(Clearwisdom.net) Recently, I came to understand clearly that the separation among Falun Dafa practitioners was completely due to practitioners' attachments, which were taken advantage by the old forces' dark minions.
After July 20, 1999, the entire family of a practitioner in Jilin City was brutally persecuted by the local authorities for steadfastly validating Falun Dafa. Her husband was illegally sentenced many times to forced labor, and she was also sentenced twice. Her home was ransacked countless times. The local truth-clarification material sites were destroyed many times. Many practitioners were sentenced to forced labor and prison terms, and some were tortured to death. As a result, practitioners' efforts to validate Falun Dafa almost collapsed in her local area. There was an extreme shortage of truth-clarification material. Even under such a difficult environment, the practitioner did not stop the local Fa-validation and truth-clarification effort for one single day. Nevertheless, there were only one or two people who produced truth-clarification materials in her local area.
One day she came to our area to attend a Fa-conference. After the conference she was greatly touched. She said, "The Fa-rectification situation in your area is really good, with many people participating in it. That is not the case in our area." A fellow practitioner from Jilin City said to her, "At the beginning it also wasn't very good in our area, either. However, we have overcome this kind of separation. Fellow practitioners have had more chances to share experiences. We are constantly holding the kind of Fa-conference that we are having here today, anywhere and anytime, from a few to several dozen participants. We think that practitioners are all the same wherever we are. The key reason that we cannot form one whole body is the lack of communication and trust among fellow practitioners." After hearing that, the practitioner said, "What you have talked about is all very good, but it won't work in our area at all. Don't even think about having a truth-clarification material site in every field and valley--we are not even able to read Teacher's new scriptures or the 'Minghui Weekly' in a timely manner!" Afterward, practitioners in Jilin City suggested that she hold more experience-sharing opportunities in her local area.
Several days later, the practitioner organized the first and biggest Fa-conference in her local area since July 20, 1999. More than twenty practitioners attended the conference. Two practitioners from out of town also attended. At the conference everyone talked about his or her own personal experience and understanding of Fa-principles. Fa-rectification has reached this point: every Falun Dafa practitioner actually has the desire to participate in Fa-validation. But the evil's persecution has created a separation among practitioners; as a result, practitioners fail to form an active whole body because they fail to understand and communicate. In the end, the Fa-conference was very successful.
Three months later, that practitioner again came to Jilin City. She happily told us, "I used to think that having a truth-clarification material site in every field and valley wouldn't happen in our area. Having that Fa-conference has made many fellow practitioners step forward, one after another, to take part in making truth-clarification materials. Now we have a lot of people who have established truth-clarification material sites at their homes."
A few days ago we also went to a city in Jilin Province where practitioners were seriously isolated from each other. We attended a small experience-sharing meeting with more than ten participants. This was the "biggest" Fa-conference in that area since July 20, 1999. At the beginning, some practitioners were emotionally unstable. However, as practitioners kept sharing their experiences and improving their understanding of Fa-principles, the atmosphere gradually became peaceful. Everyone eagerly spoke up. One practitioner was touched and said, "When I first arrived I was timid and scared. But by being here I realized that I was like that because of my way of thinking." Another practitioner said, "My coming here this time is, to me, just like letting go of life and death. What a pity for those practitioners who cannot come. They have missed an opportunity to share experiences and improve together as one whole body." Yet another said, "The separations the old forces have caused among us are as thin as a piece of paper that can be easily broken with just one poke. As a matter of fact, what is really stopping us from forming one whole body is our own attachments."
There is also another area where practitioners are severely persecuted. There are many steadfast practitioners in that area. The Fa-rectification situation there was once very active and healthy, and there used to be several large truth-clarification material sites. Most practitioners who made truth-clarification materials in that area had very strong egos and emphasized individual, personal values. They were unable to let go of their own egos to coordinate with the whole body. As a result, within a year all the truth-clarification material sites were destroyed, and almost all the practitioners who were involved in making truth-clarification material were kidnapped. This eventually collapsed the effort to validate Falun Dafa in that local area.
After this lesson, practitioners realized the following: It doesn't matter how many steadfast practitioners there are in a local area or how "capable" individual practitioners are, if we cannot break through the separation created by the old forces and let go of our egos to coordinate with the whole body, then we'll be giving the evil excuses to persecute us. Only by having more experience-sharing opportunities, trusting each other, and improving and elevating together as one whole body can we do better in accomplishing the three things Teacher requires of us.
