(Clearwisdom.net) While clarifying the truth and encouraging people to quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its related organizations, practitioners often say "Quitting the CCP will ensure your safety." However, the following two scenarios occurred in my area. First, a practitioner helped a person quit the CCP organizations last year, but that person was hit by a car not long afterwards. The practitioner was bewildered and asked other practitioners, "I helped her quit the CCP. Why was she was still injured in an accident?" And second, I met with a similar incident. I helped someone quit the communist organizations in 2005, telling him that his life would be protected when Heaven eliminated the CCP, instead of telling him that quitting would ensure his safety. In the fall of 2006, one of his toes was severed by a carpenter's sawIn fact, "blessing ordinary people with safety" is not our purpose. Esteemed Master led his disciples to the human world to save all sentient beings, to save their lives when the danger is imminent. An ordinary person can expect to have a peaceful and safe life only after his or her karma is eliminated. But esteemed Master has never said that an ordinary person will have no more karma once he or she quits the CCP. Master has not done this even for Falun Dafa practitioners, let alone an ordinary person. Since an ordinary person, even though he or she has quit the communist organizations, is not free of karma, he or she will still encounter problems involving paying back his karma. One has to pay for the debt he or she owes, and this is a principle in the universe. This is also the root cause for what happened in the above situations.
It is worth noting that people who have quit the communist organizations and still encountered similar incidents described above may have doubts about what practitioners told them and may even be manipulated and used by the evil in other dimensions, telling other people that practitioners are cheaters, thus obstructing our efforts to save all beings. So I suggest we stop telling people that quitting the communist organizations will ensure their safety. Instead, I think a better way of putting it would be "Heaven is eliminating the CCP and quitting the communist organizations will save your life." Meanwhile, it must be made clear to everyday people that it is their lives that will be saved when Heaven eliminates the CCP and that it will not ensure an immortal life for people who are supposed to die when their time is up in this world or when they become terminally ill. It will not guarantee that people will not die in accidents, either.
Another issue related to safety is the "protective talisman." Many practitioners said to ordinary people, "I'll give you a talisman. When you carry it with you you will be safe." Then two incidents took place in our area. First, one practitioner gave an ordinary person a talisman and told him that he would be safe while he carried it. But soon afterwards this person was hit by a car and his leg was fractured. This person challenged the practitioner, "How come I was not protected?" Second, a practitioner construction worker was building a house for an ordinary person. He gave the homeowner's child a talisman. The following day the practitioner fell from the scaffold and broke his back. The child said to his aunt (a practitioner), "He asked me to carry the talisman, but he himself broke his back." Undoubtedly the above incidents have played a negative role in saving the beings. Why did they happen? The reasons can be found in the following.
In clarifying the facts we must follow the requirements of the Fa. Expecting results from chanting "Falun Dafa is good" has conditions. Let us review what Master said in "Teaching the Fa at the 2004 International Fa Conference in New York:"
Disciple: The literature that disciples are distributing in Hong Kong contains several stories with the theme of "recite 'Dafa hao' silently and your health problems will be cured." This has led some Mainland Chinese tourists to mistakenly think that we're pushing the idea that if people have health problems they don't need to take medicine and will be healed just by saying to themselves that Dafa is great.
Teacher: Saying "Dafa hao" is not only effective for ordinary people, but also for Dafa disciples since it clears away the bad things in the mind. When you have every cell in your body saying that Dafa is great, you will find that your entire body feels the reverberations. (Applause) It is the Fa that your mind is invoking, so that's why it is so powerful. But I think it's best to clarify the truth with wisdom. Outside Mainland China you don't need to do this or to clarify the truth this way. The environment is more relaxed and you can clarify things to people based on reason. In Mainland China the environment is different, the extent to which people have been poisoned by the slanderous propaganda varies and they thereby have different views on Falun Gong, and people from Mainland China have a certain degree of cultural context for and background on qigong, so you can do it this way among the broader populace in Mainland China. But you don't need to do it this way in urban areas or if you're outside Mainland China. You don't need to do it this way in Hong Kong either. Just tell them the facts in an open and dignified way, and that will be fine.
From these words of Teacher's, we may conclude that it is inappropriate to tell ordinary people in urban areas that chanting "Falun Dafa is good" will save them. The two incidents just described happened in the city. Not doing things according to Dafa is the biggest negligence and it can be easily exploited by the evil. In fact, Master's fundamental goal in transmitting Dafa is not treating illness and ensuring safety for ordinary people. However, within the range allowed by Dafa, we may let ordinary people benefit from chanting "Falun Dafa is good" and thus they will be saved through their acceptance of Dafa. But it can only be used as a supplement to saving the people, and the primary method is clarifying the facts.
Some practitioners who are not clear about Fa principles and who are attached to the benefits that Dafa can bring to people asked ordinary people to chant "Dafa is good" and gave them talismans in hopes that ordinary people's illnesses would be cured or their lives would be peaceful. This is wrong. Our real goal is to let ordinary people know the truth and, from their hearts, say "Dafa is good" so that their future lives will be protected. In other words, practitioners are saving the beings. Some ordinary people get benefits through chanting "Dafa is good," but that is only the spin-off effect, not our purpose, something practitioners should not get attached to. It is just like the abilities we develop in our cultivation--they come along, but they are not what we really want. We have to be clear about what Master wants us to do and should not make the mistake of putting the cart before the horse.
From the passages quoted above, we can be certain that chanting "Dafa is good" will reduce karma, but not eliminate all of the karma, for Master only said it's "effective." Almost everyone today has come to this world with piles of karma. Besides, the principle of the universe dictates that a debt must be paid back. That is why an ordinary person, even though he or she often chants "Dafa is good," will still come across things involving paying back karmic debts, as no one can go to a heavenly kingdom with karma still on the body. In the third incident described above, that ordinary person probably would have been paralyzed for life and been bedridden, or he might have been killed in the accident. But since he chanted "Dafa is good," his karma was reduced, and so he only had his leg broken. However, an ordinary person will not understand these Fa principles, and when he has an accident due to his karma he will doubt Dafa and practitioners.
Some practitioners take the following quote to mean that one's safety will be protected if one says . "Falun Dafa is Good."
"Even when an ordinary person shouts out "Falun Dafa is good" today, Master will protect him..." ("Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference")
But how will he be protected? Revered Master did not specifically say. Some practitioners took it as Master would ensure that he would have no illness, no misfortune, and no death. This understanding is definitely wrong. Revered Master said a long time ago,
"Buddha is saving, rather than blessing people."(Zhuan Falun, Vol. II, provisional translation)
Many practitioners are so attached to the benefits Dafa can bring to ordinary people that they made a lot of talismans. When other practitioners gave them truth clarification materials they didn't want to take them. All they wanted were talismans on the grounds that ordinary people liked them. We are led by our revered Master to save all beings rather than fulfilling ordinary people's attachments. We are not here to bless ordinary people with a peaceful life, either. If that were the case, people would not be able to eliminate their karma while still enjoying an illness-free and disaster-free world. That would be a divine world.
Think abut it this way. Can an ordinary person who has accrued an enormous amount of karma in his or her past lives be exempted from paying back the karmic debt simply because he or she carries a talisman? Master said,
"Those people who'll be left behind will have to eradicate sins by paying, with horrible suffering, for the sinful karma they owe from their entire past; only then will they be able to enter the next stage of history." ("Eliminate Evil," an address from Master to the Clearwisdom website on November 30, 2000Since their sins are to be eliminated, there will surely be misfortunes and tribulations. So there is no "ensured safety" to speak ofThe mission of Dafa practitioners is to save all beings by clarifying the facts, so we should not veer into the mistaken path of blessing ordinary people with a peaceful life. An ordinary person who knows the truth and who often chants "Dafa is good" will get some benefits because his karma will be reduced That is for sure. That explains why there have been so many cases posted on the Minghui/Clearwisdom in which people were blessed because they chanted "Dafa is good." But over time those ordinary people who have succeeded in avoiding disasters and illnesses through chanting "Dafa is good" will still face instances of paying back their karma. So, to clarify the truth, one must understand the truth himself. Efforts to clarify the facts will not succeed or may even mislead the world's people if our attachments are too strong or if we have an insufficient understanding of the Fa and the truth.
The above is my limited understanding and may well be one-sided. I welcome comments and sharing from practitioners who have differing opinions.
