(Clearwisdom.net) September 5 report: Zheng Yijian graduated from a well-known university. His former work unit honored him with the title "young engineer with a bright future." Always gracious, he wears eyeglasses and is forever smiling.
As he firmly resists the evil persecution with no fear, he also tries his best to do as Master has told us, "He has bountiful virtue and also maintains a benevolent heart; he is full of great aspirations while minding minor details" ("Sage" Essentials for Further Advancements) He regarded the small things in validating Dafa and in daily life as various aspects of cultivation, and he conducted himself strictly according to the standards of the Fa. Seeing how Zheng Yijian persisted in xinxing cultivation, it is obvious that elimination of fear is absolutely not the end of Fa rectification cultivation. In the demon-filled labor camp, elimination of fear is of course building the foundation for xinxing cultivation, but it's not enough. As future guardians of the cosmos, we must cultivate ourselves until no omissions are left. This is a requirement for true Dafa practitioners.
I. Cultivate great compassion
1. Treat perpetrators with maximum compassion: Zheng Yijian thinks we should not trade a blow for a blow with the perpetrators who persecute us. We should clarify the truth to them as much as we can in order to rescue them.
A practitioner was always furious toward the guards and inmates during the persecution. Because Zheng Yijian was under "strict control" at the time, he couldn't approach that practitioner, but he asked other practitioners numerous times to deliver a message from him that we should adjust our mentality. We should still offer salvation to people who directly persecute us, if we can. We should be maximally compassionate. The other practitioner heard this and felt it made sense, but he had too many attachments and couldn't handle himself well. When his willpower was reduced through extreme difficulties, he gave in to the evil and quickly became a collaborator [former practitioners who have gone astray due to severe pressure and torture and now help the evil to brainwash and torture other practitioners]. On the other hand, Zheng Yijian faced the persecution with righteous thoughts throughout the entire time; as the result, evil elements were eliminated in great quantities. He was very kind and tolerant toward the perpetrators and always smiled out of kindness, no matter how severe the situation was. Many guards and especially common prisoners who persecuted him admired him with all their hearts. Some repeat offenders and guards called Zheng Yijian "Yijian Brother." All the inmates knew about him and called him "a true Dafa practitioner."
2. Compassion toward ordinary people: Zheng Yijian showed great compassion toward ordinary inmates at the labor camp. Some of them were often beaten, but they liked to gather around Zheng Yijian and listen to him talk about principles he learned from the Fa. In terms of daily life, Zheng Yijian was very strict with himself, and he always gave up food and other resources, which were extremely lacking in the labor camp, to other people. In early summer of 2000, the labor camp made a significant improvement by providing soybean milk to every inmate. There were leftovers after one round of soybean milk was served, and the guard said whoever wanted to was permitted to take another portion. Several Dafa practitioners also went to get more, but Zheng Yijian shook his head and said, "If you drink one more bowl, others will have one less bowl." Other practitioners realized this, and no practitioner took more soybean milk. The inmates drank to their fill and understood and admired Dafa practitioners even more.
During the past few years in the labor camp where material resources were extremely lacking, no one ever saw Zheng Yijian dumping food or taking extra food. He always ate whatever he was given. After he finished eating, he would always get half a bowl of tap water. No one ever saw him asking for drinking water. In the winter, a person's stomach becomes warm after eating a hot meal, and they might become sick if they immediately drink icy-cold tap water [a common belief in traditional Chinese medicine]. Many inmates asked him, "How can you take that?" Although their intentions were good, they could not understand the level that corresponds to an indestructible, diamond-like body. If you want to drink hot water in the camp you have to buy a special pot and you have to calculate the time when you can get the water during the limited time period when hot water is provided. For Zheng Yijian, taking so much effort to get hot water was no different than monks who are attached to their rice bowls. He often said, "For daily life, the simpler the better."
An inmate who used to participate in persecuting Dafa practitioners said bravely before he was released, "Falun Gong [practitioners] are different from what's shown on TV. Why are they such great people? I have to get a [Falun Gong] book after I get out."
3. Compassion toward fellow practitioners who have gone astray: treat these types of practitioners with compassion and share with them Fa principles. This way we can "pull" them back. For a practitioner who willingly betrays Dafa, many determined practitioners treat them with disdain and even anger. This is pushing them further on the wrong path. From late 2000 to early 2001, the conflict between perpetrators who forced practitioners to renounce their belief and practitioners who firmly resisted the persecution was very intense. The determined practitioners became more determined, but all kinds of evil understandings of Dafa also surfaced, and many of them sounded really ridiculous.
In January 2001, a determined Dafa practitioner was transferred to Group Four, where collaborators were being detained. When he saw former fellow practitioners having become so degenerated and yet enjoying it, he grew furious. He angrily reproached and condemned those collaborators. A month later, he was still determined, but none of the collaborators who were with him had changed, and he himself was became very tired.
Zheng Yijian used a different approach to rescue various people: in January 2001, a collaborator from Group Four who was sent to brainwash Zheng Yijian told other people how Zheng Yijian patiently shared the Fa principles with him. He was moved by the compassion of a determined Dafa practitioner. This practitioner, after being released soon after, again began to validate Dafa. Because of this he was again arrested and was sent back to the labor camp. However, this time he did not give in to the evildoers.
Teacher said,
"A Dafa disciple--a most magnificent, merciful being--is the most remarkable and most merciful in every environment of human society, and is beneficial to other beings" ("Teaching the Fa at the Great Lakes Fa Conference in North America," Guiding the Voyage).
When our purpose is offer salvation to people and validate Dafa with compassion, and we strictly conduct our words and actions according to the Fa, the outcome will be as Teacher said,
"All the things our Dafa disciples have done with good thoughts have moved the people in the world and beings at every level, while the evil that has reared its head in Mainland China has infuriated beings at every level. The contrast between these evil beings and our goodness (shan) is dramatic" (Teaching the Fa at the 2001 Canada Fa Conference," Guiding the Voyage).
II. Maximally Giving Up Everything
In the fall and winter of 2001, Dafa practitioners in the First Division of the labor camp held a mighty group hunger strike, even abstaining from water. Almost all of the 20 to 30 practitioners participated in this. They also refused to do the forced labor, wear the labor camp uniform, practice the formation drills, as well as resisted the brainwashing and any other forms of physical and mental persecution. Many practitioners were at death's door. After the information spread out of the labor camp it spurned strong repercussions throughout various segments of society and shocked the evil. Under the stress of these circumstances, even the city government showed concerns. The labor camp guard chief was forced to publicly announce in a mass meeting that, "whoever beats Falun Gong practitioners in the future would have his term extended."
Here we share a conversation between two practitioners:
"The Fa-rectification period will not last long; even if one does not participate, it will finish when it's time to finish; one's participation and whether one is diligent or not is actually whether one is responsible to himself or not." (At that time, this practitioner had been on hunger strike for over 30 days)
"That's right. You understand so well!"
"How are you doing? Since the hunger strike, has your body endured a lot?"
"I have realized that a human being's biggest attachment is often the attachment to his body. Once I let go of this biggest attachment, my heart is very calm and light and I am not afraid, no matter how much my body hurt. When reciting the Fa in my mind, I feel the relief of my heart."
The practitioners did not gain this insight amid hunger strike at the very beginning. The practitioner who realized that to let go of the attachment to the physical body is a big step used to be very attached to his physical body in prison two years ago. He had suffered from severe heart disease prior to cultivation. After he began cultivation, his disease was quickly cured, but he still had a deep-rooted attachment to his physical body.
Various kinds of persecution inside the labor camp directly target the body, thus it is very dangerous if one does not let go of this attachment. When this practitioner's attachment to his body was most serious, Zheng Yijian helped him. One day in April 2000, this practitioner was interfered with by severe thought karma that he thought he could not endure anymore, so he told Zheng Yijian about it. Zheng Yijian said, "Since the persecution of Dafa, practitioners all around the world have been doing lots of things for the Fa. Thinking about the greatness of the Fa, about the significance of your mission, and about the broad and immense universe and firmament created by the Fa, don't you feel as if assimilating into the Fa? At this time the tiny things you attach to will no longer exist." The practitioner calmed down and thought about it, and it's true that, once completely assimilating himself into the Fa, the thought karma disappeared immediately. When this practitioner validated Dafa wholeheartedly, he couldn't help smiling when looking back at his previous state of mind. Seven months later he got to leave the labor camp as a result of his righteous thoughts.
Here is another example. Around December 2000, the sole on Zheng Yijian's foot suddenly ulcerated with running pus and black fluid, which was very painful and itchy. Zheng Yijian kept treating it with righteous thoughts. He recited Dafa articles in his mind and didn't panic at all. The guards took this excuse to order inmates to forcibly inject drugs into Zheng Yijian, but he never cooperated with the forced injection. A strong-figured inmate happened to have the same symptom as Zheng Yijian, and he actively cooperated with drug injection and taking medicine. One month later, Zheng Yijian was totally recovered. The muscle on his sole was as good as before; on the other hand, the inmate who had had taken medical treatment for a month had to walk with a cane. This example shows that no matter how the evil persecutes, it has no power over the practitioners who do not have the corresponding attachment.
III. Let go of ordinary people's mentality and pay attention to the cultivation of speech
The forced labor camp once tried to use a strategy of emotion to wear down Zheng Yijian's will. From the beginning of the year 2001, Zheng Yijian's father abandoned Dafa. He was once the practitioner in charge of a local practice site and was the person who initially introduced Dafa to Zheng Yijian. His father even appeared on television to "expose and criticize" Dafa. His father, his older brother and his older brother's wife who also abandoned Dafa sometimes even used crying and scolding, trying to persuade Zheng Yijian to give up his belief in Falun Dafa. The guards in the prison decided enough time had been invested in trying to get him to renounce his belief, so they frequently sent Zheng Yijian's family to cry in front of him and to attempt to brainwash him. At the same time, they asked a young female who wrote a "Repentance Statement" for the purpose of otaining the release from forced labor camp and once had closer relationship with Zheng Yijian to persuade him. Facing a series of "emotional bombs", Zheng Yijian remained uneffected and always revealed the principles of the Fa to them. After trying this approach for a period of time, the forced labor camp officials had to stop trying and Zheng Yijian's test regarding emotional attachments [naturally] disappeared.
Zheng Yijian was graduated from a distinguished university and was a young technical employee with extraordinary achievements to his credit. His salary was very high, several thousand Yuan a month. The police envied the economic privileges he once enjoyed, but at the same time they were also puzzled that he could let go of those things. Sometimes Zheng Yijian also felt that those things would emerge in his mind. He then strengthened his main consciousness and brought his own thoughts back to the Fa. For instance, one time at work, an common prisoner asked Zheng Yijian: "How much money did you make a month?" Zheng Yijian told him the amount of his salary and that inmate exclaimed, "Wow! That much? Then your work was certainly very important!" Zheng Yijian was a little pleased with himself and said, "let me put it this way; when we were making the budget, a decimal is possibly equal to several ten millions of Yuan." When that inmate exclaimed his surprise, all of a sudden Zheng Yijian slightly shook his head and gently talked to himself, "No! this is an attachment." From that time on, nobody heard Zheng Yijian engage in any unnecessary chatter.
His cultivation of speech in other aspects was also practiced extremely well. When the environment became somewhat loose and easier, for relaxation, some Dafa practitioners started to chat amongst themselves. Some were even involved in small conflicts among criminals. Zheng Yijian reminded everybody, "Ordinary people are just like this; they will fight each other today and will get along well tomorrow. Do not get involved in ordinary people's conflicts."
IV. Letting go of the attachment to time
A practitioner in Team One had his third eye open and saw things very clearly, and had many mystical experiences. After he was brought to the forced labor camp, he was startled to discover that in October, 1999, in his dream he saw the entire process, the environment, the characters and many other matters and details in some forced labor camp, things that were exactly the same in this forced labor camp. He also told others when this persecution would be over and how Zheng Yijian cultivated himself well in the forced labor camp. Because many details of his predictions were very accurate, a group of practitioners in Team One were immersed and lost in his predictions. They were all waiting for the arrival of the final day that he has seen at that time. He added that, "in my experiences, the ending day would not be far away when cuckoos kept cuckooing 24 hours a day."
Shortly afterwards, some cuckoos really kept cuckooing 24 hours a day and it continued day after day without stopping. These practitioners believed in him even more and respected Zheng Yijian even more as well, but Zheng Yijian was very worried. He warned other practitioners many times and reminded them what Teacher had wrote,
"Supernormal capabilities are only small tricks, Dafa is the most fundamental. ( "Pursuing the Upright Cultivation Way" Hong Yin)
We must understand and analyze this matter from the principles of the Fa: If you know when the final day is and you are finally able to see its arrival, would that kind of cultivation still be called Fa-Rectification cultivation? As to so called 'the most extraordinary disciple,' if one is not diligently cultivating oneself in the principles of the Fa, I am afraid that one is even not able to keep the title of Dafa disciple. Even though that practitioner did see and experience something in another dimension, those were just the arrangements of the old forces and the merely a partial picture of the true situation."
Unfortunately, Zheng Yijian's worry came true: After July 2000, (the ending time was July 2000 in that practitioner's dream), the persecution situation developed completely different. Not only did the persecution not end, but it was unceasingly worsening and intensified. Those practitioners who were immersed and lost in that practitioner's predictions suddenly felt "lost at sea." At the same time they also experienced many inhumane tortures. Many of them could not stand the suffering and had written the "Repentance Statement." Of course, some practitioners who were also immersed and lost in those predictions were trying to correct their mindset, let go of their attachment to time, calm themselves down so they could memorize the Fa, and rededicate their lives to conduct themselves according to the requirements of the Fa. But after all, they had taken the tortuous path and wasted their time.
As to the practitioner with supernormal capabilities, he finally survived after experiencing a very long and very painful process. The evildoers once treated him as the key practitioner, brutally tortured and beat him. After all kinds of tortures and beatings and the scabies on his body, he lost control of his main consciousness and wrote the " Repentance Statement." Those guards in the prison seized that chance to publicize his conversion and to insult Dafa. Of course when that practitioner regained control of his main consciousness and became sober-minded, he quickly started to re-validate the Fa. Later, it was said that he was persecuted again, but he had let go of his attachment to those "special experiences" and gradually paid attention to studying the Fa.
While on this subject, it is necessary to point out that it was popular that practitioners who were tortured were attached to "time" in an excruciating environment such as labor camps and jails. Those practitioners wished some external force would stop the persecution while forgetting it is they who are safe-guardians of the universal Dafa and it is they who are the forces to release themselves. They also forgot that as a Dafa particle, everything necessary to break through the vicious environment is all within their righteous thoughts. If they would not totally change their mentality, most of them could not persist in such tough kind of an environment. To achieve a pure mind is based on their cultivation and insights.
To endure hard times during this arduous suffering is not cultivation. Some practitioners who were not diligent found an excuse that, "now is the time for Fa-rectification, but not personal cultivation." Without the solid base of personal cultivation, every action for the Fa-rectification is meaningless. This type of cultivation includes not only the period of personal cultivation prior to the persecution, but also the cultivation of our every thought and behavior in whatever situation, at every minute, no matter what the period is. Let us take the attachment to "time" as an example. Without the realm of "melting into the Fa," which is achieved from solid cultivation, it is fruitless to endure the difficult time in an arduous situation. If we really "melt into the Fa," we would not feel any suffering. Enduring the loneliness with our human side cannot compare to facing suffering with a calm heart.
Actually, the suffering from beating in jails is short. The main suffering is the loneliness one encounters. If the Fa is not dominant in a practitioner's mind, all kinds of human mentalities and attachments will be in charge. But in jails and the tougher forced labor camps, no human desires or lust can be obtained. Practitioners with greater human desires or lust will feel extremely lonely and desolate. This kind of desolation is a kind of suffering as poisonous as a worm eating out your heart little by little, and as strong as acid corroding your will, drop by drop. This is why some practitioners could endure several beatings but could not forbear longtime suffering. On the contrary, a practitioner "melting into the Fa" would not feel such tremendous suffering, because for him, he is not in jail, neither outside; he is not in or outside of hunger pangs or in the freezing cold; he is only in the Fa. I have heard practitioners praising practitioners who walked out of jail with righteous thoughts after two or three years of suffering, saying "You are really remarkable that you could endure jail for so long." In fact, if he really only endured, he could not "endure that long" - needless to say walking out with righteous thoughts.
Master has said,
"Think about it, everyone - at this fast speed it amounts to nothing in light of the entire history of your existence, or the eternity of your existence. In the future, when you look back on this period of time [you'll find that] it was only an instant, that it was nothing. At the beginning of this persecution, each day felt like a year to you all. Even during this recent period of time, many students have been wondering, "When will it end? When is this persecution going to end? Think about it, isn't that using ordinary human thinking to look at these things? Have you thought about this? You are Dafa disciples; history has bestowed upon you magnificent responsibilities. We should make good use of this time. Since this hasn't ended yet it's a chance to save sentient beings. When Dafa is persecuted, the first thing Dafa disciples should think of is saving sentient beings and how to validate Dafa."(Touring North America to Teaching the Fa)
When a Dafa practitioner truly "melts into the Fa," will he wait, depend or endure to get the "end" from the outside?
On the other hand, the vicious arrangements of old forces are everywhere. Besides torturing Dafa practitioners with maltreatment, they also use false glory to delude Dafa practitioners so as to take the chance to persecute them. Actually, Master has clearly stated,
"For a cultivator, all the frustrations he comes across among everyday people are trials, and all the compliments he receives are tests." ("A Cultivator is Naturally Part of It" in Essentials for further advancement I") "You need to treat all the trouble you encounter as part of your cultivation practice and find reasons for it within yourself." (Geneva, 1998)
Please see Part 1 on
http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2003/9/17/40369.html
