(Clearwisdom.net) When I reread Teacher's article "Dafa is Indestructible", I feel an extra sense of familiarity, because this article was taught to me by a Dafa practitioner, one sentence at a time, when we were in a forced labor camp. At that time, I did not dare to slack off a bit, memorized the Fa, sent forth righteous thoughts again and again, and kept every thought and all my thinking based on the Fa. As soon as negative thoughts entered my mind, I immediately eliminated them, opposed them, corrected them, and made myself walk through the situation in an open and honorable way and alongside many other Falun Dafa practitioners. Meanwhile, I also realized that I should not fear an evil environment. The key is whether we are able to walk our paths correctly and completely negate the old forces' arrangements. When we are righteous and grounded in the Fa, we are indestructible. Let's remember Teacher's words:
"I have said that there are many Buddhas beyond the level of Tathagata. What do those demons account for? They are very minute in comparison." "One righteous mind can subdue one hundred evils. If you do not pursue anything, no one will dare to bother you." (Zhuan Falun)
The evil CCP has been persecuting Falun Dafa for six years. From aggressive arrogance and insane persecution, it has come to the point of simply maintaining the persecution. After reading "Understanding a Fellow Practitioner's Words and Actions in a CCP Court," in which several hundred people were implicated and arrested after two other practitioners were arrested, I realized that the issue of how practitioners walk righteously in facing the persecution is really important.
Many articles on "Clearwisdom Weekly" record how Dafa practitioners, with righteous thoughts and righteous actions, can walk away freely from the evil. I would like to share my views with everyone and hope we can improve together.
1. Understand the Fa from the heart, and be clear about a Dafa practitioner's mission in assisting Teacher to rectify the human world - offering salvation to sentient beings.
We all know from studying the Fa why Teacher spreads such a great law at this time. The old cosmos is selfish, and follows the principle of formation-stasis-degeneration-destruction. Through Teacher rectifying the Fa, he creates a new cosmos that is unselfish, considers others first, harmonious, and eternal. Right now, Dafa practitioners are saving sentient beings, validating the Fa, and completing our missions. We are doing such a great thing; there is no reason to be fearful or not righteous.
2. According to China's laws, the persecution of Dafa is illegal, so the police are violating the law.
Falun Dafa practitioners follow the principles of "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance" and strive to be good people, obtain many benefits and are not harmed, and at the same time they are improving people's morality, social stability, and economic development. Many people who previously spent a lot of money on treatments for their incurable and serious illnesses recovered through practicing Falun Gong. We have no reason to accept the evil CCP's persecution of us or the illegal interrogation by the police.
According to the laws of China, the highest authorities are the National People's Congress and the National People's Congress Standing Committee. Only the legislation that they approve is lawful. The ban on Falun Gong was issued by the Bureau of Civil Administration and personally directed by Jiang Zemin. What judiciary authority does it have? It is illegal. The Chinese legislation also states that police officers are not allowed to gather information using torture, and are not allowed to infringe on people's human rights.
3. A practitioner's righteous thoughts and actions, when faced with persecution, include sending forth righteous thoughts, reciting the Fa, using supernormal capabilities, exposing the evil, and clarifying the truth.
Once, when the local police called me to the police station, an officer took out a list of questions. I refused to answer any of his questions and thought: I am a Dafa practitioner, and my mission is to save sentient beings. I want to leave and do the things that I should do. Then I sent forth righteous thoughts to clear away evil that controlled the policemen. The director came over, "You must cooperate. Otherwise you will suffer." I said to myself: I cooperated before and ended up with one year of forced labor, I won't do the same thing again. I continued to send forth the righteous thoughts. The interrogation questions were one page long, which the police read out to me--my response was silence. The policeman asked me to sign my name, but I refused. The officer said, "You can go home now."
4. The consequences of cooperating with the evil.
If we are not clear-minded and cooperate with the evil, the direct result is detention, forced labor or a jail sentence, and thus being unable to save sentient beings. However, what is it to save a person through our truth-clarification? Teacher said,
"He also stated that there were three thousand such worlds in a grain of sand. A grain of sand is thus just like a universe," "The same is true with human molecular cells." (Zhuan Falun)
The salvation of one person can affect an immeasurable number of living beings, very possibly corresponding to an immense universe or cosmic body. Is the harm of cooperating with the evil still small? Therefore Dafa practitioners must walk righteously.
5. Unrighteous ways can't be used in the face of persecution
In a forced labor camp, with Dafa practitioners arrested for validating the Fa, one practitioner accepted all the "responsibility." Even the head of the brigade said, "So and so is a man who dares to stand up." Recently some fellow practitioners said, "So and so fellow practitioner has been arrested, he knows a few dozen practitioners. He did not give up one name, but took all the responsibility on himself." In the forced labor camp, there was another fellow practitioner who told the Procurator everything he wanted to know during interrogation. Other practitioners suggested that he should not accept such persecution. He replied: "The cultivation period is close to the end, I am not afraid." This is an attachment to time. Not being afraid does not mean allowing the evil to persecute us. This practitioner is still in prison. Compared to Teacher's Fa, these practitioners' acts did not completely deny the old forces arrangements, but acknowledged them in a different way. Dafa practitioners have done nothing wrong by validating the Fa and exerting their own rights, we are not committing any crimes. How can we accept responsibility? Isn't that admitting our wrongdoing and acknowledging the old forces' arrangements? How have we positioned our own deeds and Dafa?
6. Completely deny the old forces' arrangements
In the forced labor camp, while we were practicing the standing exercises and sending forth righteous thoughts with one palm in front of the chest, a group of police and guards suddenly entered the room. The practitioners who were sending forth righteous thoughts did not move a bit, and the police did not touch them. However, I had a human notion and went to stop them from arresting people. A fat policeman came over, lifted another practitioner and me in each of his arms and moved us aside. I did not enlighten and ran over again. As a result, I was beaten and passed out on the floor. I don't know how much time passed before I woke up, but I only realized what I had done wrong a long time later. On that day, I was sent to the detention center. I could not lie down for a week, I could only sit. The police questioned me, "The government does not allow the practice of Falun Gong, but you still practice. Are you against the government?" "I am not against the government" I replied. "The forced labor camp reported that a few of you are heads." I said, "I am not a head, there is no hierarchy amongst Dafa practitioners." He then said, "You shout Falun Gong slogans." I was going to say that I did not shout, but immediately realized that I came to validate the Fa, so would I not dare to admit shouting the truth? I answered: "I did shout." But what he wrote down was: "Have you shouted Falun Gong reactionary slogans?" I pointed out that shouting out the truth about Falun Gong is not reactionary and asked him to correct what he had written. He would not. I then told him that if he did not change it, I would not sign it. Thus, he had to change the sentence. Through this incident, I realized: A Dafa practitioner's every step in validating the Fa is very important, we must mind every thought and monitor our thinking, and compare it to the Fa at all times. Only with righteous thoughts are we able to act righteously.
As of now, I feel there are two things we should pay attention to.
First, when our workplace or certain departments ask us to write a guarantee statement, some people think we can write first and then make a solemn declaration, negating what we wrote, on the Internet several days later. This is not going to work. Cultivation is very serious and can't be treated with human notions. Such actions show that we are not being responsible to Dafa or to ourselves.
Also, when the persecution was severe, some practitioners had fear. Thus, some practitioners were not willing to deliver Teacher's new articles or "Clearwisdom Weekly" to fellow practitioners, because they were worried that the imprisoned practitioners would reveal their names if they were caught. This is also wrong. Although what they did is not satisfactory, we must try our best not to leave one practitioner behind.
A fellow practitioner had a dream in which a practitioner and many other people were busy in a greasy hole. When she passed by, that practitioner said, "Let me know when you leave." I thought, we all need to, and should, help any practitioners who are lagging behind.
"In Buddhism, it is said that every phenomenon in human society is illusory and unreal." (Zhuan Falun)
I think the persecution every practitioner faces is also illusory. When practitioners walk the path correctly, this phenomenon will not exist; when someone acknowledges the old forces' arrangement, it can make them real.
Everyone's situation is different, and their paths are different; however, we all must walk our paths correctly.
A fellow practitioner once wrote a poem:
Cultivation is difficult, difficult to enlighten,
Layer on layer of rosy clouds and layer on layer of fog,
Clouds turn and the fog emerges, how to find the way out,
How simple - righteous thoughts are the way.
