Time still drags on. The Teacher is still waiting. So are our fellow practitioners in prison. What are they waiting for then? They are waiting for those practitioners who have not yet stepped forward to break through human barriers and validate Fa. They are waiting for those practitioners who have not yet met the ultimate standards to meet the final requirements.
The harsh superficial environment is still continuing. The vile people are still committing inhuman atrocities. However, every single thing in this world is under the control of God. The current environment exists because of the existence of Dafa cultivation. No adverse circumstances mean no tribulations, which in turn means the end of cultivation. If the current harsh cultivation environment were ended, it would signify that the extremely rare opportunity that is hard to come by, even in billions of years, will be forever gone.
The Teacher has expounded on the Fa and principles as explicitly as they could be taught. They can be easily understood, semantically, even without relying on a person's enlightenment quality. It is now only the human notions that have prevent practitioners from the righteous belief and positive thought. Human mentality, like a rope that prevents a ship from setting sail, has fettered their righteous minds, disallowing practitioners from moving toward consummation.
"When a person can put life and death behind him, he is as much as a deity; when he cannot, he is only a human." The words may sound simple and are easily talked about, but they are as hard to implement as climbing a mountain with a ten- thousand-pound weight tied to your legs. In the tribulations I encountered recently, I have come to notice my own fearsome mentality that showed itself and could not be covered up. I searched for the cause of it. I found that it was nothing but the fact that I still could not put life and death behind me. Such an attachment has strongly prevented me from thinking the righteous thought based on my inner self. The Teacher said, "real Buddhas are guardians of the cosmos and are responsible for all righteous elements in the cosmos." An enlightened being can, without any hesitance, give up everything he has for safeguarding the truth of the universe and the sentient beings in the universe. A person who is completely for the benefit of others will never worry about his own safety or risk. What he thinks, says, considers and does is only for the well being of others, which is manifested in the compassion of an enlightened being. To save the sentient beings, our Teacher has almost exhausted everything he has. The toughness and difficulty of what our Teacher is doing is forever beyond our imagination. I know it is something that can not be judged properly by the concepts of life and death of any living being. In this unprecedented tribulation, the person who endured the most is our Teacher. He not only needs to take care of the things related to the universe that are unknown to us, but also needs to endure the karma and evil factors that are caused by the vile forces persecuting Fa and dumped onto Dafa practitioners. In addition, he also takes care of our karma, which was caused by us, at different realms in our past lives. What is left for us to endure is only a tiny bit of tribulation on which our cultivation towards consummation and the building of our mighty virtue are based. When I was in my attachment, I thought of our great, compassionate Teacher. I felt ashamed of myself.
The practitioners who endeavor to safeguard Dafa are acting wave after wave. There have been 80 Dafa practitioners who have died during the persecution because they persisted in their belief in Falun Dafa, but they do not have any trace of complaint or grievance for what they have chosen to do. More and more practitioners have been enduring a great deal of inhumane torture and abuse, day and night in prison, waiting for those practitioners who have not yet stepped forward to do so. What is the purpose of them to suffer pain like this? For their own advantage? A few days ago, a female practitioner who was detained for 7 months and was about to be sentenced to a jail term passed her words out from the detention center to her fellow practitioners. She said, "We should take care of our own tribulations ourselves (and should not increase the burden on the Teacher anymore)." She also said, "Please ask the senior assistants to make every effort to step forward." It is so great of them. They still care about their fellow practitioners outside the prison and hope that these practitioners can step forward also, even though they themselves are in an extremely difficult situation. Observing them, I am deeply ashamed. In the course of clarifying the facts about Falun Gong to the public, I have more or less done something and made progress along with other practitioners, which may seem to be a bit of an accomplishment in the eyes of some practitioners. However, I still felt ashamed because I had not been able to do it and to safeguard Dafa with the entirety of my heart and soul. In the bottom of my heart, I still have selfishness and fear deposited there, which have blocked my righteous mind.
A life that can not put down this life and death is still far away from the standard of caring completely for the Fa and for others. What else can a life not relinquish if he can even put down his life and death? However, during cultivation, I have asked myself, as well as my fellow practitioners, "Have we really put life and death behind us?" When encountering real tribulations, I have seen my own attachment not being able to genuinely put life and death behind me. There are many cases that are sufficient to remind us of our problem in this very regard.
In Beijing, there once were many practitioners who distributed much material to clarify the facts about Falun Gong to the public. The activity was at one time on a grand and spectacular scale. Practitioners were well-coordinated and made full use of their wisdom in carrying out the activities. However, after the arrests, with some practitioners sent to forced labor camps, some sentenced to jail terms, and some others subjected to tight surveillance, some practitioners were not as motivated and persistent to present the facts to the public and to go to Tiananmen Square as before. They seem to have lost their focus and became trapped on a certain level without moving forward.
Since October 1, 2000, many Dafa practitioners have gone to Tiananmen Square to validate Fa. We have seen many practitioners in the Square, but how many of them are just watching on the side? How many practitioners are still staying home without stepping forward? During the process of validating Fa, the practitioners from the Chaoyang District, Beijing are always taking the lead in stepping forward and standing at the frontline. However, the practitioners from Chaoyang District who have stepped forward know how many practitioners have actually stepped forward. I once heard a story from a practitioner. A policeman in Tiananmen Square said to the practitioners, who were at Tiananmen Square, "You should not just come sporadically. If one hundred thousand practitioners all come at once, your Fa would be rectified immediately." After a careful thought of these words, I felt it was very insightful. Is not the ultimate purpose of cultivation for a cultivator to meet the final requirements? As soon as the standards are met, the cultivation environment is no longer needed. Whether to go to Tiananmen Square may not be the sole standard, but for some practitioners, their being afraid of going to Tiananmen Square indeed reflects the level of their xinxing.
What on earth has impeded us? What on earth has prevented our inner self's from bravely facing everything in front of us? How could Dafa practitioners the future Buddhas, Taos and Gods be inhibited by the evils? In Eliminate Your Last Attachment(s), the Teacher said, "If a cultivator can let go of the thought of life and death under any circumstances, evil is bound to be afraid of him. If every practitioner is able to do this, evil will of itself no longer exist. All of you are already aware of the principle of mutual-generation and mutual-inhibition. If you are not afraid, the factor that would make you afraid will become non-existent." "Everything that the evil has done has actually targeted the attachments and fears that you have not let go of. You are future enlightened beings who are becoming Buddhas, Daos, and Gods, and you are not concerned with the losses and gains of this world."
I once thought if all the practitioners outside of jail could be mobilized, to make their best effort, to go to Tiananmen Square. Go to validate Fa, let the public know the real facts about Falun Gong and truly function as particles of the great law, it would be the best help to our Teacher in rectifying Fa. It would also be the best support to the practitioners who are enduring a great deal of tribulation in jails. The more practitioners that have stepped forward, the more particles of Fa that glow with an even purer brilliance, the sooner the light of hope will come, the less our Teacher needs to wait painstakingly for us, and the sooner the jailed practitioners can gain freedom.
Looking back at myself, I noticed that there existed as much problem in me as in other practitioners in the aspect of stepping forward bravely. I am discussing this problem of mine in the hope that we can all overcome it and catch up with the process of Fa rectification, better function as particles of Fa, and put a magnificent end to the last step of our cultivation.
A practitioner once said such words, "Cultivation is like rowing boats upstream. If we do not endeavor to go forward, we will end up going backward." Fellow practitioners, let's take these words to encourage one another in our endeavors.
A Beijing practitioner
November 12, 2000
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