(Clearwisdom.net)
One day, as I was talking to a fellow practitioner about his most recent experiences in cultivation and validating the Fa, he said, "Theory is theory, reality is reality." Immediately I pointed out to him that this is an incorrect statement. This practitioner had lived through jail time, experienced tribulations and seen the severe persecution of other practitioners. Having had similar experiences, I couldn't help but wonder why this practitioner thought this way. Apparently, his understanding came from mixing Dafa with everyday people's theories. Teacher has clearly explained this problem in "Lunyu"; during our cultivation, practitioners have also proven that Dafa is definitely not the same as everyday people's theories. This practitioner's words reflected the shortcomings he sensed in his cultivation.
Then what caused this practitioner to have an everyday person's notion? How could a Dafa practitioner who chose to firmly adhere to the practice under the evil persecution become confused about this principle? Reflecting back on my own cultivation experience and similar confusion, I discovered the following reasons:
First, it is because the acquired notions were hidden very deeply. These notions often take advantage of practitioners' loopholes, interfering with our righteous enlightenment. Because of the education they received since childhood, people start learning and forming the notion of "theory" and "practicality." For instance, what they refer to "connecting theory with practice" has placed people under the impression that what is written in the books is the summation of experience--systematic theories that can only be proven true after being put into action. If true practitioners cannot root out this notion, they will wrongfully think that Dafa is also a body of knowledge and theory; thus, they cut themselves off from the inner meaning of Dafa, and therefore not experience the miracles of Dafa. The old forces even trick you into voluntarily accepting their "trials" and "tests," until they destroy you.
Second, this misunderstanding comes from not studying the Fa well, which manifests as the frequent questioning of Dafa and causes the inability to righteously enlighten. When tribulations come, we don't look inside ourselves, and yet, we still expect miracles to occur. Since the book exists in an ordinary form--black letters on white paper--we erroneously think that Dafa is indeed a theory of the ordinary world.
Third, during the process of cultivation there are always missteps, oftentimes not to our liking, and we take them as setbacks. Looking at what a Dafa disciple should have done, we are often overtaken by guilt until it slowly becomes an attachment. As a result, we feel that we still have a long way to go, which prompts our everyday people's notion that "theory is perfect, but in practice it's not always so."
Fourth, although we obtained the Fa before July 20, 1999, due to many factors during the process of validating the Fa, there were still many tribulations in various forms including "sickness karma." This caused us to realize that some of our notions were still deeply hidden. As we realized this problem we also developed another notion that "practice and theory are still far apart, it's still hard to do," or even "maybe Dafa is merely a spiritual belief." Such notions have trapped us into equating Dafa with other theories of both human society and religion. Erroneous understandings and notions have brought damage to Fa validation.
These are some understandings I have based on the experiences of the fellow practitioner and myself.
