Supporting Fellow Practitioners with Encouragement and Righteous Thoughts

(Minghui.org) A married couple in our region have been forced to live in displacement to avoid further persecution after they were released from prison a few years ago. Around September this year, the husband was arrested again. The wife, who was suffering some sickness symptoms, was under tremendous pressure.

While she is in great need of fellow practitioners’ support and help to rescue her husband, what most practitioners said to her was how poor her husband had been doing in his cultivation. She said she didn’t feel any encouragement from fellow practitioners, but that she was enduring the criticism levied on her husband.

It’s true that it’s the husband’s loopholes in his cultivation that led to his arrest, but as a group of cultivators, we also need to think about whether commenting on his attachments brings any positive contribution on this matter or helps him to strengthen his righteous thoughts at all. 

To make things worse, I saw many other practitioners went into hiding and stopped holding group Fa study meetings, probably fearing being arrested themselves.

Master said:

“During a human being’s journey toward divinity, since it is a human being—and not a god—cultivating, he will definitely make mistakes in the process of cultivating, and there will definitely be tests that he doesn’t pass well. And of course there are those who make huge mistakes. Once you have recognized your problem, the key question is whether you are determined to get rid of it.” (“Pass the Deadly Test,” The Essentials of Diligent Progress III)

Master has repeatedly taught us in the Fa to negate the old forces. When we become obsessed with fellow practitioners’ attachments, are we acknowledging the old forces and giving them opportunities to persecute fellow practitioners? 

We all have attachments and they are for us to rectify in our personal cultivation. Our attachments have nothing to do with the old forces. If we blame fellow practitioners’ attachments as causes for the persecution, we are siding with the old forces. 

But if we can support fellow practitioners with our righteous thoughts, maybe it will dissolve the persecution itself. Such inclusive environment might also help them to better realize their attachments.

In another example, after a female practitioner was arrested last year, no other practitioners visited her again and they all kept a distance from her family. Her son, who doesn’t practice Falun Gong, said, “Before my mom was arrested, so many of you came to our home every day. But now, no one comes again or does anything to help us. You shouldn’t call yourselves cultivators.”

My point is, while we need to pay attention to our safety, we should also consider other people’s feeling, especially family members of fellow practitioners who are being persecuted. 

I feel many of the above-mentioned mentalities were part of the Communist Party culture and modern thoughts that Master kept mentioning in recent poems. They aren’t from the true selves of Dafa disciples and we need to distinguish them to better cultivate ourselves and save sentient beings.

I welcome fellow practitioners to point out to me anything in my understanding that is not in accordance with the Fa.

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)