(Clearwisdom.net)
Below is my personal understanding for sharing with fellow practitioners.
As Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples, we are actually facing two arrangements and two paths: one is the path for individual cultivation arranged by the old forces which is full of vicious tests; the other is the genuine path of Fa-rectification arranged by Teacher which is compassionate and tremendous. Choosing which path to follow is a serious issue. Teacher mentioned in Zhuan Falun regarding the issue of "Buddha Image Consecration" that, "It arranged your cultivation, so you'll be under its guidance from here on out." The old forces have been completely eradicated during Fa-rectification. If we follow their arrangements and are under their guidance, won't it be horrible? Therefore, whether we can exclusively break through the arrangements of the old forces and genuinely follow the Fa-rectification path personally arranged by our great Teacher is a matter of whether every Dafa disciple can reach the genuine great consummation as Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples.
In order to break through the arrangements of the old forces and conduct ourselves well along the Fa-rectification path, we must constantly and clearly distinguish between the two different paths from the perspective of the Fa. My personal understanding is as follows:
Out of mighty compassion, Teacher has arranged Fa-rectification of the cosmos. At the last stage when the old cosmos goes towards degeneration and annihilation, Teacher, with his boundless wisdom, creates a brand new one which is the most marvelous, and beyond compare with any period of time in the past, and settles karmic relationships among sentient beings in the old cosmos with benevolent solutions so that they can be assimilated and transferred to the new cosmos and live a better life than ever before.
The old forces are facing destruction themselves and are to be saved by the universal Dafa. However, when Teacher comes to rescue them, they stubbornly remain attached to their arrangements out of their short-sighted wisdom and degenerated mentality. They pressed down the degenerated beings from high levels of the cosmos into the Three Realms so that the evil beings could control the wicked people in the world to slander Dafa, persecute Dafa disciples, poison human beings, and create tremendous tribulations for Teacher's Fa-rectification and practitioners' cultivation practice. They did all this with the beautiful excuse of "establishing mighty virtue for the Fa." Eventually, they intended to completely eliminate those degenerate high-level beings, vicious humans, practitioners who did not pass the vicious tests, and people who are poisoned by lies, in the beautiful name of "purifying the cosmos."
Dafa has mighty virtue unimaginable to all sentient beings in the cosmos. No being in the cosmos is able to establish mighty virtue for Dafa by making tribulations for the Fa. The more tribulations they make, the more sins they have committed. Teacher said that, "If this hadn't happened, I could give all beings benevolent solutions and enable all of them to meet the standard for Consummation." [Teaching the Fa at the Great Lakes Fa Conference in North America] Only Teacher is able to purify all sentient beings in the cosmos fundamentally and offer them salvation. However, the old forces stubbornly believe that the cosmos can be purified only by eliminating impure beings based on their criteria. The truth is, all beings in the cosmos are not pure any longer. No matter how many "impure beings" are eliminated based on their criteria, the cosmos is not genuinely purified. The more beings they eliminate, the more crimes they have committed. Thus, their arrangements cannot play a positive role but hinders the process of Teacher's Fa-rectification and prevents sentient beings from being saved. Therefore, they play the role of destroying all sentient beings. It is completely evil and we must not acknowledge it at all; instead, we should completely break through it without any reservation.
Teacher said long ago, "Most fundamentally, you all still need to establish your great mighty virtue in the process of shattering the old forces' persecution..." [Fa-Rectification Period Dafa Disciples] I realized that in the light of the so-called tests arranged by the old forces, which are destructive in nature, we should not set our goals on how to endure the tests, but on how to completely cause the arranged persecution to fail. We came to the human world not to accept the tests arranged by the old forces, but to break through them.
Currently, the old forces have been completely eradicated during the process of Fa-rectification. However their arrangements, together with the remaining influence of the old forces, rotten spirits, and wicked people in the world all still exist. How can we break through their arrangements then? I realized that to genuinely do well the three things Teacher instructs us to do is the key to fundamentally eliminating the persecution and the only path for Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples to achieve great consummation. Below is my understanding of how to do the three things well.
1. Study the Fa
The main excuse that the old forces use to arrange tribulations for Dafa disciples is that practitioners still have attachments to be removed. They want practitioners to reach consummation by exposing the attachments, discovering the attachments, and eventually getting rid of the attachments. Teacher said, "As I've said, everything that happens today in the ordinary society is the result of Dafa disciples' thoughts. Even though the old forces do exist, if you don't have those thoughts they can't do anything. When your righteous thoughts are strong enough the old forces can't do a thing." [Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A]
We have already removed many comparatively obvious and strong attachments in our cultivation practice. Those that remain are usually quite invisible, or even hidden in our behaviors of validating Dafa. They seem compassionate and for the sake of the Fa. In fact, they are hidden attachments. For this reason, they are not easy to be perceived. They are just like the compassion of the old forces that Teacher talked about, "But this goodness is warped, and there are attachments behind the goodness. Also, precisely because of their good behavior, the obstacles they've created are the most effective at deceiving both themselves and others." [Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Midwest-U.S. Fa Conference] And the closer to the last stage of the Fa-rectification, the more crazed wicked beings become. If we are a little bit unclear in our mind, they will take advantage, and they are very vicious while doing bad things. For example:
One fellow practitioner attached great importance to her family members obtaining the Fa and did not realize the attachment of selfishness behind it. She only thought that she was doing something good to offer salvation to sentient beings. When her father was seriously sick in the hospital, she thought, "It is a good chance to validate Dafa to my family members. If my father recovers fast after learning Dafa..." As a result, her mother fell ill while her father was still in the hospital. Her mother recovered fast after learning the Fa in the hospital. However, when her mother was still in the hospital, her sister fell ill as well. All in all, they spent nearly ten thousand Yuan in hospital expenses (500 Yuan is the average monthly income for an urban worker in China). The practitioner also lost a lot of time for cultivation practice. Later on, through experience sharing with other practitioners, she realized that behind the goodness of having her family members obtain the Fa hid an attachment. After that, her family members' health returned.
Another practitioner could not discard the attachment to his son. He wished that his son could listen to him and he could educate him well so that his son could have a bright future. Even when he was studying the Fa, he found excuses for himself, thinking that it was a crime if parents did not educate their children. Due to the impure heart, he was taken advantage of by the evils. Unexpectedly, his son became extremely disobedient---he loved fun and games, and started to fall in love at a young age. Nobody could change him. Consequently, his school performance dropped drastically. The less obedient his son became, the more worried the practitioner was. During a short time, he was exhausted in worrying about his son, and could not even calm down while studying the Fa.
I had once thought of doing my work well so as to create a good environment for clarifying the truth to everyday people. With too much concern about conforming to everyday people's mentality, the evils took advantage of my loopholes because unconsciously I cultivated the attachment to reputation. Superficially, I was doing things for the sake of the Fa. In the bottom of my heart, I had the attachment to reputation. As a result, more and more everyday work came up, and I was still enjoying all those things. Although I kept clarifying the truth to people around, I had less time to study the Fa. Eventually, I could not go on smoothly with my work, and then with clarifying the truth. When I finally woke up, I found that I did not achieve anything but wasted much precious time to study the Fa.
Some practitioners cannot calm down in doing things for validating the Fa. Their thoughts are occupied with the attachments of interest, competitiveness, and showing off. They can only see the importance of saving sentient beings by clarifying the truth, which is not wrong from the perspective of the Fa. However, they totally forget that they should have a pure heart in validating Dafa. So many problems occurred and advantage was taken of many loopholes, which is really painful. For example, some fellow practitioner did not realize that exposing the evils is to eliminate the evils and offer salvation to sentient beings. He viewed things with strong dissatisfaction and competitiveness, once saying [to the evil], "How dare you make rumors about Dafa! You are disgusting! I will expose you." It seems that he was competing with the evils to earn more human hearts. Some practitioners are very irrational and careless. However, they think, "With Teacher and the Fa, what do I fear?" Some fellow practitioners forget what Teacher said, "The old forces don't dare to oppose our clarifying the truth or saving sentient beings. What's key is to not let them take advantage of the gaps in your state of mind when you do things." [Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Boston] They do not realize that problems occurred because of our omissions. Instead, they think that they were arrested because of validating Dafa. They think if they are not validating the Fa, it does not conform to the Fa, but when they do, they are afraid of being arrested. Some practitioners have the attachment of "keeping up with the Jones'." They think that others have done lots of Dafa work and they should follow; otherwise, they may lose face. Some practitioners think, "I have done so many things validating Dafa and no problems have occurred yet. Well, I better stop before something happens. It's not worthwhile to be arrested." They do not realize that it is Dafa disciples' mission to offer salvation to sentient beings, and that as long as we are doing things based on the Fa, no problem will occur at all. They do not think of doing things with a pure heart after studying the Fa well and cultivating their xinxing (moral character) well. Some practitioners said, "No matter what happens tomorrow, no matter if I will be arrested tomorrow, I should validate the Fa today." The fearless spirit is really respectable. But there seems some feeling that they cannot do anything about the arrangements of the old forces. Personally, I think Dafa disciples should think more about breaking through such arrangements from the perspective of the Fa.
When we are not clear from the perspective of the Fa, we are giving chances to evils that haven't been completely eradicated during Fa-rectification. When we walk the righteous path, the evils dare not do anything but wait to be destroyed. Teacher said, "If your righteous thoughts are truly strong, if you're able to put aside the thought of life and death, and if you're solid and unshakable like diamond, then those evil beings won't dare to touch you." "...if this disciple has taken a righteous path and conducted himself well and someone still dares to persecute him, it doesn't matter that they're the old forces or what the old principles are--I absolutely won't spare them." [Touring North America to Teach the Fa]