(Clearwisdom.net) The old forces utilized sickness karma to take the life of a fellow practitioner in our Fa study group, and this incident seriously affected me. After the death of our fellow practitioner, I developed a serious heart problem just a few days later. It was difficult for me to bear, both mentally and physically.
I realized without a doubt that it was due to the old forces' persecution and a situation that they created. I needed to eliminate the persecution with righteous thoughts, but due to the attachment of fear, my righteous thoughts weren't effective. At that moment, the terrible tribulation I was going through weakened my willpower and faith, causing me to imagine things and to be afraid of death. The worse I felt, the more I feared death. The more I feared death, the worse I felt. It was just like what Teacher said,
"The more seriously the person was persecuted, the more his human attachments grew, instead of him becoming more steadfast as the persecution went on and having stronger and stronger righteous thoughts to resist the persecution." ("Teaching the Fa in San Francisco" 2005)
Teacher also said,
"The solution is to without exception make studying the Fa a priority and to study the Fa diligently. This Great Law is able to rectify the colossal firmament and allows people to cultivate to Consummation--shouldn't you treasure an opportunity as rare and precious as this? And this is an opportunity that will be gone in an instant!" ("Shed the Human Mindset" September 1, 2005)
Through studying the Fa and talking with fellow practitioners, I realized that in order to thoroughly negate the persecution, I must study the Fa well, look inward, eliminate attachments, and, in particular, let go of the attachment and fear of death. It's easier said than done, especially with my mind seemingly manipulated by false images.
Teacher said,
"If every Dafa disciple can think and act righteously as he goes about things and can look at things with righteous thoughts under any circumstance, none of you will become afraid when facing persecution. If that is how you are, who would dare to persecute you! If a person is completely in the Fa no one can touch him. Isn't that having the ability to protect yourself? As a matter of fact, with regard to the veteran students [that started] prior to the persecution, I raised all of you to your positions. As long as you can go about things with righteous thoughts and righteous actions you can protect yourselves perfectly well, and that applies as well for new students that joined later. It's just that some students simply don't have righteous thoughts. They have all the things in place, and yet when experiencing persecution they still look at things with a human mindset and still have a big pile of attachments. What is Master to do?" ("Teaching the Fa in San Francisco" 2005)
Teacher strengthened my righteous thoughts and cleared my mind.
For encouragement, Teacher frequently brings a thought to my mind, "You're a divine being if you can get rid of the thinking of life and death, otherwise you're a human." Whenever something bad came to mind, Teacher would let me know through a fellow practitioner, "Be clear about which thoughts are truly yours, and eliminate the evil with righteous thoughts." Gradually, the evil substance lessened and weakened.
Through continuous Fa-study and looking inward, I was surprised to find that I had already fallen into the trap of false sickness karma, forgetting about the sacred mission of saving sentient beings. The evil's purpose was to stop me from doing truth clarification to save people.
Teacher said,
"'I'm Li Hongzhi's disciple, I don't want other arrangements or acknowledge them'--then they won't dare to do that. So it can all be resolved. When you can really do that, not just saying it but putting it into action, Master will definitely stand up for you." ("Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference" February 15, 2003, in Los Angeles)
Teacher has prolonged the time for practitioners to save people. I must not be selfish, and I must go beyond the limits of personal cultivation.
Once, while I was on my way to talk to people about Dafa, I suddenly became sick and could hardly move forward another step. I strongly resisted and rejected the persecution, because I wanted to save people. Immediately after reaffirming my righteous thoughts, the sickness karma disappeared.
Teacher said,
"Another thing is, some people have a hard time realizing how urgent it is to save sentient beings. And there are only so many Dafa disciples acting on this at present. Some people have not stepped forward and don't take this task seriously, and they don't think that saving sentient beings is all that important. In reality, your responsibilities as Dafa disciples all lie right there. If you don't take action to save sentient beings, you will not have fulfilled your responsibility as a Dafa disciple and your cultivation will amount to nothing, for your becoming a Dafa disciple was not for the sake of your own Consummation. This means that you shoulder a monumental mission." ("Fa Teaching at the 2009 Washington DC International Fa Conference" July 18, 2009)
Due to what happened previously, a fellow practitioner and I went together to clarify the truth--one did the talking while the other sent forth righteous thoughts. We encouraged and complemented each other.
Teacher said,
"A Dafa disciple should put the Fa first in everything he does--whenever you evaluate something you have to consider the Fa first. You probably remember something I've said to you often: a Dafa disciple should consider others first in everything he does. They are in a state of immense tolerance, of mercy toward all beings, and of being able to understand everything with kindness. To put it in human terms, they're always able to be understanding of others.
("Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Boston" April 27, 2002)
My understanding is that the process of clarifying the truth is also the process of elevating in cultivation. If there was an obstruction on the part of saving sentient beings, a countering action must be undertaken instantly, and understanding and tolerance must be maintained among fellow practitioners, so that improvement can be achieved. Even though there were two of us, it required a practitioner's xinxing for us to deal with each other and not insist on putting "self" first.
Teacher said,
"If I were to end this affair right now, too many future lives would be destroyed. Those people that came down to obtain the Fa, and those people that came for the purpose of obtaining the Fa, would have come in vain. Regardless of what those lives are now doing, they were, in the beginning, gods. They saw how terrifying it was here, yet they dared to jump headlong in--they dared to come. Why was that? Because they had hope in the Fa-rectification and Dafa, and they came out of a deep faith. No matter how they are behaving now, we need to look at how things were initially and look at their history--at how that life once was--and do our utmost to save them. This is the Great Law of the cosmos, after all, and for the countless sentient beings, it's an opportunity that is hard to come by. It is here just this once, and if they can remain, they will remain; if they cannot, then they will disappear forever. So I feel that we need to keep doing this and keep saving them. If the people who had obtained the Fa today were not you but others, and you were the ones in that circumstance and counted among the ordinary people, think about it: wouldn't you be deserving of pity? And as for the Chinese people, who suffer the most severe persecution, they are persecuted to that extent only on account of the old forces' trying to interfere with you. So there is even more reason for you to save them." ("Fa Teaching at the 2009 Greater New York International Fa Conference" June 7, 2009)
Having studied this paragraph of the Fa, when talking to people about Falun Gong and helping them to withdraw from the Chinese Communist Party, if the other person had a bad attitude, I did not take it to heart, but still did it rationally with solid, righteous thoughts. Once when I was clarifying the truth to a businessman, I was just starting to talk when he said angrily, "If you're Falun Gong, don't talk to me." I wasn't affected by his attitude, because I knew that he was someone to be saved. His attitude told me that he misunderstood Falun Gong. I said, "You probably have misunderstandings about Falun Gong. Falun Gong isn't like what television says--those are lies that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) fabricated in order to persecute Falun Gong." Hearing this, his attitude changed gradually. Then I told him the facts about the Tiananmen Square self-immolation, how Falun Dafa has spread throughout the world, how Falun Dafa teaches people to be good based on Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance, how the CCP will be destroyed by Heaven, and how one should protect oneself by withdrawing from the CCP.
In the end, he not only withdrew from the CCP's Communist Youth League and Young Pioneers, but he also gladly accepted Dafa materials. Within a few minutes he made a 180-degree change. With a pure heart and a mind thinking about sentient beings, Dafa naturally helped me establish mighty virtue. As Teacher said in Zhuan Falun: "Cultivation depends upon the individual himself while the transformation of Gong is up to the master!"
In terms of personal cultivation and saving sentient beings, I am still far from being mature, and I am also far behind what Teacher requires. From now on, with little time left, I have to study the Fa well, cultivate well, save more sentient beings, and meet Teacher's requirements.
