Dafa is Fundamental: My Personal Understanding of Eliminating the Evil Forces with Righteous Thoughts

Master Li's new article "Dafa Disciples' Righteous Thoughts are Powerful" further unlocked our wisdom and capabilities to safeguard Dafa [great law and principles of the universe]. It has enabled us to keep up with the Fa-rectification process, to actively eliminate evil factors within the Three Realms and the human world, and to offer salvation to humankind and sentient beings with benevolence. However, I noticed that some individual practitioners still have some confusion and certain misunderstandings on the issue of supernormal abilities and gong potency (gongli).

The first issue: Some practitioners questioned that while some Dafa disciples did not encounter any dangerous situations, others were arrested when doing the same truth-clarification work, though everybody tried to send out righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil influences. My personal understanding of this question is as follows: Suffocating and eliminating evil beings with righteous thoughts is not simply the same as avoiding being taken away by the vile people. What Master told us is the Fa [law and principles], which requires every practitioner to live up to it under any circumstances. I noticed when some practitioners validated Dafa and clarified the truth about Falun Dafa, their hearts were pure and calm, and they didn't harbor any fear. They didn't have any thoughts of avoiding sensitive dates or being arrested by the police, but always took initiative in using righteous thoughts whenever confronting vile people. As a result, no danger occurred to them. Then why were some practitioners still arrested by the vile people? We have to first point out that this is because the evil forces are putting out their last-ditch effort of a struggle, which is unacceptable and must be completely resisted in the Fa-rectification process.

Secondly, there are still attachments for our practitioners to cultivate through improving our xinxing [mind and heart nature] and elevating our enlightenment quality during this most malicious, vicious and base trial. In order to eliminate the evil with righteous thoughts, we have to greatly improve our xinxing, and completely let go of our fear and attachments. This is the only way to enable our fully cultivated side to play a positive role without being obstructed by our human mentalities, and enable our righteous thoughts in this dimension to manifest their mighty power. Our Master said, "the most severely persecuted ones are precisely the students who harbor attachments. The more fearful they are inside, the more the evil will specifically go after such students. And the overall situation that has appeared, in which Dafa is persecuted in the human world, is caused by the large-scale, severe occurrence of these students being persecuted because they have attachments." (Dafa Disciples' Righteous Thoughts are Powerful) Those practitioners who did not let go of the fear inside their hearts, may end up being taken away by the vile people, since they were still afraid of being arrested inside their hearts though they were claiming that they were eliminating the evil with righteous thoughts. This is just like the relationship between cultivation and curing diseases that our Master explained to us before. Some practitioners concentrate on studying the Fa and cultivating without thinking about their diseases at all, as a result, their diseases disappeared. However, some people were still worrying about their diseases though they no longer mentioned them, then their diseases would not be cured. A tiny little difference in the xinxing level can cause the results to be dramatically different. There were also some practitioners who were not afraid at all, yet they were arrested. This may be due to some other attachments they had that were taken advantage of by the evil forces, or maybe they didn't pay enough attention to or ignored the inspiration from our Master. Another possibility could be that it was arranged to have certain practitioners arrested in order to bring Master's new articles into the prisons to other detained practitioners, through this arrangement they could all participate in the action of resisting and eliminating the evil forces. My understanding is that as long as we have guidance from Master and the Fa, every detail of the Fa-rectification process is in the control of our Master. We should not be attached to the formality of whether being taken away by the vile people, the key is whether we can face the evil in a dignified manner amidst tribulations, timely identify our attachments and shortcomings, and truly suffocate and eliminate the evil with our righteous thoughts under all circumstances.

The second issue: I noticed that some practitioners were not very serious when talking about eliminating the evil with righteous thoughts by using such a holy term too casually and in any situation. When exchanging experiences, some practitioners exaggerated their own power, feeling that since his energy field was so large it could protect the safety of other practitioners. This is not right. I think every practitioner has righteous thoughts and abilities, and practitioners' safety is protected by Master's Law Bodies and their own righteous thoughts. We all know that a Dafa practitioner's supernormal abilities and gong potency are very powerful in other dimensions, and they are locked in our dimension to ensure that we can cultivate among everyday people. In today's Fa-rectification process, our Master allows us to use part of our supernormal abilities to eliminate the evil beings that no longer have human nature or righteous thoughts. The purpose is to rectify the Fa, to wipe out the evil beings that manipulate bad people to damage Dafa, and to save humankind and sentient beings. In the mean time, we have to keep our minds clear and sober, and not have an unnecessary mentality of showing off and an attachment of zealotry by going to the extreme of exaggerating our own supernormal abilities. Our Master said in the Section of the "Mentality of Showing Off" in Zhuan Falun, "Whether it is your supernormal abilities or your kaigong, you achieve them through practicing cultivation in Dafa. If you put Dafa in a secondary place and put your supernatural powers in the primary place, or as an enlightened person you believe that what you understand one way or another is correct, or if you even regard yourself as being great and beyond Dafa, I would say that you have already started to stumble. It would be dangerous and you would become ever worse. At that time, you would really be in trouble, and your cultivation would end up in vain. If things are not done right, you will stumble and fail in your cultivation." Our Master also said in "Don't Make Wild Statements" in Falun Dafa-Essentials for Further Advancement , "Actually, it is the Fa that saves people, and only Master can do this thing. You merely help people with predestined relationships to obtain the Fa. Whether they can truly be saved still depends on whether they can reach Consummation through cultivation. Be careful: A Buddha will be shocked by such wild statements, intentional or not. Don't create obstacles for your own cultivation practice. You must also cultivate your speech in this regard. I hope you can understand."

Eliminating the evil forces with righteous thoughts should be a natural and conscious condition of every Dafa practitioner during the Fa-rectification process, it is the result of studying the Fa and cultivating our hearts, but not a forceful action. Actively eliminating the evil with righteous thoughts rather than passively enduring tribulations is a realm that we need to achieve in the Fa-rectification process in order to save humankind and sentient beings. It is also an opportunity our Master has provided us with in order to establish our own mighty virtue. We have to keep in mind at all times, that everyone of us is just a tiny particle of Dafa, and that all of our achievements in cultivation, including any supernormal abilities and gong potency were created by Master and Dafa. "Supernormal abilities are but small tricks, Dafa is most fundamental." ["Pursuing the Upright Cultivation Way" in Hong Yin -- an unofficial translation] Everyone of us has to keep cultivating diligently before reaching Consummation, and this requires us to say every word and do everything according to the Fa without any deviation.

May 19, 2001