Letting Go of CCP Culture

(Minghui.org) Recently, when reading an article on Minghui about Chinese Communist Party (CCP) culture, I realized that I also had a lot of CCP culture within me. I decided to fix this problem.

Minghui Radio has a special series of 16 episodes in Chinese that address CCP culture. I had listened to some of them in the past, so I decided to give them another listen. They turned out to be a great help.

Cleaning Myself Out

After I finished listening to the series again, it felt like I had taken a cold shower on a hot day—I felt refreshed and clean.

Looking back, I knew that some of my attachments had been removed from the root, such as competitiveness, resentment, irritability, anger, and dishonesty. But other degenerate substances were still there, such as mistrust, sloppiness, self-righteousness, slyness, vanity, and arrogance.

Like cluttered trash or dust, these bad notions had been hiding in a corner. I am glad I took this opportunity to clean things up and remove this trash.

Not Going to Extremes

I found that various attachments on me are closely related to CCP culture. As practitioners, we need to purify our thoughts, but the Party’s culture causes our thoughts to deviate. So it is especially important for us Chinese practitioners to read the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party (Nine Commentaries).

For example, a Dafa practitioner should look within to constantly improve himself or herself, endure hardship, and remain diligent. However, if one interprets this idea within the framework of CCP culture, things don’t work out so well. Although a practitioner aims to let go of human notions, Party culture can warp these ideas so that the practitioner just ends up moving from one extreme of the issue to the other extreme. In other words, it’s just moving from one attachment to another attachment instead of truly making progress based on Dafa.

My understanding is that since the old forces used the CCP to start the persecution against Dafa in China, we as practitioners need to let go of all aspects of Party culture on top of our human notions in order to fully oppose the persecution.

This may seem complicated. But from another angle, it is just a part of our cultivation. All we have to do is have to walk our path well under the guidance of Dafa.

The Power of Dafa

Because of the ongoing suppression in China, I was scared when I read Nine Commentaries for the first time, but also curious and a little excited. I wasn’t sure whether it was getting political or not.

Later on, I gained a deeper understanding and was able to produce as well as distribute the Nine Commentaries. But I did it perfunctorily, as if I was finishing an assignment. I didn’t do it from my own heart.

When reading the Nine Commentaries again this time, it was quite different. In fact, there was some content that appeared new to me. And I was able to understand them based on Dafa’s principles.

For example, when reading the CCP’s cannibalism in the past, I felt that it was disgusting and often skipped those parts. But in fact, Master has talked about asura in Zhuan Falun, which is a similar situation. Thinking this way, I further realized the importance of cleaning up these elements in our thoughts.

Master said,

“So, I knew that when the Nine Commentaries came out, once the true picture was shown to the world’s people and the Chinese people, the evil CCP would for sure disintegrate. After all, the power of Buddha Law is at work.”

“Student: Some fellow students say that the Nine Commentaries carry the power of the Fa. Is that true?

“Master: It is true. As for the Nine Commentaries, well, everyone knows about clarifying the truth, saving sentient beings, and disintegrating the vicious Party’s evil specter—aren’t these things that Dafa disciples need to do while validating the Fa, and things that need to be done by Dafa during the Fa-rectification? Of course it carries the Fa’s power. But you shouldn’t study it as if it were Fa.”

(“Teachings at the 2005 Conference in San Francisco”)

Had I paid attention to the Nine Commentaries and disintegrating the Party culture earlier, I could have avoided many mistakes and done better in cultivation. Right now when reading the Nine Commentaries, the slight sense of reluctance and reservation I had earlier had disappeared.

Minding the Details

Cultivation practice is serious, and there are really no insignificant issues. Even the most innocuous seeming issues could make for major loopholes for the old forces can take advantage of.

Master has talked about this, and I have also read this in experience-sharing articles on Minghui. But some practitioners still ignore this principle: some have fallen behind in cultivation practice, and many have even lost their lives.

If we look a little deeper though, not taking these small issues seriously is a manifestation of “fake”, “big”, and “empty”, several characteristics of Party culture. For example, when some practitioners do things to validate Dafa or clarify facts to people, they are eager to make a big affair out of things. When being too attached to this, there could be problems.

In fact, cultivation is not about surface appearances. Sometimes, seemingly “good” surface behavior belies flaws in cultivation, and vice versa.

When we are truly diligent in cultivation, we may find that there are opportunities to look inward and improve ourselves all around us. How we understand them and how we handle them reflect the kind of person (and practitioner) we are. Paying attention to these little details not only helps us break through tribulations, but also avoid future problems.

But CCP culture is not like this. After all, as it’s manifested in the past several decades, the Party focuses on sloppiness instead of actually doing work, political correctness or formalism instead being truly responsible, and ganging up instead of being selfless and considerate of others.

Dafa practitioners follow the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance to truly improve ourselves, from our hearts to our words and actions. This is totally different from, and in fact, opposite to CCP culture. Therefore, we need to be clear on Dafa principles, pay attention to the little things, and improve ourselves one step at a time.

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)