(Clearwisdom.net) Today I learned that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has created another label for Falun Gong: "Counterrevolutionary Political Organization." It uses the label as an excuse to rampantly hunt for practitioners throughout the entire country. During experience sharing with some fellow practitioners, I was enlightened to the following principle: No major event in this human world happens accidentally; then why did this thing happen? I think the reason is that many practitioners still lack a clear understanding towards the Nine Commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party. If many practitioners harbor the notion deep in their mind that spreading the Nine Commentaries is being involved in politics, then the old forces have an excuse to "help" us remove that fundamental attachment. This elevates the evil "test" that uses "evil to treat evil."
In my understanding, the tribulations for the whole body of practitioners correspond to the fundamental attachment(s) of our whole body. I came to this understanding through studying Teacher's article, "Towards Consummation:"
"Some people think that Dafa is in keeping with their own understanding of science; some people think that it agrees with their own code of conduct; some people think that it speaks to their own dissatisfaction with politics; some people think that Dafa can salvage humankind's degenerate morals; some people think that Dafa can cure their illnesses; some people think that Dafa and Master are righteous, and so on and so forth. It isn't wrong for human beings in this world to yearn with these attachments for beautiful dreams and wishes. But a cultivator definitely shouldn't be that way. You may start on the path of Dafa with those thoughts, yet over the course of cultivation you need to regard yourself as a cultivator. During the course of cultivation, however, through reading the books, studying the Fa, and diligently making progress, you should clearly recognize what your thoughts were when you first came to Dafa. After cultivating for a period of time, are your thoughts still the same? Are you continuing on the path because of those human attachments? If so, you cannot be counted as my disciple. It means that you haven't gotten rid of your fundamental attachments and that you are unable to understand the Fa from the Fa."
"Do you know that one of the biggest excuses the old evil forces use at present to persecute Dafa is that your fundamental attachments remain concealed? So in order to identify those people, the tribulations have been made more severe. If you're attached to Dafa's consistency with humans' science, they manipulate wicked human beings to spread lies that Dafa is "superstitious"; if you're attached to Dafa's power to heal illness, they manipulate wicked human beings to spread lies that Dafa forbids people to take medicine and that this has led to 1,400 deaths; even if you say that Dafa isn't involved in politics, they have wicked human beings spread lies that Dafa and Li Hongzhi have foreign political forces behind them, and so forth; if you say that Dafa collects no fees, they say that Master has sought to accumulate wealth through dishonest means. Whatever you're attached to, they have evil ones concoct lies about that. Even if you're afraid that Dafa is being damaged, they fabricate articles allegedly written by Master. Think about it: the enormous test at present is exactly to see how Dafa fares and how students conduct themselves in Master's absence. How could Master speak out? How could I again tell you what to do? Additionally, they manipulate wicked human beings to examine Dafa and its disciples, putting them through a comprehensive and destructive test that targets all human thoughts and attachments. Had you truly been able to get rid of those fundamental human attachments in your cultivation, this last tribulation would not have been so vicious. ("Towards Consummation," Essentials for Further Advancement II)
To me, the fundamental attachment of a practitioner presents itself deep in one's mind. Everything is revolving around things in human society. Many practitioners always use things at this human level to judge the Fa, and forget the fact that human society is merely the lowest and least-enlightened level in this immense cosmos. Practitioners cannot use the degenerate and deteriorated things at this level to judge the fundamental Dafa, which created all living beings in the cosmos and their living environments.
The nature of the old forces determine their actions: they want to protect themselves through "helping" Falun Dafa practitioners to relinquish their attachments and take that as their "contribution" to the Fa-rectification. As a result, "they manipulate wicked human beings to examine Dafa and its disciples, putting them through a comprehensive and destructive test that targets all human thoughts and attachments." They use forceful and wicked means to coerce the practitioner to "remove" their attachments, and try to "beat" the practitioners so that they will have righteous thoughts. Teacher is teaching the Fa to us, using various means to help us understand the Fa gradually, so that we can elevate step by step; the old forces use the opposite method. As a result, the old forces try to manipulate the situation so that whatever the practitioners are attached to, the vicious test will occur in order to remove the attachment. Whatever the practitioners are afraid of, they arrange to make things happen that will target these attachments.
During the wicked test, many practitioners, who are unwilling to relinquish the fundamental attachments of human beings, use their human notions to judge the Fa and thus have fallen down.
Some people believe in modern science, thinking that it is the truth, so they develop thoughts against Dafa upon hearing the state-run media's propaganda that "Dafa is superstition" and thus quit their practice. Others, originally wanting to cure their illnesses through practicing, hear that "Dafa does not allow practitioners to take medicine, which resulted in the death of 1,400 people," and so they stopped practicing. Some people are attached to the fact that Dafa does not get involved in politics, but only teaches people to be good, offering a hundred benefits for society but not a single harm. When these people hear that "Dafa and Teacher are related to foreign political forces," they became afraid and quit their practice.
In fact, we have gradually come to realize the above principle from the experiences over the past several years of the old forces having forcefully put the "tribulations" on practitioners as a whole body.
When the persecution started, the persecutors searched for and confiscated a lot of Dafa books. Now we know that it was because at that time, many practitioners did not cherish Dafa books and respect Dafa. The old forces saw our attachments in this regard, and they rampantly burned Dafa books to create a great shortage of the books, so that people would cherish them.
In the past few years, many practitioners have hoped some ordinary people would restore justice to Dafa and return Dafa's clean reputation. How could ordinary human beings restore justice to Dafa; are they worthy of doing that? In thinking this way, in what kind of position have we have put Dafa? Ordinary human beings could never manipulate Dafa. The old forces saw the attachment of practitioners as one body and the disrespect toward Dafa. They took control of the situation to shatter our hope, create large-scale hunting and persecution of practitioners, and put the label of "Counterrevolutionary Political Organization" on us. Of course, the origin of these tribulations has more and deeper reasons. Here I am only talking about part of the reasons, as it relates to our cultivation.
After studying, "Teaching the Fa at the Western U.S. International Fa Conference," I understand that in the past, many practitioners were attached to the old cultivation methods and thought that the great enlightened beings who save people should also endure the same sufferings as those being saved. This wrong notion caused many practitioners to turn against Teacher and Dafa, and once they heard the rumor that "Teacher Li has a mansion in Changchun City and lives in luxury," they quit their practice.
Dafa is spreading in the human world, which brings benefits to the human society. Yet Dafa also benefits all the sentient beings in all levels other than the human world. As practitioners we should not judge Dafa based on the benefits Dafa brings to the human world. The old forces have seen the whole process of Teacher saving us, so they have great respect for Teacher. As a result, once practitioners use human notions to judge Dafa and are disrespectful toward Dafa, the old forces want to bring tribulations to us and destroy us. Looking at the matter from another angle, if we meet any tribulations that the old forces put upon us, it is because some of our understandings of Dafa are disrespectful and we have fundamental human attachments.
There are still many practitioners suffering under detention and persecution. I think this situation is partly because there are still too many of us who have passive and pessimistic thoughts. Some do not believe in the power of sending forth righteous thoughts and do not treat every practitioner as a particle of the whole body of all practitioners.
In my opinion, the tribulations which have happened over and over again have to do with the fact that many practitioners still have the above-mentioned selfish thoughts and human notions. As a result, these practitioners cannot fully assimilate to the Fa and they do not think of all practitioners as one body. When many of us are unwilling to follow some of the principles Teacher taught us, the thoughts and attachments are in fact disrespectful and doubtful toward the Fa, which are then taken advantage of by the old forces.
Any big tribulation we encounter points to an attachment of practitioners as one body, and are forced upon us by the old forces aiming at that attachment. In order to fundamentally remove each and every tribulation, every practitioner needs to search inside for each and every fundamental attachment among the tribulations.
Teacher has told us, "As you get rid of human mentality, evil naturally disappears "
("Don't Be Sad" in Hongyin II, provisional translation). If we could all quickly discover our attachments and relinquish them, then Teacher will not allow the tribulations created by the old forces targeting our attachment to exist. My belief is that, in order to fundamentally remove the persecution forced upon us by the old forces, maybe the best method is for practitioners to calm down and study the Fa every day. We should also attentively read the Nine Commentaries, and continuously correct our own degenerate ways of thinking and modes of action caused by the culture of the Communist Party. In doing so, we can realize the importance of the Nine Commentaries and clearly understand that spreading it is not being involved in politics -- it is breaking through the biggest obstacle that is currently preventing sentient beings from understanding the truth of Dafa; and it thus saves them. When practitioners as one body can rationally and clearly understand this issue, then the label of "Counterrevolutionary Political Organization" will destroy itself.
