My Understanding of “Take the Fa as Teacher” – My Cultivation Experience During the U.S. Election

(Minghui.org) In the U.S. election, there were various kinds of evil forces that got involved and rampantly committed fraud and cheating. I knew that if the other candidate won the election, it would mean that the United States would be taken over by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or the communist specter.

With Trump being the one chosen by the divine, I was sure that he would win the election. But as things developed, I gradually became obsessed with seeing the desired result and was unable to pull myself out.

Around the 2021 New Year, I suddenly had a thought: what if the other candidate successfully stole the election in the end? As I had the thought, my heart sank and I panicked.

Why Would I Panic?

With my experience of cultivating for many years, I realized that I was too attached to seeing Trump be re-elected. I calmed down and thought about Master and the Fa. I know what Master arranges for us and sentient beings is always the best and most compassionate. No matter how bad the situation or environment looks on the surface, we must keep in mind that everything is the best arrangement, and what we need to do is to solidly cultivate ourselves. After I thought about that, I began to feel assured.

I also realized that while there was nothing wrong to wish a win for Trump, I developed the attachment to the result in the process. As I was reading reports about the election, I was also analyzing the situation myself and thought about how things would develop in the next step. Everything happened so naturally that I didn’t realize it. I had a strong expectation to see Trump re-elected – that’s why I panicked with the thought about his loss.

This also led me to see my reliance on ordinary people ending the persecution of Falun Dafa. In the past, because I never trusted anyone in the CCP or thought about anyone in China stopping the persecution, I thought I didn’t have the attachment of relying on ordinary people to do it.

But when Trump entered the stage with the mission to disintegrate the CCP, I gradually developed the wish to see him bring down the evil Party and end the persecution. It’s not that I didn’t have the attachment, but just that the attachment wasn’t revealed.

On the other hand, we all know how hard it is for Trump to fulfill his mission. But we don’t know exactly the situation he was facing, the detailed difficulties in front of him, or what resources were available to him at the moment. So when I was actively thinking about what he should do to solve the problem, I was only wasting my own time and energy. With my attachment, I might also have caused more trouble and obstacles for him. This isn’t something I should do as a cultivator.

Discovering Deeper Attachments

I also realized that whether the other candidate stole the election or not, no one could stop heaven from eliminating the CCP, or maybe that’s just another route for the divine to eliminate the CCP.

As cultivators, we all know that the Buddha Fa is boundless and no one can change heaven’s will. When the evil gets ever more rampant, more sentient beings are also waking up and seeing its true face.

So no matter what happens, we should just believe in Master and Dafa, and not be attached to anything in the world. We should cultivate ourselves based on the Fa and do the three things well. If we can do this, then whether Congress certified the other candidate or not no longer mattered.

With that realization, I was relatively calm when I read the news on January 7 about the other candidate being certified as the president-elect. But my heart still felt very heavy. I remembered many Fa principles that Master taught us. I also read the sharing articles on Minghui and I agreed with many fellow practitioners. After realizing my attachments, I worked hard to remove them.

Yet as I continued to read news about the election, my heart was still moved from time to time. I asked myself, “What exactly am I attached to? If Trump is re-elected, it’s for sure that he would beat the CCP and bring the evil forces in the U.S. to justice. That’s what I was hoping to see.”

There is no problem if ordinary people think that way about it. But for a cultivator, I realized that it reflected my attachment to comfort, as Trump’s re-election would bring a good social environment for our truth-clarification. It also revealed my desire to take revenge at the evil and my exasperation when my want wasn’t satisfied. I may still defend myself as being righteous, but in fact I was using that as an excuse to cover up my attachments.

In the past, I never realized such “hatred” existed in myself. As the book The Ultimate Goal of Communism pointed out, “In the material field in communist China, almost everyone is immersed in hatred and almost everyone has inexplicable hatred. Whenever the communist specter incites it, such a restrained substance quickly explodes and forms a huge negative energy field that permeates the environment.”

As a Dafa disciple, no matter what happens, I always remember that “assisting Master in Fa-rectification and saving sentient beings” is what we should do. Speaking from that perspective, should we stop saving people if Trump didn’t win the election? Of course not. Then why do I have to be so attached and feel it is unfair?

Think about it, it’s Master who really saves people. We Dafa disciples are like the vessels connecting Dafa and sentient beings. When we cultivate ourselves and do the three things better, we become more pure and more efficient in exhibiting Dafa’s almighty power and enabling more people to be saved. When we are dissociated from the Fa, we ourselves might end up being destroyed by this degenerate world, let alone save sentient beings.

If I had stronger faith in Master and Master’s arrangement, I wouldn’t have been interfered with by the election so badly.

What We See Is Limited at Our Own Levels

This also reminds me of the story about six blind men and an elephant. Each of the men touched a different part of the elephant, such as nose, ear, leg or belly, and they claimed that the elephant looked like the place they touched. In reality, none of them was right.

I felt I was one of the blind men, who only saw things from a very limited angle, and yet I claimed that I had known it all.

The universe is just too immense, and the number of lives is immeasurable. With the constant interaction between different beings, things are not stable, and keep changing. No matter who we are and what level we are at, whatever we see with our own eyes is limited at our own levels, and things at higher levels or realms forever remain a mystery to us.

Taking the Fa as Master

With that, I also realized the importance of taking the Fa as Master, and that we have to constantly measure ourselves against the Fa in order to walk a righteous path in our cultivation.

We know that for beings in the old universe, no matter how gigantic it is, or how long the history it has gone through, no one knows what is the ultimate Fa of the universe or who is Master.

For each and every being, in the extremely long process of their life, reincarnation, and going through “formation, stasis, degeneration, and destruction,” they enlighten to their own understandings of the universe and walk the paths of their own lives.

From a certain perspective, we can also say that in the process of their lives, their attachment to themselves is also being gradually and unknowingly enhanced. For them, maybe that’s how things are supposed to be. Because they don’t have a teacher or any Fa to refer to. What they can do is only enlighten to the Fa principles of the universe themselves – no one would ever tell them that what they enlighten to is right or wrong.

Dafa disciples have walked through the above process and also developed strong attachments to ourselves – maybe it’s so strong that it has been deeply ingrained in us. But we have now become the most honorable lives in the universe by having obtained Dafa. Then in our cultivation, we should fundamentally cultivate ourselves, get rid of our attachments to ourselves, and truly assimilate to the Fa.

Only when we have the diamond-strong righteous thoughts in the Fa and truly believe in Master, can we be called genuine Dafa disciples. The Fa is the foundation of our lives, not our own understandings at our limited levels.

After going through the cultivation experience in the U.S. election, I realize that no matter what happens or if I am interfered with by anything again in the future, I should follow the Fa’s guidance, unconditionally look within, and cultivate myself.

The above is my understanding at my limited level. I welcome practitioners to point out anything improper.