(Clearwisdom.net) Day in and day out, year after year, I have noticed that many practitioners have been studying the Fa and validating the Fa under a fixed pattern. They have not realized that they have been conforming to and acquiescing to the old forces' arrangement, and have not totally gotten rid of their human notions, and thus cannot truly and completely stand on the basis of the Fa. These problems could be exactly what we need to realize and improve in the last stage.
A few months ago, we found that some western practitioners in a neighboring city had not contacted us for a long time. They studied the Fa and did the exercises but never clarified the truth to people. We decided to visit them, share with them and encourage them to step out to clarify the truth. When we arrived at their location, we drove around and around and asked many people, but even after two hours of searching we could not find where they were. I felt something was wrong and suggested to the other practitioner that we settle down and send forth righteous thoughts. Shortly after, we found the place. In fact, we had been circling around it.
I told the practitioner that evil took advantage of our not having strong righteous thoughts, and that it would have been much better to spend the two hours studying the Fa. The practitioner said that it was OK, and that this is just our path of cultivation. The practitioner took the difficulties to be part of our cultivation, and had fallen into evil's trap. I recollected Master's words in "Expounding on the Fa:"
"Whenever a tribulation comes, you do not see it with the side of your original nature but view it completely with your human side. Evil demons then capitalize on this point and inflict endless interference and damage, leaving students in long-term tribulations. As a matter of fact, this results from an inadequate understanding of the Fa by your human side. You have humanly restrained your divine side; in other words, you have restrained the parts that have been successfully cultivated and have prevented them from doing Fa-rectification. How can the uncultivated side restrain your main thoughts or the side that has already attained the Fa? Having humanly fostered the evil demons, you allow them to capitalize on the loopholes in the Fa."
I told the practitioner that we should not take all of the difficulties and troubles as natural things, and that we should look inside whenever there is trouble. If we determine that the trouble does not come from our own attachment, then we cannot allow it. Otherwise, evil might take advantage of this loophole, which is the very thing that must be abolished.
Once, several of us clarified the truth for a whole day. It was almost midnight when we decided to study the Fa together. A practitioner was sleepy and was falling asleep on and off. I reminded him that a divine being could do anything as long as he wants to, and that a divine being's righteous thoughts can break through time and space in the universe. I said, it is late today, but we shall put our mind right to study the Fa well, and we should be able to do that with our righteous thoughts and Dafa disciples' strong power of concentration. The practitioner agreed, persevered in more study, but eventually soon fell asleep again. I said, "If you are really firm in Dafa and truly want to study the Fa well, you wouldn't be so sleepy." The practitioner gradually became more awake and finished reading the book with us. The next day, the practitioner told me with a smile, "I made a breakthrough last night. I have broken through the evil of sleepiness that I had nourished. Now I know how to do it. If it interferes with me again, I will know how to do it." When I heard this, I asked him, "Isn't this acquiescing to the existence of the evil of sleepiness? We should not allow the evil of sleepiness to exist, nor allow such things to happen anymore."
During our cultivation, we have attachments that we have been nourishing unconsciously. Sometimes, we acquiesce to the evil's existence, do not truly stand on the basis of the Fa, conform to the old forces' arrangement and stick to our human notions so that we cannot see the truth. Thus many problems cannot be solved. Although we are cultivating and validating Dafa, we have not changed ourselves fundamentally. When we truly stand on the basis of Fa, face anything rationally, and fundamentally get rid of rigid notions, we will make a qualitative leap.
To end, let me quote Master's words in "Cautionary Advice:"
"If you do not want to change your human state and rationally rise to a true understanding of Dafa, you will miss the opportunity. If you do not change the human logic that you, as an ordinary human, have formed deep in your bones over thousands of years, you will be unable to break away from this superficial human shell and reach Consummation. ... If every one of you can understand the Fa from the depths of your mind, that will truly be the manifestation of the Fa whose power knows no boundary -- the reappearance of the mighty Buddha Fa in the human world!"
