Reflections On Charles Li's Arrest in China

(Clearwisdom.net)

I.

When I heard that American citizen Charles Li was abducted in China while visiting family, my first thought was that the evil must be at its wits end, daring to arrest a foreign citizen. My second thought was that there wasn't much to worry about, because since Charles is a foreigner, it would not be a problem to have the evil release him in the end.

I felt instinctively that these two thoughts were problematic. I was thinking why would incidents in which foreigners are being abducted in China happen repeatedly? This time seemed to be even more special, because Charles is an American citizen. How could such an incident, which so openly flouts international rules, happen? Which one of our attachments has provided the evil with loopholes? My initial two thoughts helped me identify some long-term misunderstandings.

I had always thought that foreigners going to China for Fa-rectification would not be persecuted there like the Chinese are. Being foreigners, their foreign identities would protect them, and the evil in China would not dare to do the same to them that they do to Chinese. For a while, I even felt that this was unfair. The path of Fa-rectification for Falun Dafa practitioners in China is so hard and full of difficulties, that they are facing the danger of unemployment, arrest, brutal torture, and death, while foreign practitioners came to China, and went to Tiananmen Square without having to worry about these dangers. But today, unexpectedly, we are also facing these dangers.

Was it because many practitioners harbored similar thoughts to mine that the evil took advantage of our loophole to persecute us? Many fellow Chinese practitioners think that those of us with foreign passports will not have problems. Foreign practitioners think that since they are foreign citizens, they will have no problem going to China. We all think about this matter from a "human" point of view, neglecting that we are fundamentally Falun Dafa disciples doing Fa-rectification, and hence causing this incident.

If we were all to think that practitioners in China may be arrested, detained, and sentenced while foreign practitioners may not because of their foreign identities, then wouldn't we be accepting the old evil force's arrangement of "practitioners in China may be persecuted?" If we were to think that foreign disciples are safe because of their foreign identities, wouldn't we be putting our hopes on external factors instead of the bottom line of the Dafa disciples helping Master in Fa-rectification? The old forces detected this mentality and produced this incident.

Master warned us in his teachings not to expect anything from the evil.

"I've said before that the evil won't stop persecuting even right up until the very end. Even if it's going to end tomorrow, today that evil will still do evil just the same. That's the way things are in the cosmos before the Fa-rectification is done rectifying it. Without going through Fa-rectification it won't become good on its own--how could it turn good without Fa-rectification? Poison is just poisonous, and if you want it to stop being poisonous it can't do that. So when you look at it that way, we shouldn't have any fantasies about the evil forces and those evil people who are persecuting Dafa.

[...]

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."

(Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A.)

So I concluded that we should not harbor illusions or take a human viewpoint about the evil, and assume that it will follow international rules. We should always look at issues from the viewpoint of the Fa. Falun Dafa practitioners all over the world are one body; we should all improve together and eliminate the evil thoroughly.

II.

Why do these incidents happen repeatedly? The global 'Rescue Our Families Members' campaign is working hard to rescue illegally imprisoned family members and thus to negate the old force's arrangement. On the other hand, have we been deluded by one detail of this great drama, and forgotten that this is only one of our methods but not our purpose of being? If we fail to clearly recognize this point, when we get busy with a specific task that we do for the purpose of rescuing family members and then are overjoyed when the rescue is successful, then the old forces will make sure that this task keeps us busy all day. We should clearly realize that it is precisely because of old force's persecution that we have to clarify the truth. We would not need to do this if the persecution did not exist. After all, our fundamental purpose is to help Master in Fa-rectification, which is the main theme of this grand drama. We should not be overly distracted by anything else.

III.

Following each of these incidents, I always felt that we were forced into a passive position, as if we were manipulated into mounting a busy rescue campaign by the old forces. How can we turn our passive role into an active one? How can we do better so that such incidents will not happen again? I think the only way is to follow what Master said and to study the Fa more, send forth righteous thoughts, and clarify the truth. We should look inwards, purify every thread of our thoughts and notions, and look at things from the viewpoint of Fa-rectification. This attitude will allow us to form a body of Dafa disciples made up of indestructible harmony, and we will be able to fundamentally break through the old evil force's arrangements and eliminate the evil thoroughly.

The above is my personal understanding, please point out anything inappropriate.

Written on February 19, 2003.