(Clearwisdom.net) After I read an article in the 295th edition of "Minghui Weekly," entitled "'Immediate Retribution in This Lifetime, Occurrences on a Large Scale Are an Important Step toward Ending the Persecution," I had similar thoughts to those that the author had shared. The persecution has lasted eight years--we should have been able to stop it by now. There were many articles about this perspective in recent editions of Minghui Weekly. After I read them, I was deeply moved. Compared to other practitioners, I am far behind in terms of doing the three things well. I feel unworthy of Teacher's salvation. Regarding the understanding of "bringing the persecution to an end," I am even further behind. However, I do feel that the longer it lasts, the more the moral standards around the world will degenerate, making it increasingly harder to save them.
We have often said that Dafa practitioners should not have the attachment of depending on others. Yet, I often had such thoughts. Teacher often mentioned that we should not depend on everyday people. Even though I spoke the same words, to help us, I still wished for a few more lawyers who could speak and write well, or a few more well-known people in politics or science. I did not deeply and carefully look inward, and I forgot that practitioners are the main players to end this persecution, and practitioners have supernormal abilities and divine powers.
Teacher said in Zhuan Falun,
"I have said that as humankind evolves to this day, everything is deteriorating. The whole society and everything in the entire universe are becoming corrupt in succession. Everything that happens to everyday people is caused by them, themselves." (Lecture 5, "Consecration," 2000 translation)
The persecution has not ended, due to practitioners' attachments. Where do righteous thoughts come from? They emerge from cultivating one's xinxing, and one's gong level is as high as one's xinxing level. If we could melt into the Fa, using the part that has cultivated well to suppress our human notions, then we would able to send out the most powerful righteous thoughts and eliminate all the evil behind the persecution. Don't we want to cultivate into gods?
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) doctrines oppose belief in gods or Buddhas. Party culture does not have moral restraint based on spiritual obligation. It has philosophy of violence: it deceives people with lies, it instills destructive norms into people, it launches persecutory campaigns. And people just continue to follow it after so many brutal campaigns! It is so sad.
As Dafa practitioners, we cannot use ordinary methods or count on everyday people at this critical moment in history. We are cultivators who are walking the path toward godhood. We have Teacher to lead us and supernormal abilities from our cultivation. Our abilities depend on how much we believe in Teacher and the Fa. We follow Teacher's guidance, and whatever Teacher does not want, we will not do. As teacher said,
"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." ("Teaching the Fa at the Western U.S. International Fa Conference," 2005)
This one thought is so important, and its effect could be enormous. It all depends on how we practitioners use our minds.
Many practitioners have shared experiences regarding a common issue--that of thinking we have not studied the Fa in depth and are lagging behind others. Some practitioners have said that they often had random thoughts when sending forth righteous thoughts and could not enter a calm state. Thus, the effect was minimal when sent forth righteous thoughts to rectify a situation. Some say that they often became sleepy when sending forth righteous thoughts. They felt badly about themselves for that, but they could not rid themselves of the problem. Some said that they did not feel anything when sending forth righteous thoughts, so they wondered if their righteous thoughts had any effect. From all the sharing, it seems that practitioners feel an urgency. They want to become more effective, but do not know where to start.
In our local group, Teacher's article "Expounding on the Fa" (from Essentials for Further Advancement) opened up our thoughts, as we never had studied it before. Teacher wrote this in 1997, but we thought it was a new article. All those thoughts were from our human sides, and we have suppressed our true nature and did not know about the article. That was because we did not study the Fa in depth and did not understand the meaning of the Fa. We need to improve rationally. We cannot just observe others who have studied well. We can try to find our shortcomings, but we should not become discouraged. We need to learn from our mistakes and improve from this point forward.
During our sharing, people spoke of some supernormal incidents. One practitioner said, "There are always four or five people in front of our home talking. One day we had agreed to distribute truth-clarifying materials. I thought they were bothersome, so I sent forth righteous thought to make them leave so they would not interfere with my Dafa work. They all left shortly thereafter." Another practitioner said, "My grandson had a high fever of 39oC (102oF). I sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil behind him. I told him to recite, 'Falun Dafa is good and "Zhen-Shan-Ren" is good.' He recovered in two days without taking any medicine or having any injections. Those who had the same symptoms as he did stayed in the hospital for a week and did not get better." We all thought that was the effect of righteous thoughts.
Through sharing, we all realized that we should apply the Fa in our daily lives. We need to look for shortcomings, but we shouldn't be discouraged. Strictly speaking, feeling inferior is an issue of not believing Teacher and Fa. Teacher said,
"As a matter of fact, this results from an inadequate understanding of the Fa by your human side. You have humanly restrained your divine side; in other words, you have restrained the parts that have been successfully cultivated and have prevented them from doing Fa-rectification. How can the uncultivated side restrain your main thoughts or the side that has already attained the Fa?" ("Expounding on the Fa" from Essentials for Further Advancement)
We are cultivating our main consciousness, therefore, we have to insure that the main consciousness has an effect.
We should follow what Teacher has taught us: to remember sending forth righteous thoughts in everything we do. That's one of the main abilities practitioners have. As long as we believe, it will be effective. Teacher is looking after us every moment. It is all done by Teacher. He wants practitioners' righteous thoughts and hearts that believe in him and the Fa.
My understandings are limited. Please point out anything inappropriate.
