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Improving As One Body, Saving Lives, and Rescuing Fellow Practitioners

May 27, 2008 |  

(Clearwisdom.net)

1. Correcting Myself with Master's Protection and Guidance

After the police arrested my husband, his two younger sisters and four other fellow practitioners, I was overwhelmed by a torrent of emotion, pain, resentment, fear, and sadness. I could not really tell them apart. I recall that on the night of the arrests, I dared not even cry loud enough to be heard.

As I was sobbing, suddenly a thought came to my mind, "Can I resolve the problem this way? I am Master's disciple!" I also recalled Master's words:

"Great enlightened beings fear no hardship
Their will is cast of diamond

Life or death, they have no attachment
Forthright and broad-minded on the road of Fa-rectification"

("Righteous Thought, Righteous Action," Hong Yin Vol. II)

I then came to realize that this was the way the path had been laid out for me. I should let go of attachments and walk my path well. I also came to understand that cultivation is approaching its conclusion and I should discard my attachments. I had been cultivating with my celestial eyes closed, but to encourage me, Master let me see a very wide, long river with calm, blue water, without even a slight ripple. I came to realize that Master was giving me a hint. The persecution then could not even cause a small ripple in my mind. This made me feel that Master was right next to me and filled me with confidence.

Because my husband was not at home, my life was totally changed. I came to understand that in the process of saving lives, I must cultivate myself well and not just passively deal with hardships and difficulties. Fellow practitioners also reminded me not to develop the mentality of depending on others. I looked inside myself and found that I did have the mentality of depending on others, quite a big attachment. I decided to discard it through my cultivation.

Three of my family members were arrested. This also showed that there were insufficiencies in our local group. Given that this had happened, I should conduct myself strictly according to the Fa in every thought and deed. Master taught us,

"Of course, as you go about cultivating, you--who are cultivators--are sure to meet with tests, for you need to elevate. When someone doesn't handle things well, troubles will constantly arise. But those who do handle things well will constantly meet with tests as they cultivate. If you categorically regard all of them as interference and try to resolve the troubles just for the sake of resolving them, then you won't be able to resolve them, because they come about for the sake of your improvement. You should view them with righteous thoughts, [asking yourselves,] 'With this trouble I'm facing, what's the correct approach to all that has to do with this interference, and how should I balance it against the goal of saving sentient beings? And how should I go about it in a way that's responsible to sentient beings, and view the occurrence of these things as good grounds for clarifying the truth, or as good opportunities to clarify the truth?'" ("Teaching the Fa in Canada, 2006")

I came to realize that it was not by chance that the situation was so serious. It was probably time for our local practitioners to take big steps forward in our improvement as a group. Looking inside for reasons and discarding the mentality of depending on others does not mean that I should not pay attention to the elevation of the group as a whole. If our group could improve as one body, we could then do better in saving more lives and that is what Master wants. From then on, I always kept the improvement of our group in mind.

2. Positioning Myself Based on the Fa, Correcting My Mind and Purifying Myself

We prepared to go out and clarify the facts, making use of this incident. Before we went, we read the Fa for one week. Each time before we started to read the Fa, I called the practitioners who were in custody before to join us in sending forth righteous thoughts for one hour and to read one lecture of Zhuan Falun. Several of us felt that the effect was really good. At that time, most of us were doing rescue work. Some were putting up flyers and posters, and others talked to people directly.

Several practitioners and I shared thoughts based on the Fa. We discussed how to position ourselves; how to adjust our mindset, correct our point of view and strengthen our righteous thoughts; and how to discard the mentality of fear. I felt that I had understood what we were doing--we were saving lives instead of doing things for the purpose of doing things. However, when I explained the facts to people face to face, it was not easy for me to uphold a correct mentality. After diligent cultivation, I was finally able to improve. In this process of cultivation, I discarded many of my attachments and achieved a good state. I have advised several officials from the police department, the Procuratorate and the court system to withdraw from the CCP and its affiliated organizations. I also felt that I knew how to talk to people.

3. Using the Incident to Expose the Facts to the Officials of the Procuratorate and the Court System

There were only a limited number of practitioners involved in this work because the mentality of the group as a whole was not so good. The case was later transferred to the city government. I recommended that we go to the city to clarify the truth since the case had been transferred there. We should go there because there were probably lives that needed to be saved, and if this case hadn't been transferred there, we may not even have had the chance to go there.

My righteous thoughts prevailed and I was relieved. Since I had discarded my fear, I started going to the city government organizations. In this process, more and more practitioners joined me, and the coordinators were also able to understand one another. The xinxing of the group as a whole was improving and we were becoming more responsible for the lives we were supposed to save. The number of people who withdrew from the CCP and its affiliated organizations also started to increase. Each time before we went out, we got together to read the Fa and exchange our thoughts. Each time after coming back, we reviewed what had happened to look for room for improvement. We made about ten trips to the city, and every time about eight to nine practitioners were involved. We clarified the facts about Falun Gong to the officials of the city court and Procuratorate system and to the lawyers.

On the way to the city, I felt that my mind was pure and without selfishness, and my righteous thoughts were strong. Other practitioners also upheld strong righteous thoughts. With Master's strengthening, we cooperated well and talked to the person directly responsible for this case. We talked to him for about an hour about Falun Gong, and he listened intently.

The head of the department responsible for the case was not there at the time. We then sent forth righteous thoughts to have him come to listen to the facts and understand that Dafa came to save him. Within half an hour, he came upstairs, and we were all glad to see him.

Another time we went to the city court. With the help of the receptionist, we met the head of the court. He held the indictment in his hand and asked us who we were. We answered him and then asked about the case. Then we started explaining the facts to him. He listed for a while and then said to us,"If you keep promoting Falun Gong to me, I will ask the armed police over there to come and arrest you." We said, "We know you won't do that."

4. Telling the Facts to the Lawyers and the Issue of Hiring Lawyers

When we started telling the facts to the lawyers, we found the defendant statement in Wang Bo's case and prepared introductory material about the practitioners who had been arrested. We went to all the law firms in the city and the two counties to explain the facts about Falun Gong to them. For the people who were able to accept the facts, we gave them prepared materials, as well as flyers and CDs. Some of them withdrew from the CCP and its affiliated organizations; some of them were afraid of accepting the truth; others were sympathetic to us and were willing to be the defending lawyers for our arrested fellow practitioners.

When things had progressed to this point, I had to pause because I needed to pay to hire the lawyers for two people, and I did not have the finances to do that. I was also not really clear about why we should hire lawyers, and the group as a whole also had not reached a common understanding based on the Fa about this issue. I then took the initiative to communicate with individual coordinators. I found that there were two ideas about this in our local group: some thought that if the defense could not achieve the goal of setting the practitioners free with a verdict of not guilty, it would not be able to achieve the effect of validating Dafa. Other practitioners thought that it would be enough if the lawyers could defend our fellow practitioners and ask for their release with a verdict of not guilty. We did not need to worry about the final result and we just needed to follow what Master had taught us.

At that point, I read Master's most recent Fa lecture again. I came to understand that hiring lawyers was not our goal; our goal was to validate Dafa and to save lives. Whether or not the arrested practitioners are released is determined by Master. We are Falun Gong practitioners and we are assisting Master in the Fa-rectification and saving lives. If these practitioners were not in custody, they would have already saved many more lives and accomplished many more Dafa projects. They should not suffer this persecution. Many lawyers had already stood up and defended practitioners, and they have changed many people's notions. In this way, they have also positioned themselves well. However, in our case, we did need to consider the lawyer's ability to accept the facts. We then divided the process into several steps. We have hired four lawyers as a result, and another two families also want to hire lawyers.

This case is still in process.