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Cultivation During Fa-Rectification

July 4, 2002 |   By a practitioner from Chicago

(Clearwisdom.net) I obtained the Fa in 1999, so it's been almost three years now. I once attended Teacher's Fa-lectures when Teacher had just started to introduce Falun Gong to the public. But at that time, I had been so attached to ordinary people's lifestyle that I missed the opportunity to truly understand what Falun Dafa really is. It's so benevolent of Teacher to give me another chance to obtain the Fa. I was lost in the human world, but Teacher helped me to find my way back to my true self. I'm so lucky to have Teacher with me during this rare Fa-rectification period of the cosmos. Here I want to tell my fellow practitioners, "Let's cherish this rare opportunity. Let's do well in cultivation during Fa-rectification."

Teacher has reminded us in almost every Fa lecture of the importance of studying the Fa. I'm very well aware of the reminder, "it's very important to study the Fa." During the first year after I obtained the Fa, I didn't know much about Fa-rectification cultivation since I didn't pay special attention to Teacher's new articles and was therefore stuck in personal cultivation. I even took Teacher's articles as references to analyze the whole situation of the Fa. I thought and hoped I could calmly and comfortably practice Falun Dafa after the situation becomes better. When sharing experiences with other practitioners, sometimes I felt I was wrong somehow and that it seemed I lagged behind the overall progress of Dafa as a whole. However, I didn't figure out the reason until one day a fellow practitioner directly said to me, "You are not striving forward." I wasn't convinced at all. I thought that I had been very strict with myself in reading the books, practicing the exercises and improving my xinxing. How could he say that I was not diligent enough? Then at a group study, a practitioner mentioned he had read Teacher's new articles twenty times. I was deeply moved. Maybe regarding this issue I "wasn't diligent?" Some other practitioners made me a compile a copy of all of Teacher's new articles. I read them several times. Then I came to realize my problem--I had almost missed another opportunity: to be a Fa-rectification disciple during the Fa-rectification period. Teacher said in the Fa-lecture at the 2002 Fa Conference in Boston, "Every realm has its own state of being. If you're stagnant, you definitely won't be able to keep up with the Fa-rectification." Studying the Fa is the key to improving our levels.á

I wondered what I should do after realizing this problem. At that time, a Fa-conference was held in Chicago in 2001. Teacher's article "To All Students at the Nordic Fa Conference" was read at that conference. Teacher said in the article, "So, in clarifying the truth, don't wait, don't rely on others, and don't just hope for changes in external factors." I felt each word was written for me. Wasn't that my state of mind? At the conference I heard that Boston practitioners were calling upon practitioners to do an SOS Walk to Washington DC, in order to clarify the truth. I thought, "I must join this effort." I called them after the conference. After some twists and turns I finally got the opportunity to attend this sacred activity. Later I heard that over two hundred practitioners from Taiwan would join in. Some New York practitioners who had already packed their luggage were unable to attend this activity because there was a limit on the number who could participate. A practitioner joked with me, "Is there somebody secretly helping you to get in?" I knew who was "secretly helping me to get in." Teacher knows every thought of ours, and Teacher arranged our Fa-rectification cultivation path for us according to our levels, in order to help us get rid of those attachments that we need to let go of.á

As the Fa-rectification continues, we need to clarify the truth to people from all walks of life. Besides attending various truth-clarification activities, I have been clarifying the truth through online chat rooms. I not only clarified the truth to people in these chat rooms, but also realized many things that I needed to improve in my cultivation and uncovered some hidden attachments.á

When I first started to do this I could barely handle all the questions raised by people in the chat rooms. I was very worried and felt I didn't do much when I missed so many chances to clarify the truth and when I saw so many people being misled by the slander. It was an unbearable feeling. I almost wanted to give up. Sometimes when I read articles posted on Clearwisdom, I would think how wonderful it would be if people in Mainland China could have access to these articles. Inspired by this thought I tried to paste some articles from Clearwisdom to those online chat rooms. The results were pretty good, yet still there were many questions on the so-called "self-immolation incident," suicide incidents, the question of being forbidden to take medicine, the 1,400 death cases and more. My solution was to rephrase some relevant truth-clarification articles, to make them more suitable for the chat-room setting. The results were very good. Over a period of time, many people got to know the truth through chatting with me and I prepared many short sentences to answer different questions. At present, I have accumulated over one thousand short sentences and dozens of hyperlinks. They cover various types of questions. I can answer almost all the questions in the chat rooms without even typing a word. á

Truth-clarification through online chat rooms is also a process for me to improve myself in cultivation during Fa-rectification. Over a period of time I achieved a very good result. Through my very logical and tightly woven, short sentences, many people came to have good thoughts of Falun Dafa. Then, without realizing it, I started to have the attachment of zealotry. I put more efforts in persuading people instead of paying attention to the importance and the seriousness of clarifying the truth and rectifying the Fa. The results immediately turned bad. Many people couldn't understand practitioners' truth-clarification actions, no matter how hard I tried to explain it to them. This went on for several days. One day I talked a person who used to have negative thoughts about Falun Dafa. I said, "Many practitioners suffered from terminal illnesses before they practiced Falun Dafa. They became healthy through practicing Falun Dafa. We all know that people should recognize the benefits that they have received and try to pay them back. Shouldn't practitioners' go to Tiananmen Square to appeal to higher authorities? Shouldn't they clarify the truth in as many different ways as possible? This is what people should do. Yet many people can't understand this. Can those kinds of people still be considered human beings?" That person very calmly said a few sentences that shocked me, "You guys are not wrong to clarify the truth. However, you need to move people with your compassionate deeds and heart. You need to help people understand you. You shouldn't say, 'Those people who can't understand you are not good enough to be called human beings.'"

Once I met a Catholic at an online chat room. He opened a window to chat with me privately. He said, "Your words reflected your anger and your complaints instead of your tolerance." I realized that Teacher was giving me hints, using that person's words to help me do a better job. As Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples, we are not supposed to have any personal issues with ordinary people. Rather, it is a rare cultivation opportunity that Teacher arranged for us. I adjusted my attitude right away. After an in-depth and more refined discussion based on the Fa, that person came to have good thoughts of the Fa and he wanted to be friends.á

I talked to people from all walks of life in the online chat rooms, including students, people with different religious backgrounds, and even some practitioners who "enlightened" along an evil path. Each of them became my audience that I needed to clarify the truth to. Teacher said in "Touring North America to Teach the Fa," "Don't underestimate your sending even one flyer or one booklet to China, making one phone call there, or sending one fax there or sending all sorts of information--the effect is quite significant, and its effect in frightening and eliminating the evil is huge, truly huge. It's because of the evil's slanderous propaganda that people have bad thoughts in their minds. When people become clearheaded, that's when those evil things are eliminated and disintegrate." Every morning and every night, whenever I have time, I go to some online chat rooms. I will pass on the news from Clearwisdom about practitioners' activities around the world and the latest persecution facts to the chat rooms. Sometimes, nobody talks to me after I have pasted a lot of news. At first, I thought nobody was in those chat rooms so I stopped. Frequently, though, after a while somebody would reply, "Is what you said real?" or, "Please continue. I'm reading them." Once, after I stopped for a long while a person spoke to me, "Hello, hero." At those times, I couldn't help thinking how many people that have been poisoned are waiting for us to offer them salvation.

I really need to make good use of every minute to clarify the truth to the precious Chinese people. Teacher said in the "Fa-Lecture at the Conference in Florida, U.S.A.", "...next to your own cultivation, currently the most important thing is clarifying the truth ..." That's the Fa's requirement for us -- that is Fa-rectification -- that is cultivation. Teacher has explained the Fa to us very clearly. We will get more and more clear-headed as long as we act according to the requirements of the Fa. Practitioners have been cultivating during the Fa-rectification period for some time. We know how we should regard the Fa and what Teacher has told us. During this process we need to position ourselves well and position well the relationships between our personal understandings of the Fa and the Fa itself. We need to combine Fa-rectification work with Fa-study and strengthen our righteous thoughts in order to continuously improve ourselves.á

Teacher told us that we must try our best and we must do well because we need to consummate everything. We have responsibilities. We came down here with a mission and responsibilities to offer salvation to sentient beings. This mission and the responsibilities that the Fa bestowed upon us make the lives of practitioners magnificent. The current Fa-rectification process requires us to further get rid of the attachment to self, to melt into the Fa-rectification, and to carry out our missions as Falun Dafa practitioners. Let the lives of Falun Dafa practitioners truly shine radiantly in rectifying the Fa.á

I would like to end my talk with a poem that I wrote.á

With the great Fa of the cosmos introduced to people in this lifetime,

Some vicious people slandered the Fa and endangered sentient beings.

Through Fa-rectification disciples' truth-clarification efforts,

The pure current washes the dirty sky clean.