(Clearwisdom.net) Master told us to completely negate everything arranged by the old forces. Then why are we still persecuted or interfered with by the evil? We often do well in severe situations, but we take it easy in our daily environment and do not pay attention to our every single thought. If we carefully examine our thoughts, we can recognize that many of them are not completely righteous. When we study the Fa well and do everything strictly according to the cultivation requirements, our thoughts are righteous; otherwise the thoughts will not be righteous. Both good and evil emerge out of one thought, the difference of one thought leads to different results. We should not ignore any thoughts of ours; if we do not rectify every thought, it may impact the life or death of countless beings. How many lives do we have to save, how big of a responsibility we have! There are countless lives in everything we encounter, even the thoughts in our minds are lives; if we take it easy, we waste some lives. Therefore, we should pay attention to our every single thought.
At first, I felt that it was very tiring having to pay attention to every single thought for the long term, trying to catch the root of every single unrighteous thought and to rectify it. I felt there were so many unrighteous thoughts waiting for me to be rectified, and a new round started as soon as one group of thoughts was corrected. I always felt that I was not pure enough, that I did not do well enough, and I had to constantly correct myself. After a period of time, however, the mechanism of looking inward to rectify every single thought became stronger and stronger. Now, I do not have to pay special attention anymore; my mind will automatically look through every word I said, everything I did, and every thought I had, and screen any unrighteous thought. In order to do this, one must be clear about which thoughts come from one's true self. My experience is that the thoughts that are in line with the Fa represent the true me, and anything else does not. I therefore save those thoughts that should be saved, and eliminate those that should be eliminated.
In our cultivation practice, in our Fa validation and saving people, we need to be careful to make the correct choices, especially when facing conflicts that hit upon our fundamental attachments. We could choose to face a specific issue or pass it by, let go of the attachment or not, measure everything with the Fa or with our own notions. We could choose to be firm in the Fa or follow an evil path, save the countless lives or find excuses not to, let go of selfishness or keep it. We could remain unmoved when handling situations, or keep being affected by the outside environment. We have to make all these choices by ourselves.
Some attachments that were eliminated will reoccur at different levels, so we need to eliminate them again. Take myself for example. I often have the attachment to self. Sometimes, I get rid of it at one level, but it will reoccur at another level. Recently, my true thought was not strong enough, and it delayed my cultivation on this level. I kept telling myself that I am an ordinary practitioner among others; it was the power of Dafa when I did something well, and it was the self that did not do well. Though I did my best to repress the attachment to self, I knew it was just words, and I was not truly putting it into practice. In other words, I could not truly let go of the attachment. Rather, I took it easy and let the attachment control me. I should study the Fa more in order to eliminate the attachment and rectify my thoughts. Another example is that many fellow practitioners were interfered by sleepiness. If we do not cooperate with the thought of being sleepy, then it will not be able to control us. If we agree with it and go to sleep when feeling sleepy, it will continue to control and interfere with us. When I did what ordinary people do to overcome feeling sleepy, such as walking around or splashing water on my face, soon afterwards I felt sleepy again. When I completely denied the thought in my mind, did not acknowledge it, would skip one night of sleep or continue to go to bed late, then I was able to break through it. Now my experience is that the less I sleep, the better I feel; the more I sleep, the sleepier I feel. If you think that you will be tired if you do not sleep long enough, this notion will then make you sleepy.
Sometimes we do not even realize that we are having deviated thoughts. This is a form of interference with the Fa-rectification, especially when lots of practitioners have the same issue. For example, I could not get in touch with a certain fellow practitioner for days. Though I did my best to repress the thought, I could not stop thinking about bad possibilities, such as whether he had been arrested. This is the result of the terror the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has put into people's minds after years of political movements and persecution. It is the evil CCP culture's way of thinking, and we must completely negate it and eliminate it. Some practitioners realized this and denied the thought immediately, some others may not recognize it, and some follow it and even tell others about that thought; in this way such a field will be strengthened.
This kind of thinking is also manifested as follows: When we see a fellow practitioner in a bad cultivation state, when his attachments have surfaced, or when he shows symptoms of having sickness karma, we start to feel worried about him. We would think of him in negative ways, and become unwilling to do Dafa work together with him, as we are afraid that something bad might happen. Master has told us a long time ago that only by being tolerant and benevolent can we achieve the goal of saving people. We should not overemphasize the fellow practitioner's attachments and think of him in a negative way, as our thinking would bring upon him negative and antagonistic factors. We should think of him positively and acknowledge his good, positive sides, believing that he can definitely overcome the tribulations and become better, and encourage him to establish his righteous faith. We should kindly point out his problems, as this is the requirement of the Fa-rectification, because "Fa-rectification doesn't acknowledge these negative, antagonistic factors." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2005 Canada Fa Conference") In fact, it is not a big deal for a practitioner to temporarily fall into a bad cultivation state and have some of his attachments brought to the surface. If all practitioners can help him with kindness, he should be able to quickly overcome the problems. But if all of us have unrighteous thoughts about him and form such a field, it can really bring troubles to him.
When a practitioner is persecuted for clarifying the truth and giving out truth-clarification materials, all practitioners know how to work together to rescue the practitioner and send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil. However, we still think or chat privately, about whether or not the practitioner should have clarified the truth or given out the truth-clarification materials in that way, or whether he was too attached to what he wanted to do! With this thinking, we have already denied that the practitioner's clarifying the truth is a righteous act. If you deny or doubt his way of doing something, and think he encountered the tribulation just because of that, doesn't our denial or doubt mean that we are trying to find excuses to justify the evil persecution? Although we are holding up our hands in front of our chest to eliminate the evil, we are doing so while acknowledging the persecution. We should first affirm that clarifying the truth is absolutely a right thing to do. We should not acknowledge the persecution that was forced upon the fellow practitioner by the evil, as the evil forces are not qualified to test Dafa practitioners. When encountering tribulations, we should search within ourselves; perhaps while some of our fellow practitioners do Dafa work, their mindset is not right. We should find the cause, so that all of us can learn from it. But by doing this, it does not serve as an excuse for the evil to start the persecution. Some practitioners have an incorrect way of thinking and doing things. Once a fellow practitioner encounters persecution, they would start to complain, "I knew something was wrong with that practitioner since a long time ago," "He did not take more time to study the Fa," "He has the attachment of fear," "He has the mentality of doing Dafa work for the sake of doing it," etc. Therefore, they have completely denied that the fellow practitioner's actions and thoughts were righteous. In fact, those who have said these things have their own problems: seeing that the practitioner is having problems, why do they not help him? Dafa practitioners are one entity, so isn't his issue not also our issue? Doesn't his having problems reflect that we ourselves have problems as well?
In "Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference," one Dafa practitioner asked:
"Question: A few overseas students went to Mainland China and were arrested. Is it true that they didn't act according to Master's requirements?
Teacher: You can't say that. Dafa disciples are all trying to come up with ways to do things for Dafa to the best of their abilities. You can't say that the students' doing things a certain way is wrong and a certain way is right. Everyone is walking his own path, and we can't impose our own concepts on others. When there's a problem, don't talk about who's right and who's wrong. When a problem surfaces, you should all help each other and try to think of a way to resolve it."
There are still some practitioners whose thinking also falls within the logic of the evils' thinking. During the evils' so-called large-scale arrest of Dafa practitioners not long ago, many practitioners were hiding their Dafa books and Dafa materials, and did not dare to keep them in their own homes. There were some practitioners who even were hiding themselves and stopped doing Dafa work. We are all clear that everything that happens today in the ordinary society is the result of Dafa disciples' thoughts. Master said, "just by having your heart unaffected you will be able to handle all situations." ("Eliminate Your Last Attachment(s)") Why were their hearts affected once they heard about the "large-scale arrests?" Wasn't this a human mentality? Did this "hiding" mean that they acknowledged that the evil would definitely come to their homes to arrest them? Without letting go of the human mentality, how could they negate the persecution fundamentally? One fellow practitioner told me, "I have already hidden my Dafa books and truth-clarification materials, so even if the police would come, they cannot find anything. Being unable to find any evidence, they would not be able to cause any harm to me!" I said, "If the police had found the Dafa books and the truth-clarification materials, would you acknowledge their persecution of you because they have found evidence?" As Dafa practitioners, we certainly can carry our Dafa books with us, clarify the truth, and have Dafa materials. How could our studying Dafa, clarifying the truth, and saving people become an excuse for the evil to engage in persecution? Why do we become scared in the first place? Once, the authorities came to my home to persecute me; they took my Dafa books, VCDs, computer disks, letters that I had not sent out yet, and truth-clarification materials. One policeperson took out a list and asked me to sign it. He said, "This time, we found evidence against you. Do you still have excuses? You will be sentenced at least for several years." I said, "I will not sign it. These items are mine. You have illegally taken them from me. Do you want me to acknowledge such an act? I have done nothing wrong." In my mind, it did not matter whether they had found something or not during their ransacking of my home. If my heart was not moved, they could not do anything to me. However, this incident indeed let me see my bad habit of being careless. We indeed should keep our Dafa books and Dafa materials in a safe place; however, our doing so is not for the purpose of avoiding the persecution. If we develop the habit of being careful when doing things, valuing and respecting Dafa books, cherishing Dafa materials, not carelessly leaving them anywhere, we will leave no excuse for the evil to take advantage of us.
We should completely negate the old forces' arrangements and fundamentally negate this persecution that has been forced upon us. We should rectify all our thoughts, negate the old forces' arrangements in any of our thoughts, and let every thought of ours comply with the Fa. With such a solid foundation and such a firm faith in Master and the Fa, no environment and circumstance can affect our hearts and cause interference with us, and we will be able to do well the things we should do in a rational and clearheaded way.
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