Don’t Unwittingly Block New Practitioners’ Cultivation Path

(Minghui.org) I recently read a sharing article written by a young woman in her early 30s. She shared that when she first took up Falun Dafa at the age of 25, she was enthusiastic about printing informational materials for elderly practitioners. She busied herself with doing things and neglected Fa study, which eventually led to her arrest and subsequent four-year prison sentence. She was forced to give up Dafa for several years and only resumed cultivation in recent years after taking a big detour. 

I’m glad this practitioner grasped the opportunity to practice Dafa again. But there are many others who completely renounced Dafa or even turned against it as a result of the persecution. 

While the persecution of any practitioner is related to his or her own attachments, for new practitioners, we veteran practitioners have the responsibility to guide them well. We shouldn’t overload them with various truth-clarification projects when they aren’t ready to take on that many responsibilities yet. We have to consider how much they understand about cultivation and how serious they are with their cultivation. Then we can ask for their help, based on their capacity.

I had been practicing Dafa for two years and was relatively solid when the persecution started in 1999. I understood why we needed to step forward to speak out for Dafa. When I saw many newer practitioners hesitant to do so, I was very worried. One case in example was another student in the same college I was attending. She had a dream in which Master’s gigantic law body stood in the cloud, and asked her whether she would appeal for Dafa or take an exam at school. She said to Master that she had to take the exam. After I learned about her dream, I talked to her several times and tried to persuade her to change her mind and realize she must step forward to appeal for Dafa.

I’m actually relieved that she didn’t listen to me back then, especially after reading the aforementioned sharing article. I thought I was doing a good thing at the time, but the reality is that I could have pushed her away from Dafa had I insisted on her stepping forward to validate the Fa. Her understanding of the Fa hadn’t reached that level and I couldn’t push her beyond her capacity.

There was another student who was persuaded by another veteran practitioner to go to Beijing to appeal, when he had just practiced Dafa for two weeks. In the end, he was arrested and given a labor camp term. He ended up giving up Dafa and assisting the evil in persecuting other practitioners. 

When I contacted him years later, he insisted that he was deceived by Dafa. I came to see that it was even harder to persuade him to resume cultivation than getting someone to learn Dafa for the first time. 

I’ve also heard about stories of some new practitioners who went to extremes in their family lives at the suggestion of some veteran practitioners, which pushed their families to the opposite side of Dafa and also caused other negative impacts. 

When we clarify the truth to non-practitioners, we know we have to talk about things according to their level of understanding. The same is true for new practitioners. We also need to consider their understanding and situation, and avoid blocking their path of future cultivation by forcing our own understanding on them. 

Editor’s note: This article only represents the author’s understanding in their current cultivation state meant for sharing among practitioners so that we can “Compare in studying, compare in cultivating.” (“Solid Cultivation,” Hong Yin)