(Clearwisdom.net September 3) On Wednesday, September 3, 2003, the appeal against false accusations was to be heard in court. As one of the practitioners involved I would like to share with fellow practitioners what I have realized was lacking in my cultivation since the false accusation was made a year and a half ago. I want to share how we should completely deny the evil arrangements of the old forces in their attempt to test Dafa practitioners, and how we should further purify ourselves and save sentient beings as much as we can during the appeal process.
On March 14 last year, we 16 Dafa practitioners went to appeal in front of the Central Government Liaison Office and the police arrested us. Under direct pressure from persons from the Central Government Liaison Office, which took orders from Jiang Zemin, the police arrested us under a regulation for street peddlers, which was totally inapplicable to our appeal activity. Later, the police used the same tactic of false accusation and fabricated seven crimes against us such as "obstructing the sidewalk," "obstructing police duties" and "assaulting the police" and took us to court. After 26 days of court hearings, the judge delivered a guilty verdict on all seven crimes in absence of any legal basis and evidence. A few days later we lodged an appeal against the unjust verdict.
Looking back at the path for the last one and a half years, I have moved on from a state of deeply blaming myself when faced with the tribulation at the beginning to truly looking inward with rationality on the basis of the Fa. I found that my weakest area was that I did not study the Fa well and mixed too many human notions in with validating the Fa, which were shown in the following respects:
1. With scanty understanding or extreme misinterpretation of the Fa and lack of solid cultivation of xinxing, I failed to keep a proper xinxing standard at critical moments. Consequently, not only was I unable to validate the Fa, but I also brought damage to the Fa.
Through this experience I found that I did not have a clear understanding about what the term "Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples" meant, what the mission of Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples was and how to "validate the Fa with rationality, clarify the truth with wisdom and spread the Fa and save sentient beings with benevolence." I was not clear how to do this, and attached more importance to the superficial forms of everyday people's society, such as holding appeals and distributing flyers.
When we came across problems, I only paid attention to safeguarding the superficial form and forgot our ultimate goals. As a result, things often went contrary to my wishes. During the process of validating the Fa I had too many human attachments and human notions, which directly resulted from my failure to be strict with myself in personal cultivation. I had not even let go of some fundamental mentalities, such as the competitive mentality, the show-off mentality and attachment to fame and self-interest. Looking back, I found that I did not have a clear understanding about the seriousness of cultivation and the solemnity of Fa-rectification, and I was only blindly doing things. I took doing things as cultivation, and totally ignored that Fa-study and cultivation of xinxing were the most important. I only paid lip service to them. Consequently, the old forces took advantage of me. Now I understand that only by solidly cultivating and improving ourselves in personal cultivation can we do well in Fa-rectification. Otherwise we cannot truly validate the Fa at all and we cannot reach the standards Master has set for us. Thus, studying the Fa well and solidly cultivating our xinxing are of utmost importance.
2. I did not look inward in a timely manner on the basis of the Fa; instead, I started to blame myself in an everyday person's manner, which in turn encouraged demoralization.
I'm not saying we should not look inward, but when we fail to truly look inward on the basis of the Fa, we will fall into everyday people's meaningless self-blaming. Our initial looking inward had involved many human notions and sentiments, along with much regret, self-blaming, anxiety and worries about personal gains and losses. These emotions were so strong that for a period of time I found it hard to extricate myself from them, and consequently the evil took advantage of these gaps and I played a role of demoralizing the will of Dafa practitioners. From March to June last year, because I could not get rid of my self-blaming, I failed to make good use of the time to clarify the truth and lost many precious opportunities. Now I understand that a cultivator's looking inward completely surpasses the incident itself.
What was worse, while blaming myself, I unwittingly felt that I deserved the test the evil put in my way. With this erroneous way of thinking I covered up my own omissions and abetted the evil's actions. This also shook my determination to completely eliminate the evil. Of course we should not hesitate to get rid of our omissions through cultivation; however, we are Fa-rectification Dafa disciples and we should be responsible to all righteous elements in the universe. We should take saving sentient beings seriously. What we do will be a reference for future sentient being in various realms. The new universe, as our Master tells us, will be beautiful and pure in a totally unprecedented way; yet, what the evil did in persecuting Falun Gong demonstrated the most degenerate ways of thinking and doing things in the old universe. The new universe would not acknowledge this. We should therefore completely eliminate the evil and their conduct. We should not allow them to commit crimes simply because we still have omissions. Master told us that if the old forces had not got involved, Master would have resolved everything with a positive solution; that is why we must clearly understand that the methods the old forces deployed to test Dafa disciples resulted from the degeneration of beings in the universe, and they must be eliminated unconditionally.
3. I did not base saving sentient beings on a righteous attitude and had an impure mind, thinking that only by making the court declare we are not guilty could we achieve the ultimate result. I focused on achieving results and relied on everyday people.
We understand that we should give no thought about personal gains and losses in personal cultivation, but I have failed to understand this principle in Fa-rectification cultivation. I thought we would achieve the goal of validating the Fa through a court verdict and thought only by achieving this could we save sentient beings. With a very strong mindset of pursuit I tried to find ways to clarify the truth and to send forth righteous thoughts. I also relied heavily on everyday people; coming to the conclusion if the lawyers and the judge would be fair, things would work out and I hoped some individuals in ordinary society would play a role in our favor. Because of my attachments to results and my reliance on everyday people, during the court hearing I was often disturbed by the behavior of the judge, the lawyers and the witnesses. I now understand that with an incorrect state of mind, a disturbed heart, unrighteousness and impurity in ourselves, we cannot achieve the goal of frightening the evil and saving sentient beings.
4. Because I pursued results in everyday people's society, I took truth-clarification and sending forth righteous thoughts as means to achieve the goals of everyday people.
I did not proactively clarify the truth and could not think of any better ways. This was because my starting point was wrong and I did not consider the issue from the perspective of sentient beings, and therefore the godly side in me could not play a role. Even clarifying the truth was done with dominant human notions and with a mentality of pursuit. You can imagine what the result was like. Later I understood that in every Dafa task we do we must base ourselves on the Fa and conduct ourselves according to the standards of the Fa. We should try our best to remove all human notions and purify our mind, and do it truly with our heart and with righteous thoughts. Through solid cultivation I have come to a clearer understanding about these issues and my mind has also become active in clarifying the truth.
Now, Master has taught the Fa more and more obviously. We went through one more year of cultivation; how do we think about the appeal in early September?
1. Get out of human notions and rescue sentient beings with compassion
First, we should rid ourselves of human notions and should not be puzzled by the phenomena of ordinary society. Follow the Fa requirements and rescue sentient beings with the kind of compassion that can melt steel.
We do not seek for results in this appeal. We don't pin any of our hopes on the judge, lawyers and the media. We will not be swayed by the attitudes and decisions of the judge and lawyers. We must do well the three things that Master brought up: study the Fa, explain the facts and send righteous thoughts! That includes having righteous thoughts and righteous actions; to treat all living beings with compassion. Those are the best methods to eliminate the evil. When we truly step out of the human way of doing things and walk on the path Master has arranged, we will feel relaxed and noble. When we are led by the old forces we will experience worry, depression and have many difficulties.
2. Study the Fa well; understand Dafa and the Fa-rectification with reason
How can we walk on the road Master arranged for us? We must measure any of our thoughts and ideas with the Fa. In Zhuan Falun, Master has systematically expounded the principles in different layers of the new universe, and harmonizes the Fa in Zhuan Falun in the later teachings. We must study the Fa seriously and study it well in order to understand and assimilate ourselves with the different layers of those principles. If we don't study well, we won't be able to distinguish between the requirements in the new universe and the corrupted principles in the old universe. We would not be able to tell what is interference or what are the thoughts from the purity of one's nature.
Why have we not done well, again and again? Master has told us in the teachings that this happens because we didn't study the Fa well enough. We must put the assimilation to the Fa at first! As for the thought "Too busy to study the Fa," we should check ourselves. Master arranged for us to cultivate and seriously emphasizes our cultivation. How could we neglect to study the Fa on a daily basis? Who put the thought "busy, no time to study" in our heads? Whom do we listen to? In fact, we choose who we listen to at any moment. I remember, during the court proceedings of last year, although we have learned the principle of diamond-like solidity that Master taught us, we could not put it into practice. Our hearts could be affected by any word from the judge, any reaction of the lawyers, or those false testimonies. We even regarded them as the triggers for us to look inside. The consequence was, we couldn't escape ordinary notions, and that is exactly what the old forces wanted. Knowing the principle to being qualified practitioners requires us to carry out the cultivation in practice. If we couldn't cultivate to get rid of those that are not good characteristics such as human notions, human thoughts and karma, the old forces would take advantage of the loopholes to make us confused and take us on their arranged road.
3. Eliminate degenerated notions and purifying ourselves
We understand that, while study the Fa well, eliminating everything that is not good in our minds is significant and important and should not be neglect at all. We must keep strengthening our power to purify ourselves and do it continually, without stopping. The degeneration of the old universe is due to lowering and corruption of sentient beings' realms. Master mentioned the principle of Trinity of Gods. The mind is part of a God. If we couldn't reach the standard of the new universe, the associated celestial bodies and beings within would not be able to enter the new universe. Any tiny thought and idea could determine the destiny of numerous celestial bodies and countless living beings!
"For cultivators, though, when it comes to raising the requirement on your xinxing and letting go of your attachments, there's absolutely no wiggle room, and the standard can absolutely not be lowered, because we need to be responsible to the future, and to the cosmos and the sentient beings of the future. Many Dafa disciples will achieve the status of gigantic beings in the future, and they will encompass many sentient beings, even boundless beings. So if your standard is lowered, then that level of the cosmos won't last long and that level of the firmament won't last long, so you have to meet the standard." (From "Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Vancouver, Canada, in 2003")
4. The Cooperation of Hong Kong practitioners and the practitioners in the rest of world as a whole
Our positive cooperation as a whole is very important as well. That is what the evils are most afraid of and is most fatal to them.
"How are we to... it's just like what the student who submitted the question slip brought up, how are we to do a good job cooperating and coordinating with each other--that's what Fa-rectification needs the most from Dafa disciples." (From Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference)
"At present there are some frictions among students. All of us need to watch out - we can't let minor things affect the important things that Dafa disciples are supposed to do. "I'm going to tell you that no matter what kind of conflicts arise, or what kind of situations emerge, it's bound to be that we have gaps in ourselves. That's for sure. If there weren't a gap nobody could exploit it. When there's a xinxing friction among our students or disharmony when you're cooperating with each other, and it doesn't matter if it's something big or small, I'm telling you, it's definitely demons exploiting the gaps." (Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference)
For the appeal mentioned above, just like any other Fa-rectification event, our cooperation as a whole is extremely important, including harmonizing our efforts among those practitioners who are directly involved in the case, harmonizing the actions among the practitioners in Hong Kong and joint efforts, and being of one mind among the practitioners in the rest of the world.
The above is just my personal understanding. Please point out anything improper.
August 30, 2003
