(Clearwisdom.net) Because we did not walk well the path set up by Teacher, our local materials production sites were destroyed by the police. This caused a setback for us in saving sentient beings. After a period of calmly studying the Fa and looking inward, we realized the importance of forming a group environment. We then began rectifying our cultivation paths and gradually formed a Fa-study group. We realized that we were able to improve much faster in the group environment.
I would like to share how the group Fa-study environment has helped our local practitioners come together to form one body, eliminate the attachment to selfishness, and raise our cultivation levels.
Teacher said in "Teaching the Fa at the Meeting with Asia-Pacific Students,"
"Group Fa-study is an environment I created for you and a form that I've left for you. I think you should still participate. That's because it has stood the test of experience, and cultivating that way allows our students to improve the fastest. When you cultivate on your own, you miss out on factors that help you improve. And haven't you, as Dafa disciples, said that you would do as your Master says? Haven't you said that you should walk straight on the path that a Dafa disciple should take?"
Attending group study is walking on the cultivation path set up by Teacher. Thus, it is every practitioner's responsibility to form an environment that will help everyone improve and form a one body.
In the beginning, several practitioners studied the Fa for only a little bit before leaving early or rushing to share experiences. They were treating Fa-study as a task that needed to be completed. This however, is not the goal of Fa-study. In addition, this had a negative impact on other practitioners. We should not study the Fa for the sake of studying the Fa.
One practitioner became attached to sentimentality when her husband became ill. The evil took advantage of her gap and caused her to suffer from sickness karma. She was interfered with by the evil so much that she forgot the verse for sending forth righteous thoughts, and she couldn't correctly read a full sentence from Zhuan Falun. Many practitioners did not want to study the Fa with her, so I helped her to read sentence by sentence during Fa-study. When she read a sentence incorrectly, I sent forth righteous thoughts to disintegrate the evils that interfered with her. Later when she could read the Fa smoothly, Teacher arranged for her to move to her son's home in another city.
Through this event, I realized that as long as we come together as a group, eliminate selfishness and think of others, then miracles will happen. This is because everything is done by Teacher.
"'When a person's Buddha-nature comes out it shakes the Ten-Directional World.' Whoever sees this will help him, and they'll help him no matter what." ("Truly Guiding People Up to High Levels," from Zhuan Falun)
When we send forth righteous thoughts during group study, not only do we focus on eliminating the problems existing in our group, but we also eliminate the evil factors that interfere with our group improvement. When a practitioner is interfered with by tribulations, we first negate the old forces' arrangement. We do not blame the practitioner. Instead we send forth righteous thoughts and share our understanding based on the Fa. Teacher says,
"The next person's things are your things, and your things are his things." ("Teaching the Fa at the Washington, D.C. Fa Conference").
Thus, we left no gap for the evil to take advantage.
The old forces persecute practitioners by taking advantage of their postnatal notions. The old forces arranged these things and now use them to "test" practitioners. So if we blame the practitioners who are going through an ordeal, then aren't we acknowledging the old forces' arrangement? Actually, the evil is not just focusing on individual practitioners to interfere with, but also our group as a whole. If we can completely negate the old forces' interference or persecution of practitioners even if they have gaps, and do not acknowledge the factors causing us to have gaps, then the evil factors in the other dimensions will disintegrate immediately.
Teacher said in "Teaching the Fa at the 2004 Chicago Conference,"
"We negate even the very emergence of the old forces and everything that they've arranged; we don't even acknowledge their existence. We're fundamentally negating all of their things, and all of, and only, the things you do while negating and getting rid of them is mighty-virtue."
One practitioner did not participate in our group study. I thought to myself, "The only way to help her is to study the Fa with her." So I told her that I would study the Fa with her at her house. There was much interference in the beginning. She told me, "I get up early in the morning and then go back to sleep. You don't have to come if you are busy." I told her, "I will wait and come whenever you are up again." The next day, I went to her home at 10:00 a.m. to study the Fa and send forth the righteous thoughts with her. I sent forth righteous thoughts to completely disintegrate the factors that made her fearful, and I corrected her when she read a word wrong. Sending forth righteous thoughts had a very good effect. She was very happy and asked me to go there earlier the next day. She eventually participated in group study.
Teacher told us,
"...every student should, in addition to participating in group activities, in his daily life fully take the initiative of a Dafa disciple, establish his own mighty virtue in the process of clarifying the truth, and do well on his own Dafa disciple's path."
"...that's why everyone is not only participating in group activities, but also taking the initiative to look for things to do. As long as something is good for Dafa, you should take the initiative to do it, take the initiative to work on it." ("To All Students at the Nordic Fa Conference" from Essentials for Further Advancement II)
Every Dafa disciple is a coordinator. We should think of our fellow practitioners and our group as a whole when we clarify the truth about Falun Gong and do the three things. We should not let any practitioner fall behind. When we take initiative to take on the responsibilities for the Fa, for sentient beings, and for the great consummation that we are going to have, then can we become an altruistic life in the new universe.
