In Telling the Truth, We Need to Break Through the Barriers of Our Minds

For a pretty long period, I somehow had a mentality that equated Hongfa (Spreading the Fa to people) to the nine-day class, practicing in the park, or some other large-scale activities. Of course, this mentality is not wrong, and is usually necessary--there is much evidence that many people with predestined relationship attained the Fa in these ways. Some recent cases, however, revealed my rather limited understanding of Hongfa--so much so that I felt agitated, confused and impulsive in the face of the new challenge of telling the truth. Consequently, the result of my telling the truth was not very good. In this circumstance, I settled into studying the Fa with a tranquil mind while seeking within myself for attachments. In "Essentials for Further Advancement", Teacher says, " If you are doing well in your cultivation, you will do well in spreading the Fa in your local area and practitioners will do better in their cultivation. Otherwise, you will cause damage to the Fa."

In my self-examination, I found, during the course of my two-year cultivation, I had unwittingly built a wall between ordinary people and myself. I would only like having cultivators as company, and would be mute when dealing with ordinary people. Gradually, I was coping with my friends superficially, and they started to stay away from me. This state, admittedly, was instrumental for a certain time period in my Fa studies and diligent progress; however, hidden behind this was a very bad mentality when measured against the Fa. First of all, it was a condescending show-off mentality. Next, it was the selfishness due to obsession with personal Consummation. With so many attachments, how can the effects of Hongfa be good? It inevitably led to zealotry during conversations, criticisms of others' poor enlightenment quality, and the selfishness of the attachment to personal cultivation. I even took it as a waste of time talking to others; when I stepped forward to do Hongfa work, all I thought was my own Consummation, so on and so forth. In "Essentials for Further Advancement", Teacher says, "...your nature in the past was actually based on egotism and selfishness." These substances are now fully exposed in the ongoing drive of telling truth. Only after continual study of the Fa and continual elimination of these dirty stuffs did I start to realize that the process of telling the truth also involves continually breaking the barriers and mentalities in our thoughts on different levelsalso a process of continual progress in understanding the Fa.

At that moment, a story I previously came across on the Internet unfolded before my eyes. A cultivator was told to see his master by a certain time, an act that would make him attain his Consummation. When he had gone through myriad of tribulations and had almost seen the light at the end of the tunnel, he encountered a person struggling in the water. If he went to rescue the person, he would be late for the meeting with his master. Still, that was what he did (rescue the person). When he finally went to see the master, after the scheduled time, the master told him he had reached his Consummation.

I felt we are all like that cultivator, who in his last step had to let go of his attachments to the egotism and Consummation. This ensures that we cultivate the genuine benevolence and selflessness. Awakening to this point, I sensed an expansion in the scope of the term Hongfa:

• Are the "ordinary people" in our daily lexicon born out of Zhen-Shan-Ren? Do they have a benevolent aspect deep in their hearts?

• Seen in a different dimension, do these massive righteous thoughts and benevolent hearts form a powerful field of righteous thoughts?

• Can the blackish evil still stay in this field?

• Can this righteous thought save the lives doomed to be eliminated?

• Are telling the ordinary people of the principles at the lowest level of the Fa, and helping them to use those principles to stifle evil thoughts the same as assisting Teacher in rectifying the Fa?

• At the time of Hong Fa, use an approach and language that would engage ordinary people to make them understand the principles of being a good person, awaken their benevolent hearts this way and let them have a correct understanding of Dafa. Isn't all this a reflection of "always considering others first so as to attain the righteous enlightenment of selflessness and altruism" as required of Dafa practitioners?

Now, I understand how to do a better job at telling the truth, what I should do, and how to do it. This also allows me to experience for myself the really magic power of Dafa.

A Practitioner in Canada