(Clearwisdom.net)
I first began practicing Falun Dafa in 1996. I have always felt and experienced Master's compassionate care and guidance on the road of cultivation. However, I have not always understood Master's hints right away. Only through continuous cultivation would I gradually come to understand.
I remember a dream I had one night in 1998. I dreamt that the sky was snowing lotus flowers, and I was flying upward in the sky. I saw Master far away. I ran towards Master saying, "Master, Master, I'm back, I'm back!" When I was able to see Master's face clearly, I saw Him smiling at me, and then His voice filled the air, "Bring them all with you." At that moment I found that a boat had appeared, and I was standing in it. The boat suddenly flew me back to the human world with great haste. When I awoke from the dream, I couldn't fully understand what it meant. However, Master's words in the dream, "Bring them all with you," made me understand that cultivation practice is not just for me. I have responsibilities to others as a cultivator. Yet I did not know who "them" referred to. What relationship did I have with "them"? Why was I to "bring them all" with me? What was the meaning of the boat?
One week later, the practitioners in my area were selecting a volunteer coordinator, and somehow they picked me to be an assistant coordinator. Before then, I had never thought that I would play such a role. According to the situation at that time, it also seemed like it shouldn't be me. I thought that maybe there's a reason behind it. At last I thought of that dream. I thought to myself, "is the 'them' in my dream referring to the disciples in my area?" If the coordinator cultivates well, then the disciples around him will also cultivate well. I questioned, "Is this my responsibility?" This thought did not seem entirely right to me, since coordinators are still just cultivators, particles of the one body. I also observed many disciples that were more diligent and solid than I was. Everyone's cultivation path is different, yet together we make one body. And the one body is under the compassionate guidance of Master. Master leads us forward.
After I became a coordinator, when I met with problems, or encountered problems caused by a lack of cooperation while doing Dafa work, I was able to let go of things inside myself. This is because I know that if I cultivate myself better, I can truly do the job better. Everyone's method of getting rid of attachments is different. I think that being a coordinator was just my way of seeing and getting rid of attachments.
When the persecution began, Dafa disciples' individual cultivation practice changed to Fa-rectification cultivation practice. When I read the following, I suddenly realized something.
"Validate the Fa with rationality, clarify the truth with wisdom, spread the Fa and save people with mercy--this is establishing the mighty virtue of an Enlightened Being." ("Rationality")
In my dream, isn't the "them" in "bring them all with you," referring to the sentient beings we need to save? I finally understood the message in my dream.
One day I thought about the dream and suddenly remembered,
"With Teacher guiding the voyage, the Fa saves all beings, One sail is hoisted, one hundred million sails follow" ("The Knowing Heart")
Whenever I read these two sentences before I had always thought that Master was merely expressing an analogy. Yet at that moment I suddenly enlightened to the fact that these words were literally true. Dafa has given Dafa disciples the historic mission of saving sentient beings, and every Dafa disciple has a ferry used to save sentient beings. The disciples who are doing well are truly like what Master said,
"With attachments left behind, the lightened boats sail swiftly."
("The Knowing Heart")
The disciples who aren't doing well, or who have wrongfully enlightened are really,
"capsized boats and torn sails." ("The Knowing Heart")
The disciples who have done well have saved all of the sentient beings they should be responsible for. When they return, it will be a huge consummation. The disciples who haven't done well will discover upon their return that their world is incomplete. However, the worlds of those who enlightened along an evil path will be empty. None of their sentient beings will have been saved. How can we save sentient beings if we do not step out or even leave our homes? Before, I couldn't understand Master's poem, "Laugh" very well. Now I also understand it a lot better. The great benevolence of Master is the will to save every sentient being that can be saved. Being a Dafa disciple is to "[a]ssist Master with the journey in the world" ("Assisting Fa") to establish the virtue of deities.
We have walked through much wind and rain to get to where we are today. Many times we can feel Master's compassion surrounding and guarding us. Sometimes when I forget my own responsibilities because of my attachments, when I'm careless because I was lazy, or when I use excuses to avoid questions, I will remember that sentence Master pointed out to me in my dream, "Bring them all with you." I then understand how much Master treasures His disciples, and treasures sentient beings. At the same time I can realize my own responsibilities. Master's compassion makes me step forward more firmly in the Fa.