Shared at Chicago 2002 Conference
Last summer I began reading a lecture in Zhuan Falun every day and doing the exercises for two hours a day. At that point, I really felt that after over a year of transition I had really entered the Fa. It was also at this time that I started to realize the importance of clarifying the truth and the connection between myself and the practitioners in China who were quite directly clarifying the true facts about Falun Gong. Thus I moved from looking at things in terms of personal cultivation and started to view things in terms of the overall Fa-rectification. In my experience it has been just like what Master said in Touring North America to Lecture the Fa,
"Everyone may still remember that when you first started to send forth righteous thoughts, those evil beings that were persecuting Dafa immediately lined up, assembled formations, and came over while beating their drums. After a period of everyone sending forth righteous thoughts, these evil factors have been eliminated on a large scale."
I remember reading an article on Clearwisdom where a practitioner talked about sending forth the righteous thoughts before and after going to sleep at night. I immediately found this idea very good and took it up myself. This became a trial for me from the beginning since these were two times of the day when my thoughts were the messiest and disorganized. I often dwelled excessively on particular aspects of my life, and this reinforced my attachments. At the end of days when the tribulations and interference were particularly bad I can remember I would ask myself, "Why am I doing this? What is the point? I've already failed so many times in my cultivation, why continue?" In other words I had very negative thoughts. From the beginning, I could feel them pressing down on me like a thick blanket. Of course by raising my xinxing, studying the Fa, and practicing the exercises I painstakingly overcame each tribulation and continued on my path, and sure enough the blanket melted away along with the current of Fa-rectification, and now it really just feels natural to send forth righteous thoughts every morning and every evening. I find it also good to do it when I have breaks at my workplace. During lunches and breaks I sit in front of my workplace on a bench and send forth the righteous thoughts. Of course all my coworkers and some customers become interested and this then becomes an excellent opportunity for Hongfa.
This past year I was a sophomore at the University of Michigan. Even before I went away to school in the fall I knew what I had to do. So I got a board that was about two feet by three feet and painted the words, "I am cultivating my body and mind with Falun Dafa, Right now tens of thousands of Falun Dafa practitioners are being persecuted in China, for more information take a flyer, interrupt me, or visit faluninfo.net." Indeed on the first opportunity I had I went to the main area at the University of Michigan, which is called the Diag, and I put my sign up and did the exercises. At first many people laughed and felt really puzzled by my presence, but then again the Diag is also known as a place of diversity and free speech, so they also weren't so dazzled. It was in this environment that I tried to have what positive impact I could. At first I felt really frightened of doing the exercises in front of so many people, especially people my age, but I knew these were all attachments and since what I was doing was righteous and purely assimilated to Zhen-Shan-Ren there should really be no problem. It's like the man in Zhuan Falun who thought that he was cut and bleeding and was really only scratched, once the mental aspect was overcome the rest was really nothing.
The year went by and right around the time that practitioners started talking about "clarifying the truth to the precious Chinese people" I had some problems with my understanding. I had a feeling of unfairness in my heart, thinking, "Why should the Chinese people be so precious what about the other races, don't they need to elevate themselves too. Why should so much emphasis be placed there?" I had read Teacher's words many times, he said in Zhuan Falun, "People are not born the same, as some are born ill or disfigured. From high levels, we can see that one's entire life lies there in another dimension. How can they be the same? People all wish to be equal. If something is not a part of someone's life, how can they be equally made? People are not the same." So I knew that I was wrong but I just could not put down this attachment and I felt really confused. In fact I started to think that the Fa-rectification didn't have anything to do with me at all, or at least a lot less to do with me than I thought and I should just stop being delusional. This was when Teacher, with his boundless benevolence, gave me a chance to enlighten. One very cold and windy day on the Diag a Chinese man came up to me and started talking with me. He said that he had just gotten back from China and he couldn't understand why I was practicing outside in the freezing cold. He was immediately compassionate and told me where I could get some free dinner. In the way he talked to me I could also sense his purity of thought and righteous elements. Of course this is what I perceived and might not necessarily be correct since it was inevitably influenced by my attachments. Anyway, I tried to clarify the truth to this man and tell him that the Chinese government was spreading lies about Falun Gong and that he shouldn't believe them, and also that Falun Gong was not against the government. It was very difficult however since his English was very limited. He seemed very resolute in thinking that Falun Gong was not so good. Because of the language barrier I could not directly eliminate the evil with words, so I can only hope that my righteous thoughts and energy field had some positive effect on him. The point is that when I saw that Chinese man I saw someone with such purity and righteousness inherent in his being, and it seemed to me that it stretched across so many levels and was very good. Yet there was this bit of poison, it was dark and dense and hazy, and it had done such a horrible and unthinkable thing by leading him astray. I really felt like I was face to face with the evil. Later that day I cried when I looked back at the conversation we had and thought that I finally understood what this Fa-rectification was all about, at least at one level.
If there is anything that you want to point out about my understanding please feel free. Thank you.
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