[Clearwisdom.net]
Turning in Falun Dafa books
After July 20th of 1999, police and staff of the residential administrative offices came to my work place and forced me to hand in Falun Dafa books. They said, "Now we are just asking you to hand in the books. If you refuse to do so, if your books are found and confiscated, the consequences will not be very good." They also asked the leaders of my work place to supervise and urge me to hand in Dafa books and said that if I caused any problems, I would get my work place into trouble, as well. Under such pressure, I burned a lot of pictures I had cherished (because I didn't want them to take away these pictures.). As the staff from the residential administrative offices kept calling me to supervise and urge me, I handed in the books against my will. At that time, I cheated myself and thought that I wouldn't hand in a single copy of Zhuan Falun and as long as I handed in China Falun Gong, Falun Dafa Explication and cultivation stories, they wouldn't come to me again.
After handing in those books, I felt extremely depressed and remorseful. In the several years after I had started to practice Falun Gong, I had never lost my temper with my husband but that day I flew into a rage at him for the first time.
Seeing my own mistakes clearly and digging out the deeply hidden attachments
Handing in the Falun Dafa books is a part of my cultivation where I haven't done well. When I looked back without any attempt to cover up my mistakes and examined what had happened to see the underlying motivation, I clearly saw my attachment of fear and the devious aspect of my human nature.
It is mentioned in Master Li Hongzhi's "Lecture at the Great Lakes Conference in North America" that, " Moreover, gods are not like humans. For example, some students were arrested and imprisoned. When they couldn't endure the severe torture, they wrote repentance statements. But in their minds they were thinking: "This is to fool them. I'll still practice after I get out. I'll still go out to validate the Fa and I'll still go to Tiananmen. But this is unacceptable. It's because this kind of notion is something developed in the human world after humans have become depraved. But gods aren't like that. They don't have thoughts like these. Once they've decided on a certain path, they'll definitely stick with it to the end."
Because I already had the distorted human notion deep inside, I wanted to deal with this tribulation with an attitude of self-protection. I failed to treat it with righteous thoughts and keep my words consistent with my thoughts. There is a formula in Falun Dafa practice, called "Shenshen Heyi" (make the body and mind come together). When the mind and body are close together, our thoughts will be truthful and just the way they should be. We won't have human thoughts that swing from left to right and attempt to please both sides. When people swing between two sides, the acquired notions are playing the role. We cultivate "Zhen" (Truthfulness), so we need to get rid of these messy notions that form in our postnatal life, dig deeply inside ourselves until we reach any warped concept that is deeply hidden and not easy to notice. We need to see them clearly and break with them. When you genuinely do so, these concepts won't have any chance to exist any more. When you fail to see them clearly and can't distinguish between them and your true self, these distorted concepts will exist in your mind and body. And you will appear not to be clear-minded and swing between two sides. These are all the effects of those distorted concepts.
When I saw all those distorted things clearly and became determined to break with them, I wrote down a brief statement to confess my mistake in handing in the Falun Dafa books. I feel extremely relaxed and bright from my inside to my outside. I feel that I have gotten rid of the faint confusion behind my righteous thoughts, which has bothered me for a long time. I have become extremely clear-minded, upright and dignified. I know I became purer during the Fa-rectification.
To help rectify Dafa, we need to first rectify ourselves. If you tolerate the existence of distorted thoughts, you are as good as appeasing vice. You need to be clear that it exists inside you, but it is not you, not your true self.
I am not confused, nor do I indulge in the attachments of repeated regret for having made mistakes. I only have the resolution to break with my distorted notions. I know "the future is bright".
I hold that because of our mistakes, Master Li has to endure more tribulations. I also understand that what Master Li hopes to see is our awakening. I have nothing left to say, so I will now step forward and strive ahead diligently.
When we remove all distortions and become thoroughly pure and clean, the door to the paradise will be open to us.
Written by Ms. Jin Youming, Falun Dafa practitioner previously in Beijing and currently in Washington D.C., USA
January 25, 2001