(Clearwisdom.net) After studying Master Li's new articles and lectures, I read the previous article "The Effect of Righteous Thoughts" once again and have come to understand the relationship between Dafa disciples and old forces. In the past, when mentioning the old evil forces that persecute Dafa, I always think about those evil beings that are vicious in Mainland China or hide behind the bad people outside China. My eyesight always looks for external factors. In fact, many evil beings hide in Dafa practitioners' fields and many arrangements of the old evil forces are manifest through our own actions.
Master Li told us, "Before the Fa-rectification, the old forces crammed the lowest-level section of each of those tens of millions of remote cosmic systems into the Three Realms of the central cosmic system where we are. Seemingly, this was to prevent them from being left out of the Fa-rectification, and was to show that they took part in Fa-rectification, when in reality they were using Fa-rectification to reach their selfish goals" (The Effect of Righteous Thoughts). Due to the deviation of old evil forces, their arrangements are also warped and impure and are objects to be rectified in the Fa-rectification. Master Li doesn't accept any of these old forces' arrangements. As Master Li's disciples, how can we completely deny the old forces' arrangements for us? This may be the biggest test for us as Fa-rectification disciples.
First of all, the only way to break through the old forces' arrangements and get rid of their control is to study the Fa and send forth righteous thoughts. The Fa can break all attachments, and the Fa can offer salvation to all sentient beings. Sending forth the righteous thoughts can directly eliminate those that have corrupted to such an unsavable and unkeepable extent. The old forces that are eliminated are those higher beings that refuse to accept the Fa that Master Li tells them and still stubbornly insist on doing things according to their own requirements. Similarly, if practitioners don't study the Fa or even if studying the Fa we fail to act according to the requirements of Fa-rectification, we may very likely become barriers to Fa-rectification under old forces' arrangements. It is really very dangerous and terrible.
Then how can we genuinely study the Fa well? Master Li makes it very clear in the beginning of Lunyu, "In order to explore this domain, people must fundamentally change their conventional human notions." If we study the Fa with attachments, that is not Fa-study. When everyday people study the philosophy, they also have a saying called, "Only when you empty the cup of your heart, can you then contain new things." Fa-study is similar to cleaning us. There are dirty things pushed out from the growth rings of our lives every day. There are old forces' arrangements for us every day and it is the last chance for sentient beings to be saved every day. Therefore, we should study the Fa every day.
The most fatal shortcoming of the old forces is their selfishness. In Fa-rectification, they only want to change others. They don't want to change themselves. None of them wants to change themselves and even to the greatest extent they try to keep the things that they are attached to. The manifestation of this in our own cultivation is our looking outward. An example of breaking through the old forces' arrangements, then, is our turning the tables on the old forces and looking inward instead.
The above is just my personal understanding. Please kindly point out to me if there is anything inappropriate.
