(Minghui.org)
Practitioners with computer and Internet technology skills are not obligated to provide technical support to fellow practitioners. They voluntarily serve their fellow practitioners to help solve Internet security issues. They spend a great amount of time and risk their safety to help us obtain Dafa information in a timely manner, as this is the most fundamental guarantee for our cultivation. Therefore, we should protect them, which is also protecting ourselves.
We should not visit technical support practitioners unless it is an emergency. Elderly female fellow practitioners should especially pay attention to their own and others’ safety. The itinerary of their travel card is monitored by the national security office, and it is easy for them to monitor Dafa practitioners. Therefore practitioners should not causally bring people to the home of a practitioner who gives technical support. We should call each other by aliases, instead of using our real names, which is a way to not cooperate with the persecution.
For example, a practitioner with technical skills in our area provided materials and technical support to us for many years. However, he was persecuted because an elderly female fellow practitioner used his real name. He had to leave home to avoid persecution. His wife later divorced him. He is currently serving a sentence in Tailai Prison. Can he stay firm in his belief and come back alive under the brutal persecution? Have the fellow practitioners he helped sent righteous thoughts for him? If we all used aliases, would he have been persecuted? And the fellow practitioners who relied on him would not have committed the crime of betraying Gods and Buddhas; nor would they have caused the police to commit another serious crime against Dafa!
Moreover, the old forces persecute us in many ways. One of them is to make us feel afraid and depressed if we are not diligent in cultivation. If we do well in cultivation, they will encourage us to develop and strengthen human attachments. Technical support practitioners should especially pay attention to the latter one, as this is the most obscure way to destroy practitioners.
For over 20 years, fellow practitioners who provided technical support or maintained the materials sites worked smoothly in their areas; then they started to expand into other areas. At the same time, the old forces arranged for various human attachments to affect technical practitioners, such as fear and selfishness, and the old forces made any conflicts more and more prominent. In our area, the old forces arranged for an accident to happen to an irrational person, which then caused the persecution of many practitioners. These are lessons paid for with blood.
Some technical practitioners experienced sickness karma or xinxing tests. In fact, there are factors of the old forces who target technical practitioners as a means to persecute the whole body of practitioners. It’s not easy for every practitioner to learn computer skills. We should try our best to teach more practitioners to learn and master this skill using the Minghui technical support site. This would help disperse the pressure and help to maintain an overall cultivation environment, as well as personally helping our technical support practitioners.
Let’s also talk about using non-technical skills, like writing articles. Ninety percent of people with a junior high school education can write articles. It doesn’t require special literary skills, as long as one can explain things clearly; it's just like writing a journal. Most practitioners filed criminal complaints against Jiang Zemin (former head of CCP) on their own, as everyone is obligated to expose the persecution in their area, rather than relying on fellow practitioners to do it for them.
It’s our responsibility to immediately expose any persecution in prisons, any arrests, and any cases of harassment. When a fellow practitioner was persecuted in prison, the fellow practitioners outside risked their safety to hire defense lawyers for him. It is very important to disclose any persecution occurring inside prisons. However, when that fellow practitioner was released, he didn’t expose the persecution he experienced but instead hid everything inside. Some practitioners with their celestial eyes open could see that those practitioners who didn’t expose such evil were acknowledging the persecution and accepting the arrangements of the old forces. In their dimension, such practitioners were still locked with chains by the evil and could be persecuted again at any time. However, once they expose the persecution, the chains would be unlocked.
It is part of the formlessness of our Dafa cultivation that allows us to increase Dafa projects everywhere, and it is following the path Master arranged for us. If we all rely on one person to write articles to expose the persecution, it would not conform to the formless nature of our cultivation. Also, Dafa cultivation is for everyone to succeed.
On the other hand, it is not easy for us to see each other during this time for security reasons. It is impossible to expose the evil immediately and completely by relying on one person. Moreover, if we all rely on one person, will the old forces increase his tribulation and make him disappear with the excuse of helping us improve in cultivation? And fellow practitioners may still use their real names, even though they know their aliases, while the monitoring is so severe. Are you being responsible for their safety when you ask for their help? Every practitioner voluntarily works on Fa-validation projects based on his xinxing level, rather than relying on others. Everyone should write his own experience of persecution. You can ask a fellow practitioner to modify your article if needed. We can’t utilize the tangible form of a full-time project. The larger comprehensive articles will be written by fellow practitioners with special writing skills.
One cannot rely on anyone else in cultivation. Over the years, some coordinators were persecuted by the old forces by strengthening their human attachments. One coordinator tried to coordinate across the province and across the country due to his overly inflated human attachment. Soon after, he was persecuted to death in prison. We used to rely on one coordinator, and later surveillance equipment was secretly installed at his home, which became a trap. How could he cultivate in such an environment? It is the same with relying on coordinators, materials sites, or fellow practitioners with special technical skills.
Everyone is a coordinator, and everyone is responsible to the Fa, for our own cultivation, and for the sentient beings that should be saved by us. When we assume responsibility ourselves, we are forging our own attainment.
An elderly practitioner in our area was arrested four times. It was already difficult for him, an elderly man in his 70s with a mentally retarded daughter, to live a normal life and cultivate. How could we bear to let him provide truth-clarification materials for us? If you push the danger to others because you are afraid, is that cultivation? Of course, neither the practitioners who provide the technical support nor the fellow practitioners who receive the support, have followed the cultivation path of Fa-rectification. They all follow the path of a tangible form arranged by the old forces. It’s a dead-end if we follow the path arranged by the old forces, as it doesn’t arrange for practitioners or sentient beings to be saved.
I remember an article I read many years ago. In it, Aihua was providing money to a materials production site. Her fellow practitioners at the materials site sent truth-clarification materials to Aihua’s home every Friday. However, one weekend Aihua didn’t receive the materials and had to wait until the next weekend. She was very angry at the practitioners at the materials site. Then those practitioners at the materials site told her that she cannot buy her fruition status with money. Aihua was even angrier after hearing this, and couldn’t fall asleep. Then she remembered that she needed to look inward, then she fell asleep.
Aihua had a dream after she fell asleep. In her dream, she and many other practitioners were squeezed under the gloomy stairs on the first floor, while some practitioners were already hosting their own world in their own paradise. Aihua thought that she should have her own world. With just this one thought, Aihua arrived in her own world with a plaque with her name. She saw a big lotus seat, and she sat on the lotus seat with only one thought – this might be my lotus seat. After she woke up, she came to realize that she should establish her own materials site, and walk on the path arranged by Master. They won’t have their own world if they just asked others for materials. If elderly practitioners have difficulty producing truth-clarifying materials, it would be better for them to clarify the truth face to face, rather than distribute truth-clarification materials.
A female practitioner had been providing truth-clarification materials to other practitioners for many years. Later, she was illegally detained in Harbin Women’s prison for four years. After she was released from prison, she wrote articles to expose the persecution and asked the police station to return her identification card. In her article, she mentioned that she was followed and monitored by police for two years. Everyone knows that establishing a large-scale materials production site usually saves money and is more efficient. However, it increases the possibility for the old forces to strengthen selfishness and other human attachments and set traps in the use of money and materials. It could also strengthen dependence, selfishness, and fear in those fellow practitioners who don't produce the materials. It would inevitably bring security risks when people come and go, picking up and transporting the materials.
When practitioners who ran the materials site were persecuted, other practitioners who relied on the materials site might stop clarifying the truth or cultivating if no one provided materials to them. Thus, if a practitioner at a materials site is providing materials to other practitioners, he should teach those other practitioners how to make their own truth-clarification materials and be more independent. There is a saying: giving them a fish is not as good as teaching them to fish.
If everyone produces their own truth-clarification materials, it would not affect their life or Fa-study. Managing the monetary aspects would be easier, and there wouldn’t be the risk of transporting materials to other practitioners.
In all respects, it would create a more stable life and cultivation environment. Most critically, it is the path arranged by Master.
However, some fellow practitioners who relied on others for many years would simply rely on another practitioner to produce materials after the previous one they relied on was arrested. This vicious cycle would continue. Many practitioners at material sites have been repeatedly walking on the path arranged by the old forces, without taking it as a lesson to get rid of the old forces’ arrangement.
In 2000, Master asked us to establish more family-based materials production sites, like flowers blossoming everywhere. But so far, many large-scale materials sites are still operating in various areas. Fellow practitioners have worried about handing over the materials for many years, as practitioners continue to gather and chat at materials sites and do not pay attention to safety. This is easily monitored by the authorities. We really should cherish our cultivation environment and assist Master in Fa-rectification and saving sentient beings.
Every mobile phone is a monitoring device. There is usually more than one mobile phone in each family. Many years ago, a dozen fellow practitioners were arrested at the same time. Most of them were detained at Harbin Women’s prison. It was said that their arrests were caused by a single elderly woman (who was persecuted to death due to sickness karma). Her phone was monitored, and therefore all her contacts were monitored. Those practitioners were arrested after being monitored on the phone for six months.
Another elderly female practitioner didn’t pay attention to mobile phone safety. She always called fellow practitioners in her area and other areas. She was arrested and detained in prison for four years. After getting out of prison, she still did the same thing. The technical support practitioner risked his own safety to help her. Yet she called this fellow practitioner by his real name, instead of using his alias, while her mobile phone was on.
Some technical support practitioners suddenly stopped providing support because they were concerned about such safety hazards. Once, a few practitioners talked about some sensitive topics near the landline at an elderly practitioner’s home. They discovered that the phone was still connected to the last call. When the practitioners complained to her about this, she even said she was not afraid. Did that mean she was not afraid of causing losses for Dafa and fellow practitioners? In fact, in the current cultivation environment in mainland China, everyone has the attachment of fear. But only those who are responsible to the Fa and to other practitioners can let go of their own safety concerns at critical moments. It has proved that those who say they are not afraid are very afraid when they really do things. Fear naturally exists because their selfishness is not yet eliminated. One can be fearless only when one is selfless.
Eavesdropping on phone calls is a weapon used by the old forces to persecute Dafa practitioners, and sentient beings. As Master’s disciples, how could we not discern what is good and what is bad in such a dangerous situation? Isn’t this standing against Master and standing with the evil? Even the police told us not to communicate with elderly female practitioners. The police knew everything through these elderly female practitioners. Are they the evils’ insiders? This behavior has essentially played the role of betraying Gods and Buddhas. How could the old forces let you go?
We all know that the evil didn’t persecute elderly practitioners 10 years ago. So why are some practitioners in their 80s sentenced to and persecuted in prison? Think about this. Is it because they committed such offenses? We are walking on a divine path; we are not ordinary people, and we have a standard to meet.
Master said,
“The higher a great enlightened being’s level is, the less he or she would bother to interfere with the principles of everyday people, not even a bit.” (Lecture Five, Zhuan Falun)
Therefore, the old forces persecuted the elderly practitioners with the excuse of betraying Gods and Buddhas. Hopefully, elderly practitioners don’t think this sharing is talking about them. In fact, it is not really you, but a rotten ghost in your field that has a brain and a heart that harms others and yourself. When you are attentive to these things, and can be clear that it is not yourself, you can disintegrate it when you clear your own field.
In the end, how you cultivate is still a matter of whether you are responsible for yourself. I really hope we can take the Fa as our guide and create a good cultivation environment together. I really hope every practitioner will follow the path arranged by Master.
Please point out anything inappropriate.
[Editor’s note: This article only represents the author’s understanding in their current cultivation state meant for sharing among practitioners so that we can “Compare with one another in study, in cultivation.” (“Solid Cultivation,” Hong Yin)]