(Minghui.org) Two of Master’s recent articles “Wake Up” and “The Ordeals Our Spiritual Discipline Faces” have made a very deep and most direct impact on me, making me feel stunned, shocked, and awakened.
At the critical moment when our media projects encountered a huge tribulation, Master came forward and blocked the adversity. What shocked me was that Master used the term “ordeals” for the first time to refer to the persecution and pressures we faced at the moment. What made me feel most stunned and ashamed was that the ordeals we are facing now are mainly because Dafa practitioners have failed to do well; our xinxing loopholes over time have caused the persecution and interference, which have also impacted Master and Shen Yun Performing Arts Company.
What alarmed me was that the various loopholes in our cultivation that Master pointed out in his articles are those he has repeatedly reminded us in his Fa teachings over the last few years, such as not to attack individuals, and not to make enemies, and to be kind to everyone. But as Dafa disciples, we failed to listen to Master and didn’t cultivate ourselves well. Now we have brought persecution and trouble to Master and Shen Yun, being unworthy of the title of “Dafa disciple” and of Master’s compassion and painstaking salvation.
Master’s Endurance and Compassion
These two recent articles were published not only on Minghui.org but also on a few media outlets for the general public. I have come to the understanding that Master has come to this world in person as the Creator of the Universe to bear this catastrophe and persecution not only to protect the media and Dafa disciples, but most importantly to protect a large number of people who are destined to be saved through the media in the future. In other words, Master’s new articles are meant to use his divine body to atone for the sins of his disciples, the media, and living beings, in exchange for the future vitality of sentient beings.
When Master used his divine body to block a huge black wave of the gigantic karma, he not only taught us the righteous Fa principles, kindly pointed out our wrongdoings, leaving no one behind, but at the same time also clarified the facts of how Dafa disciples have peacefully resisted the evil persecution and the truth of how Shen Yun has been saving the people by awakening their conscience and kind thoughts. When people understand the message, they can distinguish between right and wrong and avoid siding with the evil or committing sinful karma against Dafa.
Everything Master does bears immense compassion that I have never seen before. Master is also teaching us disciples by setting examples of his own words and deeds, telling us what it means by treating anyone and everyone with compassion, and having love for all people.
At the same time, Master also personally showed the world the purity, goodness, and integrity of Dafa by publicly pointing out the shortcomings of the media and Dafa practitioners, telling us how to rectify ourselves. As long as we correct ourselves according to the Fa principles and make amends for our wrongdoings, we are able to turn danger into safety in our efforts to resist the persecution. We will never be able to repay Master’s eternal kindness.
What Has Caused the Current Ordeal?
From studying Master’s two recent articles, I have realized three major causes of the current ordeal we are facing:
- Huge karmic debts of sentient beings and that of Dafa practitioners- Dafa practitioners have not done well- Lack of kindness and compassion in Dafa practitioners in treating sentient beingsMaster said in his article “The Ordeals Our Spiritual Discipline Faces”:
“I know that in fact fifteen percent of the karma still remains to be dealt with as we go about saving lives. That is what’s left after twenty-some years of working to save lives. It is a huge amount, I know.” (“The Ordeals Our Spiritual Discipline Faces”)
Why is it that there is still fifteen percent of the karma remaining? I dare not speculate regarding this heavenly secret.
The fact that Dafa practitioners have not done well is another reason for the ordeals we are facing.
Master said:
“Every Dafa practitioner—and not just those in the media—should ask themselves whether they are doing what someone who does spiritual practice in Dafa ought to. I can’t help but feel worried, looking back at how you’ve done. Many people have been lax in their spiritual practice for quite some time, and have been going about things just like anyone else in the world. Which is hardly the spiritual state of someone who practices Dafa, right? You really need to take this problem seriously.” (“Wake Up”)
In the face of the current ordeal, everyone who regards themselves as Dafa practitioners or disciples should take a serious look within and rectify their cultivation state.
Reflecting upon my own experience in the media projects over the years, I have realized a number of loopholes in our environment for a long time, which also have prevented us from cultivating more compassion and kindness required for higher levels.
1) Lack of compassion and kindness has led us astray from the state of Godhood
In the past few years, Master has repeatedly explained relevant Fa principles to practitioners working in the media, warning us not to get involved in ordinary people’s politics, not to attack any political party or individuals, and that we must do our best to save all sentient beings.
Why did such a tribulation still occurr? It shows that we as one body have not truly followed Master’s teachings in our conduct and cultivation. This has given the evil an excuse to take advantage of our loopholes, causing huge sins and tribulations. If we cannot unconditionally do things in line with the Fa principles, do we truly believe in Master and the Fa? Are we truly validating Dafa and saving sentient beings?
Looking within more deeply, we should determine why we have failed to hold unconditional faith in Master and act in accordance with the Fa principles. Is it because we are after click rate, fame, and gain? Is it because we have bred human sentiment or resentment toward any political parties? Or deep down in our hearts, do we view our own fame and gain more importantly than the loss or gain of Dafa as a whole and that of sentient beings? We have been cultivating in Dafa for so many years, and we need to check if our lives are still based on selfishness, or for the benefits of others. What is the percentage of our life that has become part of the new universe and what percentage of our life is still lost in the old universe? Such questions deserve some deep thinking.
Without compassion, we cannot attain godhood; without kindness, we cannot save sentient beings; or worse still, we may be taken advantage of by the evil and turn around to destroy sentient beings, causing great interference to Dafa’s salvation of sentient beings.
2) Small wrong steps could lead to a big fall
Many practitioners in the media are very capable and have great ambitions. We are determined to develop the project in a big way and save more sentient beings. Unfortunately, when it comes to specific tasks, we tend to overlook the trivial matters and want to achieve our goals in a quick way. As a result, we sometimes make choices that are not righteous or do things that may bring us risks and danger.
A small wrongful step we take may not be noticed by ordinary people, but it is clearly seen in the eyes of gods and Buddhas across the universe, and it could easily become an excuse used by the old forces for persecution. They will take advantage of our wrong frame of mind to lure us into taking more wrong steps bit by bit, and when we are bold enough to take big strides, they will use all our loopholes to attack us violently to make us fall to the ground.
Then how could such “unrighteous” thoughts get a foothold in our cultivation environment? Is it because our environment as a whole has gone astray, become impure and unrighteous, and as a result, we have allowed various wrong thoughts to find ground to breed? We all know that in a 100% pure dimensional field, no evil beings dare to intrude because they will be disintegrated the moment they get in.
From a different perspective, does our risk-taking or speculative style of work that is not even consistent with ordinary people’s rules, also indicate a lack of compassion for all sentient beings? Only by taking every step righteously can we gain trust from the ordinary people and the divine. I’ve come to the understanding that “walking our path righteously” is also a manifestation of compassion.
3) Unwilling to conform to ordinary people’s reasoning and norms in our conduct
We all know that we need to be righteous in our thoughts and actions, but sometimes we only pay lip service, and are unwilling to comply with ordinary people’s laws and regulations. Put in another way, we don’t care much about whether people can accept what we do. As a result, we often find it hard to proceed with what we want to do and have to give up in the end. When what we do can not be understood or accepted by the people, we have also failed to demonstrate the compassion of Dafa practitioners.
At a superficial level, we might find that sometimes we just don’t want to deal with trouble, or are unwilling to change ourselves or be criticized. When fellow practitioners point out our shortcomings, we might even turn around and accuse them, “You don’t have enough righteous thoughts,” or “You have an attachment to fear,” or “You are confined by ordinary people’s rules.”
To look within more deeply, we may find that we often understand the Fa with our human mindset, and try to use the extraordinary righteous thoughts and Master’s blessing to cover up our unwillingness to endure hardships, change ourselves, or step out of our comfort zone.
Righteous thoughts are by no means indignant emotions or impulsive actions. True righteous thoughts are wisdom and compassion that permeate the entire universe from top to bottom, and can accommodate the Fa principles at every level.
4) Talking at too high a level and being counterproductive
As Dafa cultivators, we believe in gods and Buddhas, and we may have also experienced miracles from time to time. However, we need to remember that our media reports are facing ordinary people in order to save them, so our reports shouldn’t go beyond the level of their comprehension, otherwise we could cause confusion and misunderstandings on their part, and push them away.
For example, when reporting natural disasters or strange phenomena in China, we sometimes talked about things at high levels, as if we were writing a fantasy novel instead of writing a news report based on facts. As a result, viewers often described such reports as subjective and irrational in the feedback.
Looking inward, we may realize that the reason for our improper conduct could be because we have lived in the circle of practitioners all these years, with little contact with ordinary society, and by and by we only know how to write reports in the same language and way of thinking as if we were talking to fellow practitioners.
We may have developed a habit of “talking to ourselves.” We say what we want to say in our reports and forget to consider whether the general public can understand what we say. As a result, we tend to sound far-fetched and abnormal. Consequently, our media reports become less trustworthy, or even offensive to some ordinary people. We have thus pushed sentient beings away without even knowing it.
Master reminded us:
“As Dafa disciples now go about validating the Fa and saving sentient beings, the goal of their initiatives is clear, but those efforts themselves, as with how you carry things out, need to be understandable to people. I mean understandable to human beings, rather than gods. People look only at the surface of things, and they can understand things from only the surface, so the superficial form that your actions or activities take must conform to ordinary society.” (“Fa Teaching Given at the NTD Meeting,” Collected Teachings Given Around the World, Volume IX)
We must take what Master told us very seriously.
5) Being arrogant and unwilling to be more professional
As we have been working in the media for a long time, it is inevitable that sometimes we will develop a “veteran mentality” and an air of “arrogance.” However, if we fail to improve our professional skills for a long time and are unwilling to change, then the so-called “years of experience” will easily become interference, preventing us from improving in cultivation to save more sentient beings.
In fact, our unwillingness to change and improve our skills also shows our lack of compassion, as well as our attachment to comfort and reluctance to endure hardship or criticism. Such shortcomings block us from elevating in Dafa cultivation.
From a different perspective, if we feel superior and are unwilling to improve our professional skills in the media or learn to save people in a way they can understand, how can we validate Dafa’s compassion and wisdom to the world’s people?
6) The tendency of putting cultivation and profession in opposition
Some practitioners treat cultivation and their profession separately, thinking that the relationship between the two is like “zero-sum game,” and if they pay attention to cultivation, they would not have time to improve their media skills; if they want to improve their media skills, they will easily relax in cultivation. With such excuses, they are unwilling to improve their professional abilities.
We all know that Shen Yun artists invest a lot of time and energy every day to practice their dance skills and music skills, but they also attach great importance to daily Fa study and doing the exercises, as well as xinxing cultivation. I have also noticed that in our media projects, there are also many excellent reporters, editors, and hosts who are also diligent practitioners. They may have very little spare time, but they are always constantly improving their cultivation and professional skills.
My understanding is that our cultivation and profession do not contradict each other. Moreover, the higher one’s realm of cultivation, the more compassion one will have to improve one’s professional skills, and to endure more hardships in order to save more sentient beings.
7) Pollution of the CCP Party culture
Many practitioners in the media have been living overseas for many years, but the pollution of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) culture still tries to interfere with our cultivation and our efforts in validating the Fa, and suppress our compassion. Such interference can be seen in the following aspects:
- Try to achieve a goal quickly by a rough and ready solution, which may be taken advantage of by the evil down the road.
- In order to build a reputation or increase click rate, some practitioners make big and exaggerated claims without sufficient evidence to back them up. Such conduct not only violates the traditional media’s professional norms of “speaking the facts,” but is also derogatory to the credibility of our media, as well as one’s own personal credibility. At the same time, it also promotes the CCP’s habit of “making false, big, and empty remarks.”
- Overusing the media’s right to speak, while ignoring the responsibility to speak. The media is the most important propaganda outlet and ideological weapon of the CCP, and it frequently uses its monopolized media outlets to attack and slander its enemies and opponents. However, sometimes we find ourselves in similar situations where we use our discourse power to criticize and attack people and things we dislike in our news reports or programs (including some political figures in Western countries).
We have forgotten that behind any power there is a corresponding responsibility. Behind the right to speak, there are also responsibilities for what we say, including social responsibility and legal responsibility. When we ignore such responsibilities, our conduct will fail to demonstrate the compassion and kindness that Dafa practitioners should have.
Cultivating Ourselves Well while Pulling Through the Ordeals
A practitioner shared with me what she saw while meditating a few days ago. A huge celestial body system was falling apart, with fire spreading as it crumbled, but Master was holding up the celestial body with his hands underneath. Although what she saw might not be the total truth, and could just be a hint, I came to the understanding that Master used the tremendous endurance of his divine body to block this catastrophe for the media, his disciples, sentient beings, and the huge celestial body. Then, we Dafa disciples must rectify ourselves through solid cultivation and repair the celestial body, so that we can fulfill our mission to protect all sentient beings and the new universe.
I personally believe that we must rectify our hearts and maintain full faith in Master and the Fa, just like what we did during the ordeals of “April 25” and “July 20” in 1999. We must always remember “Just by staying unaffected you will be able to handle all situations.” (Teaching the Fa at the Conference in the Midwest-U.S.)
At the same time, we must re-examine ourselves based on the Fa, look inward, and let go of our various human attachments and notions. In particular, we should work on our kindness and expand our compassion. We must purify our own dimensional field, so that the Buddha light will shine through to enable us to save ourselves and others.
We must understand that each tribulation we experience is a test of our xinxing and our state of realm. When a media project encounters such a huge tribulation, what’s our reaction to it?
No matter which Fa-validation project we are in, we should calmly ask ourselves, “What was my original intention in joining this project? Do I still hold the same original intention every day? Am I still cultivating as I first started? Do I have any other hidden human thoughts, notions, or attachments?”
Epilogue
The U.S. House of Representatives recently unanimously passed the Falun Gong Protection Act, an important step forward to protect Chinese people’s human rights and stop the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.
However, some practitioners in self-hosted media or our media outlets are openly discussing how to use this act to investigate and punish CCP officials who have been involved in persecuting Dafa, or how to punish the CCP’s overseas propaganda agencies. Such remarks reflect strong attachments to a fighting and revenge mentality, as well as complacent joy, which I feel are inappropriate.
Master said:
“In this persecution, you might have hatred toward the wicked CCP, and some of you might even be willing to risk everything to fight with the CCP. But it’s not worth it.”
“I have never said anything about fighting with the wicked CCP. It’s not worthy.” (“Fa Teaching Given at the 2014 San Francisco Fa Conference,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. XIII)
“Toppling the wicked CCP is not the goal of cultivation. Rather, for Dafa disciples the ultimate goal in cultivation is to reach Consummation.” (“Cleaning Up,” The Essentials of Diligent Progress III)
Master has made it very clear what our goal is, and reminded us a number of times in his two recent articles that we are lacking compassion, and we still have strong human attachments and sometimes act like everyone else in the world. We must always remember Master’s teaching:
“Validate the Fa with rationality, clarify the truth with wisdom, spread the Fa and save people with compassion—this is establishing the mighty virtue of an Enlightened Being.” (“Rationality,” The Essentials of Diligent Progress II)
The above is only my personal understanding at this stage. Please kindly point out anything improper in the sharing.
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