(Clearwisdom.net)
Greetings to respected Teacher and fellow practitioners around the world!
1) Totally Negate the Economic Persecution by the Evil
I am 51 years old and I began to practice Falun Gong in 1996. During my cultivation in Dafa, I came to understand that we are in a special historical period - the Fa-rectification. Therefore, everything is decided by what the Fa-rectification requires. That is to say, during our process of clarifying the truth and saving sentient beings, practitioners need to meet certain requirements. This includes having a stable job with adequate pay in society.
In 1999 and 2002, I went to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong. After I returned home, my workplace suspended me without pay. They only allowed me to stay in a room without talking to the other employees. At that time, I felt that the pressure was overwhelming. However, with firm belief in Dafa and Teacher, and steadfastly cultivating, I only had one thought, "There was nothing wrong with what I had done." Dafa has given me and all humankind nothing but happiness and kindness. When such an excellent Fa has been wrongly framed and damaged, I should speak up about the truth and say that it was wrong for these people to persecute me.
Teacher pointed out in "Explaining the Fa during the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference",
"And you shouldn't acknowledge them either. Do things well in an upright and dignified way, negate them, and strengthen your righteous thoughts some. 'I'm Li Hongzhi's disciple, I don't want other arrangements or acknowledge them'-- then they won't dare to do that. So it can all be resolved. When you can really do that, not just saying it but putting it into action, Master will definitely stand up for you. What's more, there are lots of Fa guardians around Master, there are lots of Buddhas, Daos, and Gods, and there are even greater beings, and they will all participate, because forced persecution that's not acknowledged is a crime, and the cosmos's old laws don't allow it either--irrational persecution absolutely is not allowed, and the old forces don't dare to do it if that is the situation. So you should do things as righteously as you can."
I then began to clarify the truth to the top officials at my workplace. At that time, the policemen from the Political and Security Section of the police department would come to my workplace from time to time. I also took the opportunity to talk to them about the beauty of cultivating Dafa and Teacher's benevolence. I told them while in the presence of the officials at my workplace that since I have practiced Falun Gong and acted in accordance with the principles of "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance," I work earnestly and get along with other colleagues harmoniously. The officials from my workplace told the police that what I said was true. During this time, I also studied the Fa diligently, looked for and eliminated attachments that I still harbored and the thoughts and actions that were not in line with Dafa, and rectified myself.
More than 20 days later, I was given back my job. The company officials even said, "Everyone says that the more you practice Falun Gong, the more likely it is you will do a better job." I truly experienced the dignity of Dafa and the power of righteous thoughts. Ordinary people could not understand how it was possible for me to get my job back. However, I understood it very clearly. Teacher said,
"When disciples have sufficient righteous thoughts, Master has the Almighty power to turn the cosmos around." ("Gratitude of Master and Disciples," from Hong Yin II)
2) Study the Fa More, Eliminate Fear and Save Sentient Beings with Righteous Thoughts
Since July 20, 1999, the evil has been rampant, as if it eclipsed the sky and covered the earth. I went to work during the day and after I came back home, I went out with other practitioners to hand out truth-clarification materials, write truth-clarifying messages, and hang up banners. At the beginning, I had a strong attachment of fear. I was afraid of being arrested and sent to a forced labor camp or sentenced to prison. Through studying the Fa and sharing with practitioners my fear, I was able to let go of the attachment. Teacher said,
"When he calms his mind and evaluates things with Dafa, he will be able to see the nature of the matter. Some students suggest that the best practice of cultivation is to get placed into a detention center or a labor camp, or get sentenced to jail in order to validate the Fa. Students, it is not so. Stepping forward to validate the Fa using many different approaches is a magnificent act, but this absolutely does not mean that you have to be arrested by the evil. If that were the case, why would those students who step forward to make appeals demand the release of all those innocent students who have been arrested, detained, sent to labor camps, or sentenced to jail? Getting arrested is not the purpose. Validating Dafa is what's truly magnificent, and it is to validate Dafa that you step forward. Since you step forward, you should try to succeed in validating the Fa--this is the real purpose of stepping forward." ("Rationality" from Essentials for Further Advancement II)
During this time, I also came to the understanding that I should pay attention to safety, but not be afraid that I would be arrested or sent to a forced labor camp once I step out to clarify the truth. This persecution was forced upon us by the old forces. Teacher does not acknowledge them, and we should not acknowledge them either. So, we should completely negate them.
For the past six years, be it distributing truth-clarification materials, hanging up banners (sometimes we would hang more than 100 banners at a time), or putting up self-adhesive posters, my fellow practitioners and I cooperated well with each other in sending forth righteous thoughts and saving the people who have a predestined relationship with us.
One time when I went to hand out truth-clarification materials with other practitioners, we left our bikes in front of someone's house. When we were finished and returned to our bikes, we found that the bikes were gone and a man was sitting there waiting for us. It turned out that the man lived in that house. He was afraid that our bikes would be stolen and moved them into his courtyard. Wasn't he a predestined person waiting for us? We clarified the truth to him and told him the purpose of what we were doing. He was very glad that we did.
In 2001, we used the opportunity of the annual fair in the mountainous area to clarify the truth to a large number of people. Four practitioners made banners with writing brushes. The banners that another practitioner and I made were hung up by a lady who was over 60 years old. Sometimes, she had to run to keep up with our pace. We wrote and hung more than 5,000 banners in two days and three nights. During the process, we experienced the cooperation as one body and Teacher's continuous help. I did not have that much education and did not even finish junior high school. I had also never written anything with a writing brush before. However, the fellow practitioners thought that what I wrote was good. I experienced the wisdom and the help Teacher has given me and the power of Dafa.
Another time after I met an older lady, I began to clarify the truth to her. However, she believed in the evil party's propaganda and would not listen to what I had to say. After a while, I wanted to give up because I thought that I had no way to save her. Immediately after that thought, however, I suddenly recalled Teacher's words, "We have said that good or evil comes from a person's spontaneous thought, and the thought at that moment can bring about different consequences." (Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun) So, I continued to talk to her while sending forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil factors controlling her. Gradually, she listened to me. Then, when I went to her home to visit her, I took several truth-clarification VCDs and pamphlets. After she learned the truth, she stopped saying that Falun Gong practitioners go to Beijing to make trouble or that they are involved in politics. She also stopped saying that she was an atheist. Finally she said, "I will never oppose Falun Dafa again."
During these six years, I have continued studying the Fa, clarifying the truth and sending forth righteous thoughts. I do not let politically sensitive days or bad weather stop me from doing what I need to do. I only keep Teacher's words in mind,
"Great enlightened beings are not afraid of hardship
[Their] will is cast of diamond
Life or death, [they] have no attachment
Forthright and broad-minded on the road of Fa-rectification"("Righteous Thought, Righteous Action" from Hong Yin II)
Through constantly clarifying the truth and studying the Fa, my xinxing has been improving. Reflecting back on my path of cultivation, I found that my truth-clarification work is getting more efficient, and the attachment of fear and of gain and loss disappeared without my realizing it. The process of clarifying the truth is actually a process for cultivating and improving our xinxing.
3) The Fa Is the Basis to Dissolve All Conflicts and Obstacles; Cooperate with One Another to Upgrade Ourselves as a Whole
In 2002, our local truth-clarification materials production site was destroyed, and several practitioners, including my younger sister, were arrested. Several practitioners then asked me to go to the neighboring cities to pick up Teacher's recent lectures and articles, as well as other materials downloaded from the Minghui/Clearwisdom website. At first, I was a bit scared, but upon seeing practitioners getting arrested and persecuted, I did not have time to hesitate. I also thought of what Teacher taught us in "Lecture One" of Zhuan Falun, "If anyone can harm you, he or she would be able to harm me." Instantly, I felt that my body was filled with strength and any fear I had disappeared. I said to myself, "Teacher, I must live up to your merciful salvation, and I will honor the grand vows I had made before history to do the three things well. Please help me until the Fa rectifies the human world."
Several practitioners and I shared the task of going to the neighboring cities to get truth-clarifying materials. Whenever problems arose, we would share with the coordinator and make joint efforts to do our work well. If a practitioner got arrested, we tried to pass the news around as quickly as possible and send forth righteous thoughts to rescue the practitioner. Some wrote articles to expose the evil on the Internet, some handed out truth-clarification materials and put up posters, and some clarified the truth to their family members. Our joint efforts proved to be very effective in our local area.
Sometimes problems did occur in the coordination between other practitioners and me. When the conflicts became serious, they would affect our Fa-rectification as one body. Sometimes, I got so angry during arguments with other practitioners that my face became red. At times like that I would feel some kind of invisible separation between us. Sometimes I even thought of not cooperating with them any more and just clarifying the truth by myself. Moreover, to cover up my attachments, I would use what Teacher said in Hong Yin II that, "Cultivation paths are different, yet all are within Dafa" ("Obstacle").
To protect my fragile ego and out of selfishness, I did not want to endure this seemingly endless xinxing test between the other practitioners and myself. During that period of time, I thought I had done a great deal of Dafa work. However, the other practitioners would say that I did not do well simply because sometimes I said or did something wrong. At that time we had a lot of Fa-rectification work to do, so it seemed we were doing Dafa work every day and there was not much time for us to study the Fa. We could not even concentrate when we studied the Fa. We did not have time to read "Minghui Weekly." It was as if we were doing everyday people's work. Our hearts were not that pure, so when we burned VCDs or printed out truth-clarifying materials, the VCD we burned would be empty or the printer head was blocked. Under such circumstances, the truth-clarification materials we produced could not play the role of saving sentient beings. As a result the evil used our loophole to persecute us.
Through calmly studying the Fa, we found our shortcomings. We had failed to look inside and cultivate ourselves when we encountered problems. We came to the understanding that it was the old forces that wanted us to have conflicts amongst ourselves to break up our one body and keep us from doing the three things. Teacher said in "Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference",
"At present there are some frictions among students, and you all need to watch out--you can't let minor things affect the important things that Dafa disciples are supposed to do. I'm going to tell you that no matter what kind of conflicts arise, or what kind of situations emerge, it's bound to be that we have gaps in ourselves...So, cooperate well when you do things. Each Dafa disciple's thing is everybody else's. Don't create distance and disharmony between each other over some little, trivial thing. You can't do that, and you should treasure all this. And also, you need to cooperate in Dafa things, and you should do a good job of cooperating."
After looking inside to find our shortcomings, the relationship among practitioners became peaceful and we formed an indestructible one body again. I enlightened to a deeper layer of the inner meaning that Teacher talks about in his poem "The Knowing Heart",
"With attachments left behind, the lightened boats sail swiftly,
With a preoccupied human heart, crossing the ocean proves arduous."
Since enlightening to the Fa principles, I feel that the surroundings have become more relaxed and my heart kinder. During this special historic period, Teacher is teaching us the principles of the universe, has given us the wisdom from the Fa and asked us to save sentient beings. I will strive to cultivate myself well, use a pure heart to do Dafa work, cooperate better with fellow practitioners on the path of Fa-rectification and fulfill the grand vows I had made before history. During the tests and tribulations, we must firmly keep in mind Teacher's Fa "Be Rational, Awaken" from Hong Yin II that,
"Rest momentarily for self-reflection, add righteous thoughts
Analyze shortcomings explicitly, advance again whole-heartedly"
We must also cultivate ourselves well.
With our continuous efforts and Teacher's guidance over the past several years, we are now able to download all the materials we need directly from the Internet and print them up for distribution. We are also able to make self-adhesive banners and stickers, burn VCDs, and record truth-clarification cassette tapes. Currently, I am responsible for purchasing some materials we use, downloading materials from the Internet and printing up truth-clarification materials. The pre-requisite for doing all of this well is to study the Fa well. I have learned to use the computer through fellow practitioners' painstaking efforts in teaching me. During the process, I have walked my path steadily and become more rational and mature. It is Teacher who has given me everything. As a student, there is no way to repay Teacher's infinite grace except to redouble my efforts in saving more sentient beings and fulfilling Teacher's grand wish.
In the final period of the Fa-rectification, no matter how frenziedly the evil manifests itself, I will follow Teacher to the end. I will be firm in my belief during the Fa-rectification and when saving sentient beings. I will not leave any excuse for the evil to take advantage of my loopholes. I hope that we can remind each other to be diligent in cultivation and point out, in a timely manner, our shortcomings, so as to form one body and do the three things well together. We should cherish this rare opportunity and live up to Teacher's merciful salvation and the sentient beings' who have put their hopes in us. The only way to repay Teacher's grace is to do the three things well in accordance with Teacher's Fa while on our path of saving sentient beings.
Thank you Teacher! Thank fellow practitioners!
(From The Second Written Experience Sharing Conference for Practitioners in China)
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