(Clearwisdom.net) On September 7, 2005, over fifty Dafa practitioners were abducted while attending a Fa conference in Hegang City in Heilongjiang Province. Several days later, the total number arrested has risen to over 90.
Dafa practitioners all belong to one body, so every one of us who hears this news should first send forth righteous thoughts to support fellow practitioners. We should also use all possible means to clarify the truth to the government in Hegang City and Heilongjiang Province and rescue the practitioners who are illegally detained.
At the same time we should be calm and reflect on why such severe persecution is still happening to us today when a large amount of evil has been eliminated? At such a critical time for saving people, the arrests of so many practitioners are a huge loss to the work of validating Dafa in that area.
From some situations that we have observed, especially recently, some areas have problems working together as one body, so we would like to share the following with fellow practitioners. Please kindly point it out if there is anything inappropriate.
Understanding "Stepping Forward"
At present, practitioners in some areas in Mainland China have the common understanding that we need to not only step forward to validate Dafa, but also need to mobilize more practitioners who have not stepped forward to cooperate together and do the three things well. However, during the experience sharing conferences in some areas, some coordinators greatly emphasize their own understandings. Some even have the extreme understanding that if practitioners attend the Fa conference, that means they have stepped forward. This could create hidden dangers for the safety of our whole body.
Our understanding is that Dafa disciples stepping forward refers to studying Dafa and cultivating our minds, completely changing our inherent human notions, genuinely realizing the responsibility of Fa-rectification Dafa disciples from the Fa's perspective and then understanding that the purpose of our coming to the human world is to clarify the truth, save sentient beings and in the end, to cultivate to become enlightened beings that live for others and completely conform to the standards of the new cosmos.
We cannot judge from the surface or formality whether a practitioner has stepped forward to participate in validating Dafa. Instead, if every practitioner can keep a cultivator's state for the long-term and persist in clarifying the truth and saving all those who can be saved with a Dafa practitioner's compassion, and at the same time keep rectifying oneself and removing all human notions. This is stepping forward out of humanness.
Cultivating Within Dafa
One practitioner in my area also kept going to the frontline to validate Dafa since the persecution started, and he was illegally arrested and later released from detention centers and jails several times, even during the most oppressive hours of the persecution. He never gave in to the evil and steadfastly cultivated, and also validated Dafa in any circumstance. When he got out of the jail with righteous thoughts in 2001, his experience caused a big shock among local practitioners. After he came back, when he didn't calm down and read Master Li's new lectures and didn't realize that his detention had to a certain extent followed the path arranged by the old forces, he was invited by practitioners to different areas to attend experience sharing conferences. Sometimes he talked for several hours about how he broke through the tribulation. Shortly after, he was arrested again and was brutally persecuted to death in detention several months later.
After such situations occurred, we thought: our practitioner that was persecuted to death may have had his own problems that he didn't realize. But we don't want to talk about the practitioner's own problems here, but to look inside ourselves and share our understandings about the whole body on this issue. Especially for practitioners who attend such Fa conferences, when we notice that some practitioners emphasize their own feelings and understandings too much and use a lot of precious time, we should kindly point it out and stop such behavior of "promoting" individuals to different extents. If every practitioner can have such a clear understanding, we can avoid many unnecessary losses, and we shouldn't encounter the phenomenon of worshiping individual practitioners.
Master Li tells us the Fa principle that the people responsible for practice sites should be good coordinators. We understand that Master Li's teaching is not only for coordinators, but for all practitioners. Actually the role of those responsible is to coordinate well the things that practitioners all feel important from their understandings of Dafa. This is the role that an outstanding coordinator should play. Responsible or capable people should not direct practitioners to focus on someone's personal thoughts.
If coordinators or other practitioners violate the cultivation principles of Dafa and give orders to other practitioners, it is very dangerous. When practitioners worship a practitioner, they may push this practitioner to a dead end, because the evil may use violent treachery against this responsible practitioner.
The recent mass arrests have happened and caused big losses. Every one of us should take note of the lessons and find our own shortcomings, and more clearly cultivate within Dafa. At the same time we should expose the local evil people to the local residents and strengthen our efforts to clarify the truth, and thus we can more effectively clean up the evil, lessen the pressure on fellow practitioners and try our best to reduce the losses.
