dafa disciple during the Fa-rectification period.
The head of the office was transferred elsewhere a year later and a young lady took up his position. She was hard-working, capable and smart, so I just left things to her and did what she asked me to do.
However, it always gave me a big headache at the end of the year when I had to reconcile the expense accounts, because she falsified many accounts to cover expenses against regulations, such as money spent on exploiting connections to win awards. Although I did not sign on these invoices, I felt pretty bad that such things were happening again and again.
Master said,
“For a long period of time the sentient beings in Dafa, especially the disciples, have had a misunderstanding of the Fa at various levels regarding xinxing improvement. Whenever a tribulation comes, you do not see it with the side of your original nature but view it completely with your human side. Evil demons then capitalize on this point and inflict endless interference and damage, leaving students in long-term tribulations. As a matter of fact, this results from an inadequate understanding of the Fa by your human side. You have humanly restrained your divine side; in other words, you have restrained the parts that have been successfully cultivated and have prevented them from doing Fa- rectification. How can the uncultivated side restrain your main thoughts or the side that has already attained the Fa? Having humanly fostered the evil demons, you allow them to capitalize on the loopholes in the Fa.” (“Expounding on the Fa” Essentials for Further Advancement)
Through Fa study and reading sharing articles by fellow practitioners, I realized that I was still looking at things from the point of view of personal cultivation. I tried to cultivate myself by letting go of personal fame and gain and not caring about personal loss or gain. However, we are now in the stage of Fa-rectification cultivation, and our train of thought and way of doing things should also be based on this. We should view things with righteous thoughts, which to my understanding, means to completely negate the old forces, validate the Fa and save sentient beings.
The old forces have turned people into such a degenerated state under the excuse of creating a cultivation environment for Dafa disciples, while they aim to destroy people and Dafa disciples. I realized that we must not acknowledge such arrangements. Negating non-practitioners' bad thoughts, degenerated conduct and notions, and handling them with righteous thoughts is also a way of saving people.
With a clearer understanding of the Fa principles, I intensified sending righteous thoughts and resisted the wrongdoings of my superiors with wisdom. I also checked all the accounts I had handled and made up the extra income that should have been handed in with my own money. When all the accounts were clear and in order, I reported it to my superiors.
They were deeply touched by what I had done, saying that I shouldn't use my own money to make up for the shortfall and the office should take responsibility. Gradually, with my repeated reminders, and pressured by the changing situation, my superiors rectified what they hadn't done well in the past.
My husband gave me one of his old iPhones, which was linked with his other iPhone, but he was unaware of it.
When I switched it on, I saw a flirtatious message from someone with the surname Li. I was shocked and wondered whether my husband was having an affair. I did not keep the message as evidence and deleted it immediately. Still, I was bothered inside and could not concentrate when studying the Fa, and felt sluggish when it was time to get up to do the exercises in the morning.
I saw another message a week later and the two of them arranged to meet. I felt very uncomfortable and was troubled with jealousy, hatred and resentment. I forced myself to keep calm and tried to eliminate such bad thoughts.
I saw another message a few days later and found that Li was not the only woman my husband was having a relationship with.
I was furious and overcome with shame and anger because in my heart, my husband was an honest, capable and responsible person. How could he have done such shameful things? I deleted all the text messages he had with these women on his iPhone.
Still, I remembered that I'm a Dafa practitioner and I must not make a scene over it. I kept the pain to myself and paid more attention to Fa study.
Master said,
“You should know, and I have been saying all along, that when you, as Dafa disciples, look at something, you have to make sure to view it in reverse since the Three Realms are inverted, and you have to conduct yourselves in a positive, correct manner. What ordinary people regard as not good is good for cultivators--beings who wish to leave this place. If your thinking is the same as ordinary people's, then you will forever be an ordinary person and never be able to leave here. So, when you meet with ordeals, it is the perfect opportunity for you to improve. If you are able to look inside, that trying situation will become instead an opportunity, something to overcome and a chance to enter a new state. Why haven't you looked at things that way? As soon as you meet with an ordeal, you push it away.”
“As you cultivate yourself, you should regard the things that you perceive to be hardship, emotional blows, or things that affect your xinxing and the like, as good things. If you consider all the hardship, ordeals, and such that you go through to be bad things, then you are an ordinary person. Hardship is the repayment of karmic debts, and things that don't go so smoothly enable your xinxing to elevate. That holds true for ordinary people as well, in fact--it's all about removing karma, and when someone is rid of his karma he will be well-off in his next life. It's just that people don't realize it. A cultivator is to reduce his karma, improve his xinxing via cultivation, and in the end achieve Consummation. For a Dafa disciple, this is the most basic teaching in the Fa and the most fundamental thing. But some people still, after several years, have not changed their notions on a fundamental level. How many years have you been cultivating for? You still fail to look at things that way, and still can't manage to look at things with a positive, correct view. (“Fa Teaching at the 2008 New York Conference”)
Through Fa study and solid cultivation I realized my own loopholes. I have not done well in relinquishing lust and desire. Although I had let go of sexual desire for years, I had not eliminated notions and thought karma that had formed in my mind from reading explicit sexual descriptions in novels and watching such clips in movies before I started cultivation in Dafa.
During this tribulation, unrighteous thoughts and recollections flashed in my mind one after another. I also realized that my lust and desire also manifested in my emotional dependence on my husband, as well as my desire for his emotional and financial support, and for what I perceived as harmony in the family.
When I could not have these things I felt dispirited, angry, jealous and I even wanted to take revenge. Although I could control my behavior, I could not control my mind. I realized that is not my true self, but a false self created by the demon of lust.
Such lust and desire also found their way in my love for nice clothes and my attachment to appearance.
When we first got married, my husband took great care of me. His love and attention to me and the envy of my colleagues gave rise to my attachments to fame and gain and the mentality of vanity.
However, my health deteriorated after I gave birth to our child. My husband got really busy with work and business functions, and he did not have time to take care of me. In order to free myself from physical and mental pain, I started practicing Falun Gong.
I was really excited at the beginning and when my husband tried to stop me from practicing Falun Gong, I developed hatred against him instead of looking within. I started to ignore him completely and just did my own things. Such an extreme attitude also allowed the evil to take advantage of my loopholes.
The most important thing is that I failed to look at these issues with righteous thoughts and failed to see that these were arrangements by the old forces behind the scenes. Due to the old forces' arrangements, for many people sexual relationships are no longer simply for reproduction, but have become a major focus in life.
In today's society, some people regard lust and desire as their main pursuit in life, and the old forces try to push people downhill even faster to destroy them, including Dafa disciples.
The old forces took advantage of my inadequate understanding of the Fa principles and arranged this situation to persecute me, and yet I mistakenly viewed this as an issue between me and my husband, and unwittingly followed the path arranged by the old forces. I would not be able to rectify myself and the situation if I accepted the old forces' arrangements.
Through Fa study and reading sharing articles from fellow practitioners, I realized that I must let go of the notion of “self” and reject the old forces' arrangements that interfered with my cultivation and saving sentient beings.
In addition to eliminating the demon of lust behind my husband and the specter of the evil Communist Party, I showed great care for my husband while being strict with him. I wrote a letter of apology to him for deleting the text messages on his iPhone without his consent, and at the same time thanked him for not leaving me. I also told him that I appreciated the pressure and the pain he had to bear over the years and that I would like to share them with him, but he should not try to relieve his pressure by having extramarital affairs. Since then, my husband has changed a lot for the better.
As Dafa disciples in the Fa-rectification period, we must completely deny all the arrangements of the old forces, including the current, degenerated social state, the state of humanity that has severely deviated from the moral norms set by the divine. We must clearly see the arrangements by the old forces, and keep improving ourselves according to the Fa so that the evil will have no opportunity to exploit our loopholes. By doing so, the side of us that has been cultivated well will be validating the Fa anytime, anywhere.
The above is only my personal understanding at this stage. Please kindly point out anything inappropriate.