(Clearwisdom.net)
Part 1: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2006/3/1/70421.html
4. Rescue Fellow Practitioners with Righteous Thoughts
It was just after the Chinese New Year in 2005 when a fellow practitioner asked me to join her in sending righteous thoughts for one of her relatives who was also a Dafa practitioner. She was arrested. Her husband said that over ten other practitioners were arrested as well. The police said that she would be sentenced most heavily, because the truth-clarifying materials came from her. Although I was very busy, I tried my best to squeeze time to send forth righteous thoughts for this practitioner. We sent forth righteous thoughts to cleanse away the rotten demons in her dimensions, and we sent out the strongest thought to free these practitioners unconditionally. Four days later, a fellow practitioner told me that she was released. Her release greatly touched her husband. In order to get his wife out, he went everywhere to borrow money and tried to bribe the officials. He now believes from deep within his heart that Falun Dafa is good, and he supports his wife in doing Dafa work more than ever.
Through this incident I gained a significant insight. I came to understand the importance of using righteous thoughts as one body to rescue our fellow practitioners. Teacher explained this Fa a long time ago and has mentioned it in many articles. The problem with us was that we had not reached that realm and consequently were unable to enlighten to the Fa of that realm. Since then Practitioner A, B and I worked out a plan to rescue our local practitioners who were still detained. As of September 2005 we have rescued over ten practitioners. According to the police, these practitioners would have been sentenced heavily, but they denied the old forces' arrangements with strong righteous thoughts. With the protection of our Master and the collaboration of all Dafa practitioners, these practitioners were unconditionally released. They again converged into the vast current of Fa-rectification. One of these practitioners was sentenced to one year of forced labor, but with Master's help and his own strong righteous thoughts, he denied the old arrangement and was released unconditionally. Dafa disciple's righteous thoughts play an important role. We must completely deny the old forces' arrangements. Evil is not worthy of testing us even though we still have attachments
During the rescue process, we realized that we should not be attached to other practitioners' shortcomings, but instead we ought to act like Dafa disciples. We should clear the dimensions of fellow practitioners and deny the old forces' exploitation of practitioners' attachments. At the same time we asked Master to help practitioners and enable them to burst out of the evil's den with righteous thoughts. Through the rescuing effort, we gained a clearer perspective of Fa. When we try to rescue fellow practitioners, it seemed from the surface that we were merely helping others, but in reality this rescue process has cultivation elements. Rescuing fellow practitioners is related to our own improvement and elevation. Only when every individual practitioner purifies himself can the improvement of the one body be achieved. Every practitioner's successful denial of the old forces' arrangement is a direct result of the one body's improvement.
In the process of rescuing our fellow practitioners, I noticed many of my own shortcomings. Our strong righteous thoughts freed a practitioner from the detention center within two days. However, we didn't hear about another detained practitioner in ten days. We shared our understanding of this situation and found our own shortcomings. We had the attachment of treating practitioners differently. Because we did not know the other practitioner, we did not send forth the purest righteous thought and did not totally deny the old forces' persecution of our fellow practitioner. After we found our shortcomings, we renewed our efforts to rescue this practitioner. With our pure and calm minds and our pure energy field, this practitioner returned to the vast current of Fa-rectification within a week.
In the process of rescuing, we also realized that apart from our righteous thoughts to strengthen other practitioners' righteous thoughts, we shouldn't ever think that such and such practitioner had done this or once ever wanted to do this, that the evil must have known what he had done or was going to do, or that it seemed that this practitioner was not able to come back but had to stay inside, etc. These bad thoughts would reflect in the practitioner's mind and would reinforce his bad thoughts and weaken his righteous thoughts. This also would increase the difficulty for the practitioners outside to rescue them. When we were rescuing Practitioner E, some practitioners, including some of the coordinator practitioners, thought that E was doing such and such thing and wanted to do such and such things, and it seemed he had to stay there, etc. But when we heard this, we were not moved and we were still in a calm and serene state. We were very clear in our hearts that we must rescue this practitioner and we certainly would succeed in rescuing him.
More than twenty days later, Practitioner E was back. We learned from her sharing that the first ten days she had bad thoughts. She thought that she had no other way but to stay there. But over ten days later she realized that this thought was not right. She must leave there. From this example I enlightened that every single thought of practitioners should be based on the Fa. Because we are still cultivating, we still have many elements of the old cosmos such as selfishness and attachment to oneself. If we can not restrain our every single thought and base them on the Fa, those elements will come out and hinder us from saving sentient beings. Only when we listen to Master and study the Fa, study the Fa and study the Fa more, can our every single thought be based on the Fa and can we achieve the "selflessness" and bring ourselves up to the standard of the new cosmos. Only by doing this can our righteous thoughts come out at the critical moment and can we correctly walk our path.
When we were rescuing Practitioner D, we realized that we should not have the thought of relying on and waiting for others, and that we should not look outside but start from ourselves. Practitioners A, B, and I are good friends with Practitioner D. On hearing Practitioner D was arrested, we started to rescue him by sending forth righteous thoughts on the afternoon of that very day. All of us thought Practitioner D had no problem and she could certainly burst out of the devil's den. We learned that she did not corporate with the evil in the labor camp from the first day. This increased the confidence of the practitioners outside. Whenever we had time, we sat down and sent forth righteous thoughts. For more than ten days we did not have any news of Practitioner D and we did not see any articles on the Internet exposing the evil. On the sixteenth day we saw a brief message on the Internet about Practitioner D. Practitioner A, B, and I calmed ourselves down and had some discussion on this matter. We felt that we did not do well. We had the attachment of qing for our fellow practitioner. And we had the thought of relying on and waiting for others to do something. In the past exposing the evil on the Internet was done by a certain practitioner. Why this time did he not do it? But we did not have any complaint. We realized that there were things there that we needed to cultivate on, and we had to break through. After we improved our understanding, we sent out our purest righteous thoughts using our purest hearts. The evil must set Practitioner D free. At the same time we started making stickers. I could not type, but I started to learn typing and do the sticker at the same time. From 6:30 p.m. to 12:00 a.m., for nearly six hours I typed only just over 700 words. In the process of typing, I could feel that Master was helping me. My heart was as calm as the still water. The next morning after the righteous thoughts, I was to take the stickers to other areas when Practitioner A phoned me and told me that Practitioner D was set free unconditionally at about 11:30 p.m. the previous night. With the help of our benevolent Master, we again experienced the power of the righteous thoughts of the whole body.
The next morning we had some sharing and one practitioner said to me, "Practitioner D came back home at 11:30 p.m. last night and those stickers you made did not play any role. You were busy in vain last night." On hearing this, I was very calm. I thought very clearly... what does Master treasure us for? Master is looking at us from the point of whether we cultivate ourselves in the process, whether we help others, whether we help others in order to improve ourselves, or whether we are truly up to the standard of "selflessness" of the new cosmos. Doesn't Master look at our hearts to see if we are up to the standard? As to my personal sacrifice, it is not important. This effort was not something additional. This was what I should do.
In years 2003 and 2004, about twenty practitioners in our area were arrested. In some cases the police did not get anything in the practitioners' homes, and in other cases they got only several pieces of truth clarifying paper from the practitioners' homes. But why were all of them given heavy sentences or sentenced to the labor camp? Most of them had been detained in the detention center and some for as long as six months. On one hand the practitioners themselves did not deny it with righteous thoughts. On the other hand we did not enlighten to this Fa that we as a one body should rescue practitioners. Master explained the Fa clearly to us. But we ourselves did not elevate to that realm. The connotation of the Fa of that realm would not unfold to us. Because we do not cultivate well, many other practitioners have to bear what they should not bear for us. Because we do not cultivate well, the old forces then have the chance to take advantage of us and increase the difficulty for us in our saving sentient beings. The elevation of the whole body this year suffocated the evil and the old forces barely maintained the persecution.
In the effort of rescuing practitioners with righteous thoughts, I realized that we should not rescue them only after they were arrested. Why shouldn't we clear away the hidden danger in advance? First let everyone study the Fa diligently and let them realize that studying the Fa well is the safeguard of everything. It was imperative that we restore the Fa study group. At that time Master's article "Teaching the Fa at the Western U.S. International Fa Conference" had been published for some time. We studied this article for many times when we had Fa study. It was suggested that everyone memorize the last paragraph of this article. In the last paragraph Master said:
"No matter how much I say, you still have to walk the path of cultivation yourselves. To walk this path well and progress to its end--nothing is more extraordinary. I say that because during the journey you will have hardships, tests of every sort, unforeseen ordeals, and you will have unexpected interference from all kinds of attachments and emotion. The interference will come from family, society, good friends, and even fellow cultivators. And along with this there is interference from changes in the state of human society and from human notions that were formed in society. All of those things can drag you back to being like an ordinary person. But if you can break through all of it, you can advance towards godhood. So as a cultivator, what is truly remarkable is when you can be steadfast and have righteous thoughts so firm that nothing can sway you. Be solid and firm like diamond, or granite, and then nothing can affect you--evil will be afraid at the mere sight of you. If upon encountering trying circumstances your thinking can be truly righteous, then, when faced with the evil's persecution and when faced with interference, just one sentence of yours fortified with steadfast righteous thoughts can instantly make the evil disintegrate (applause), and it will make those who are being used by the evil turn and flee, it will make the evil's persecution of you dissolve, and it will make the evil's interfering with you disappear without a trace. One thought born of righteous faith is all it takes. And whoever can hold firm that righteous thought and go the distance will become a magnificent god forged by Dafa. (Long applause)" ("Teaching the Fa at the Western U.S. International Fa Conference")
Many of the practitioners memorized this last paragraph and they urged on themselves and behaved themselves according to this Fa. Everyone realized that when we studied the Fa well, the evil would be afraid at the mere sight of us. Then how did the evil dare to capture and persecute us? It is not that we elevate ourselves in the persecution. Even Master does not acknowledge this persecution. We too must totally negate all the arrangement of the old forces. As long as we hold firm righteous thoughts and do not stop on the way of returning to our original selves, can we become what Master said, "a magnificent god forged by Dafa."
5. Remove Attachments in Cultivation
Because I walk the path right, practitioners often praise me. So when a practitioner asked me whether I had the heart of "willing to listen to praise," I immediately replied without thinking "No." I did not take what the practitioner said as something that I need to cultivate on. I did not pay any attention. Instead I thought this would not trigger my attachment of complacency at all and would not affect my cultivation. Neither would I become self-inflated. Because I did not look inward as a practitioner should do, the mentality of complacency, showing off and proving myself was growing without my notice. I was wandering in the loop of "improvement" and "falling down." I remember once on my way back home from the experience sharing conference, it started to rain. I was riding my bicycle but did not have raincoat. I had a short skirt and a short top on, and I was almost wet all over. With the rain and the thunderstorm, the sky became so dark. I earnestly asked for Master's help. I needed another twenty minutes to get home. The rain then suddenly stopped. But when I looked behind me, the rain poured down like the waterfall without any stop. I repeatedly recited,
"When disciples have sufficient righteous thoughts, master has the Almighty power to turn the cosmos around." (from "Grace Between Master And Disciple," Hongyin II, provisional translation subject to improvement)
I was overjoyed beyond description. As a matter of fact this should be a very normal thing (if it happened to practitioners) but I was so delighted without reason and forgot that I myself was a practitioner walking on the way to the Godhood. I regarded myself as an ordinary person. Near my home there was a 45 degree downhill road with a 200-meter-long plain road, which is followed by another tortuous path. When I was riding down once, my brakes worked well. But when I turned onto the winding path, my brakes stopped working, and I swayed four or five meters. At that moment I shouted loudly, "Master I know I am wrong." I felt myself jump up like a cotton ball. Then I turned back and stood up. I landed without being injured or bruised. At this moment I knew that Master had helped me again. I looked at my watch. There were only three minutes left. I rushed to the bicycle and had a try with the brake. But this time the brake worked. I knew the problem was caused by my attachment of complacency. As soon as I got home and pushed my bicycle into the house, the rain bucketed down. One practitioner said to me "You are so lucky." But I told her the story of how I asked Master to help and how I fell down. I learned a good lesson from this incident. From then on when extraordinary phenomena appeared, I always warned myself "Don't forget this lesson." "Don't have the attachment of complacency, because enlightened beings would not get excited about fortunes or become sad about misfortunes."
I did not pay enough attention to cultivating myself. In an experience sharing conference, though I did not reprimand a practitioner, I did not speak calmly to him. Neither did I speak with compassion. Half way through talking to him, I realized that I didn't do it right. When I saw other practitioners so calm and peaceful, I was really ashamed of myself. I forgot to cultivate myself on this matter. Though other practitioners did not criticize me, I knew they showed their tolerance and their broad hearts towards me. I vowed to no longer be attached to my human notions and let myself slide down. This was not just a small oversight. But it was the indication of my xinxing and the manifestation of my realm. It was also a demonstration of my actual cultivation state. We are all Master's disciples. How did I dare to treat other practitioners like this? In "Teaching the Fa at the Meeting with Asia-Pacific Students," Master said:
"There's something you must pay attention to: you are validating the Fa, not validating yourselves. A Dafa disciple's responsibility is to validate the Fa. Validating the Fa is cultivation, and what you remove in the cultivation process is none other than the attachment to self; you can't, instead, go and exacerbate the problem of validating oneself, even if you do it unwittingly. When you're validating the Fa and cultivating, that is a process of removing self, and only when you do that are you really validating yourself. That's because ultimately you have to let go of all your human things, and only after you've let go of all your human attachments can you step out from the throngs of everyday people."
Comparing with what Master has told us to do, I found I did everything in the past with lots of human heart and with the heart of validating myself. I was very ashamed of myself.
Because I did not look inwards, when there were praises from other practitioners, I adopted the method of avoiding meeting them. This did not fundamentally solve my problem. Instead it affected my work as a coordinator in the area. Because I did not recognize my attachment, it affected some other practitioners who in turn did not recognize their fundamental attachments as well. Was not "praising others" itself a demonstration of a strong human heart? Wasn't it because the practitioner had a strong human notion that it resulted in him being praised by others? Master has mentioned that "There is no constraint between this qi and that qi." This showed that my field was the same as yours, thus one party was not able to restrain the other party, and my attachment aroused your attachment. Isn't it a revelation of human attachment when you praise other practitioners or you like being praised? Isn't it the attachment that we as practitioners must eliminate in cultivation? Master once told us that we could not bring any human heart to Heaven. When I understood this Fa and when I corrected myself from the perspective of the Fa, I no longer heard any of those "kind" praises. I knew it was Master who helped me remove this mountain of granite. Without the material matter, the impure field vanished automatically. Though the praises were without any malicious purpose, if we indulge ourselves in them, they would become incomparably sharp swords that would weaken practitioners' wills bit by bit. So those practitioners who like to praise others and those who have shortcomings like me (who like to listen to praises), please remember that to be responsible for one's own cultivation and to be responsible for other practitioners' cultivation, we must cultivate speech and cultivate our hearts. When we point out other practitioners' shortcomings instead of praising them, that's when we really take care of our practitioners.
When I wrote this point, I realized that simply because I had the attachment of validating myself and did not look inward at any time as practitioners are supposed to, the old forces enlarged my attachment and took advantage of those practitioners with the same strong human hearts, and let them keep praising me and made me feel self-satisfied. The purpose of their so doing was to destroy both parties of practitioners. Only when we keep eliminating the attachment to self in our cultivation can we fully carry out our sacred duties as Dafa disciples. Just like Master said, "...what you do then, with a pure heart, will be the best and most sacred" ("Further Understanding" from Essentials for Further Advancement).
Just when I was writing this experience sharing article, an incident occurred which taught a lesson that I will never forget in my lifetime. Practitioner C met two staff members from the National Security Bureau right outside her doorstep downstairs. They were asking where his home was and they were asking the practitioner himself the way to his home. He came to my home and told me about this incident. Practitioner A and another practitioner were at my home as well. We thought that they could not play a role in determining the outcome and the old forces were not worthy of testing us. We believed that no one could touch this practitioner. At the same time we sent forth righteous thoughts to clear the practitioner's field in his dimension and totally negated the arrangement of the old forces. At the time Practitioner C did not say a word. But later he went to the other practitioner's home and the other practitioner thought that this was the hint that Master gave to Practitioner C, that he should leave home and find another place to calm down and study the Fa, and that he should not stay at home waiting for his arrest. When Practitioner C came back, he reckoned that the practitioner was really responsible to other practitioners and they said that even Master gave the hint to him and he did not leave home, etc. I said to him that leaving home and changing the environment to study the Fa with a calm heart was not wrong. I also said that whether he used a human way to temporarily avoid them or he negated the arrangement with righteous thoughts, this was the fundamental issue. The superficial action did not represent anything. Another practitioner said that when he thought the other practitioner was right, it was because what she said satisfied his attachment of fear, so he thought she took real care of him. I suggested that he read the article "The fear is..." on the Minghui net. Thus Practitioner C did not go home and stayed at my place. In the past when I shared with Practitioner C, he said that he could not guarantee the time of doing exercises every day. I wanted to let Practitioner C see how diligent I was in doing exercises. There I displayed the attachment of showing off. I went to bed after the righteous thoughts at 12:00 a.m. Practitioner A and the other two practitioners kept sharing experiences. I did not know when but in my sleep I heard Practitioner C was saying that nobody knew how much time she spent on studying the Fa and doing exercises. She herself boasted about it. I began to lose balance in my heart even in my sleep and complained that Practitioner C even did not have the basic respect of believing others. "Well tomorrow I will let you have a look at how I do the exercises." I did not look inward, and did not even have a think of why I heard such words. Later in the experience sharing, Practitioner C did not even remember that he said such words. But at the time I did not realize that it was Master who used this practitioner to say this to me to get rid of my attachments and to save me. At the time all my attachments of competitiveness, showing off, jealousy, and the heart of validating myself came out. Because my xinxing was falling, my physical body experienced a bad state. For several days I felt uncomfortable and itchy in my throat. When sitting in meditation, I shook forward and backward. Practitioner C said to me "seems like you fell asleep. Is this how you do your exercises?" On hearing this, I felt even more uncomfortable. I said in my mind, do you think I always practice like this? If I really practiced like this all the time, I would not look so young. Don't you see how others have benefited from my cultivation?
Though I did not admit my attachments on the surface, in my heart I knew I was wrong because I had never experienced the physical discomfort since I started the practice more than ten years ago. And I did not have such big test that lasted for five days. I knew that my problem had become very serious and that I had to awaken immediately. I started to calm myself down. First and foremost I studied the Fa with a peaceful and calm mind. Then I looked inward to find out the reason why. I clearly knew that I had the mentality of complacency and showing off. I was not willing to admit them. I was not willing to believe that I was that bad. The feeling I had at that time was hard to describe. I knew that the things that I have to part with was non-self. Why did I still treasure it? I realized that the old forces had taken advantage of the impure heart that I still had and that in my mind there still remained some traces of the Fa of the old cosmos, and that I only wanted to change others and did not want to change myself. I had not assimilated totally to the new cosmos's standard of selflessness. I always wanted to help improve others, but neglected cultivating myself. It was Master's mercy that He exposed my deeply-hidden attachments in front of our fellow practitioners thus giving me chances to eliminate them and make improvements, and at the same time let the practitioners know that like Master said there was no example to follow in cultivation. Only when we take the Fa as our Teacher can we walk the path correctly. When I enlightened to this, I cleared the field in my dimension first thing the next morning when I did the sitting meditation. I said to Master, "Master, I was wrong, I will correct myself in time and will try to abandon various attachments." At the same time I warned the old forces that they were not allowed to take advantage of my remaining human heart to persecute me and my fellow practitioners. I would definitely do the exercises well. I did not do it for others. I am Master's disciple and Master requires us to study the Fa well and do the exercises well every day. So I should do well. Today I chose to do the meditation and would not allow the dark demons, the rotten devils and the evil specters of Communism to interfere with and persecute me.
Because my xinxing had improved, Master let me see that layers and layers of bad materials were dissolved and evaporated. I saw my own body became brighter and brighter from inside to outside and the brightness became more and more clear. With Master's help, I sat for three hours in the meditation. I felt like I was sitting inside an egg shell and felt so magnificent. All of my physical discomfort disappeared. I again experienced the power of the Fa when I was in a pure state. When we shared experiences in the afternoon, Practitioner A said, "Today I saw you had meditated for a long time and your body was upright all the time, you were in very good state."
Through this incident I realized why Master singled out the attachments of complacency, showing off and jealousy, and explained them individually. Especially regarding jealousy, Master said,
"The issue of jealousy is very serious as it directly involves the matter of whether you can complete cultivation practice. If jealousy is not abolished, everything that you have cultivated will become fragile. There is this rule: If in the course of cultivation practice jealousy is not given up, one will not attain Right Fruit--absolutely not. Perhaps you have heard before that Buddha Amitabha spoke of going to a paradise with karma. But that is not going to happen without giving up jealousy. It may be possible that one falls short in some other minor regards and goes to the paradise with karma for further cultivation. But it is absolutely impossible if jealousy is not abandoned. Today I am telling practitioners that you should not keep yourselves in the dark without being enlightened to it. The goal that you intend to achieve is to practice cultivation toward high levels. The attachment of jealousy must be relinquished, so I have singled out the issue in this lecture." (Zhuan Falun)
When we come across anything in cultivation and can let go of the human heart of selfishness and the attachment to self, and when we can face any situation with pure hearts, then we will find that, "After passing the shady willow trees, there will be bright flowers and another village ahead!"
January 30, 2006
