(Clearwisdom.net)
This past year, I have had to look within myself to see if I have done what Teacher said to do at the present time: Study the Fa well, further clarify the truth in a deeper and more refined way, and have the right attitude towards sending forth righteous thoughts. During Fa rectification work when I had conflicts with others, more and more I first looked within myself to see what attachments were causing the conflict.
The following remarks about what I have seen with my celestial eye are only to illustrate how the truth of sending forth righteous thoughts manifests at the level I am at. I am sharing them because I realize that these are not meant for me alone, and thus they may be helpful to other genuine practitioners.
I was able to attend the Falun Dafa Festival in Ottawa last May where Teacher spoke. At Teacher's direction, with other conference participants I raised my right hand and sent out righteous thoughts. I felt myself a large and powerful god eliminating evil from the world. In other dimensions, my celestial eye viewed wondrous events during the five minutes of eliminating evil. A deep chasm opened, full of bright fires that sputtered up as though from a powerful volcano. Cylinders of fire flew out like barrels shot from a cannon.
Another time, the instant I did righteous thoughts, I saw a large eye, flat but alive and bright. It was blue, serene, youthful, and very large. It seemed as though it was lying on a large part of the earth. When I sent out righteous thoughts, large barrel-like cylinders shot out from the eye, without the fire but still very powerful. Another time when sending righteous thoughts, my celestial eye saw soldiers on either side of me in ancient military garb and helmets. They had a determined expression and seemed intent on helping and supporting me in my effort. Fearlessly, they marched forward with my righteous thoughts.
Teacher also said that the evil was becoming more fearful of Dafa disciples, and I found this to be true. At a health fair, I was with practitioners on a stage demonstrating the exercises. One practitioner saw that evil forces were everywhere in the building and suggested we do righteous thoughts. As we did, my celestial eye saw many evil beings fearfully hiding in corners, trying not to be found by our gong. They were ugly especially in their fear, with half animal, half human features, all dark distorted beings. I eliminated them wherever I found them hiding. On another occasion, a Falun appeared to me for the first time. At first it was in the lower left corner of my vision, and then it moved toward the center, becoming larger. Then it was large, golden and spinning. After that, I felt myself truly merged with the Fa. I was part of it, a particle doing my best to clear evil from every part of the universe. When I placed my hands in the lotus gesture according to Teacher's photograph, I could see a golden pillar rising out of my hands.
Although my Celestial Eye was able to see much in other dimensions, I have not studied the Fa as well as I could. My mind has wandered and I have not been calm, nor did I read as often as I could. I realize that studying the Fa well is the essential base for everything else that we do in assisting Teacher in Fa-rectification. If I don't study the Fa regularly every day, I feel uneasy and empty. Even Fa rectification activities seem unimportant. I now study the Fa as soon as I wake in the morning and for a period of time at night. The deeper our understanding of the Fa, the better the results that manifest in sending forth righteous thoughts and clarifying the truth to the rest of the world.
Around April of last year, I joined our local video team. I believe we are doing important things, as mentioned on the Clearwisdom website to "clarify the truth to the people of China in a deeper, more refined way, spreading out more broadly." Other team members did much more than me to create VCDs and Chinese-language videos but I supported their efforts.
I started to create a video on the Buddha symbol. At a Hongfa activity the year before, I joined other practitioners at a country fair where we had a booth and played a video that showed the Falun symbol. A woman watching the video compared the Falun to the Nazi symbol. Angrily, she approached me and started to speak against it. I found myself defending the Falun symbol even as I had my own doubts. Teacher Li had given me an opportunity to clarify the truth in my own mind. From then on, I realized that the notions about the Falun symbol, which had caused doubts and misgivings in my mind, could also be a stumbling block for other Westerners. I researched the topic on the internet, wrote the script and created storyboards. Then nothing seemed to work for me to complete this project. My computer could not handle the editing software, and I could not transfer the taped narration to my computer. In the end, I wiped everything from my hard drive and reinstalled all the software. I understood that I needed to send righteous thoughts to all the beings that are working with me to complete the video. When I do send righteous thoughts, things work as they should and I complete the task. I was determined to continue and am very aware that the evil forces will do everything they can to dissuade us from completing our chosen tasks.
I also felt called to create awareness of the persecution in Europe. For two weeks last October and November, I completed a section of the SOS! Global Rescue Walk. With three other practitioners, one from Germany and two from the Czech Republic, I traveled from Prague, through the Czech Republic to Bratislava, the capital of the Slovak Republic. The weather, especially in Bratislava, turned extremely cold and I wore a jacket only suitable for autumn weather. Although cold and tired, I passed out thousands of flyers, met with local officials and media, and demonstrated the exercises. The four of us joined practitioners who were the only practitioners in a city. They were very happy for our support. We spent two days in Brno, a large city in the Czech Republic, where thousands of people saw us do the exercises. In Bratislava, the practitioner living there told us that people do not accept flyers of any kind. As a place for us to demonstrate the exercises, government officials had given us a park that no one used. But we were not deterred. We walked to the center of the city and handed out almost ten thousand flyers. People graciously accepted them. One man came up to me saying, "I need three" as if he knew this was the Fa he was waiting for and had to share with others.
Teacher arranged many opportunities to expose my fundamental attachments as well as to introduce Falun Dafa to the good people of these countries. Although I had arranged the walk and did a lot of the planning, when I got there my companions did not want to follow my suggestions. We discussed this during Fa study and realized that the evil forces were creating dissension among us to prevent us from completing the walk and reaching all the people who were waiting to hear the Fa.
We realized that Fa study on our walk was essential to our success. Perhaps because Zhuan Falun had not been translated into either Czech or Slovak at that time and was only in English, practitioners did not read as much as possible. One practitioner said she would read Teacher's most recent articles one time and thought that was enough. We discussed this and understood that everyone would need to read more. Happily, the practitioner who lived in Brno had a Slovak version of Zhuan Falun printed for the first time and gave us copies when we arrived.
As we did Fa study together after a long day, I calmed down and set aside all the day's frustrations. I was able to see my companions as practitioners who were sacrificing as much, or even more than I was in completing this walk. I reached out in a compassionate way to the practitioner from Germany who had pointed out some of my attachments. We always seemed to be rooming together and I found that Fa study helped me to be more compassionate with her.
During the walk, I learned that personal cultivation and Fa rectification are inextricably bound together. It is not a matter of getting rid of attachments and then focusing on Fa rectification. Teacher provides the opportunities, and I take advantage of them. I endure and give up my humanness, and Teacher does the rest. When I gave up my attachment, everything became easier and we completed the journey together in good spirits.
As we assist Teacher to completely abolish evil and save all sentient beings, I understand this is how Teacher prepares my place as an enlightened being among the Gods, Buddhas and Taos of the cosmos. At the Ottawa lecture, Teacher said, "So, as Dafa disciples, you have been entrusted with a great historic mission. This is different, then from strictly self-cultivation. You need to safeguard the Fa, you need to validate the Fa, and when the Fa is persecuted you expose the evil and do better embodying Dafa; this is what you should do."
Thank you. These are only my understandings and I welcome your understandings on these experiences.
Shared at Boston Conference, April 2002
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