(Clearwisdom.net) Over the past six years, many practitioners in China have suffered cruel persecution. However, some practitioners (especially overseas practitioners) in addition to sympathizing and voicing support for those being persecuted, have admired them and praised them as heroes. These practitioners, while listening to the experiences of persecuted practitioners, often view such experiences as heroic stories. Actually, this view is a manifestation of numerous human notions. It is detrimental to those who hold such thoughts, to our cultivation environment, and to those practitioners who have been victims of the persecution.
When we expose the crimes of the persecution, our goals are to alleviate the pressure on the persecuted practitioners, eliminate the evil, and clarify the truth to save sentient beings. As long as we are able to achieve these goals, we are changing a bad thing into a good thing, and we are negating the arrangements of the old forces. When we expose the crimes of the persecution, we are also exerting the power of the larger body of practitioners to make up for the losses in saving sentient beings while our fellow practitioners are in custody and cannot clarify the truth on a large scale.
When clarifying the truth in writing, practitioners strive to write from angles that are comprehensible to the public and to use wording that is acceptable to everyday people when compiling articles to expose the persecution. However, articles detailing the persecution facts are not meant to advocate how a certain practitioner is able to endure the persecution, nor are they meant to set up a heroic model for everyday people. When Dafa practitioners endure persecution, it is an imposed arrangement, rather than the path a Dafa disciple in the Fa-rectification period must take or the goal one has to achieve. It is by no means an arrangement for us by our Master. It is caused by our failing to live up to the requirements in cultivation. It is our failing to conduct ourselves righteously at all times. As a result of our shortcomings, Master and all other righteous gods and gods safeguarding Dafa are unable to help us. Before the Fa rectifies the human world, we Dafa disciples are here solely to try our best to save sentient beings to the maximal extent. We are not here to establish our own mighty virtue by enduring persecution. Suffering persecution is not an honor.
From the perspective of Dafa principles, we cultivators understand that if between April 25 and July 20, 1999 all Dafa disciples had been able to walk a righteous path and live up to Dafa's standards and requirements, such a nationwide persecution would have had no opportunity to begin.
The human world is not meant to be a place for the evil to commit atrocities. We probably can understand it this way: if we all do well in clarifying the truth and in helping all people in the world to know that "Falun Dafa is great," and tell the true story of the evil persecution, the persecution will come to an end immediately. If we all cultivate well and live up to the Dafa requirements for each of us, the persecution will also come to an end immediately. If we do well when sending forth righteous thoughts and are able to disintegrate all the evil within our realm and our capabilities, the persecution will be brought to an end completely.
Conversely, before we are able to achieve this, the evil will continue to exist and the persecution will go on. Moreover, the evil will specifically look for those practitioners in whom it can find opportunities to persecute. To put it frankly, those practitioners who have been subjected to severe persecution all belong to the type of practitioner who fails to have a good enough understanding of the Fa principles, who fails to catch up with the requirements of the Fa-rectification, and who has not let go of certain attachments for a long time or fails to realize these attachments for too long. They thus become victims of the persecution.
Although severe persecution is caused by weaknesses in practitioners' cultivation, we are guided and taken care of by our Master. The old forces, rotten demons, and the communist specter are not authorized to impose the persecution on us by taking advantage of our loopholes. However, during the interim between the old universe and the new universe (at a special time in which the old Fa principles and new Fa principles coexist) the evil forces, despite their inevitable doom, continue to commit crimes against the Fa-rectification. When we negate the persecution, in addition to negating the evil factors, we should not neglect our weaknesses in our cultivation, nor should we look upon a cultivator's weaknesses with a human mentality.
From the perspective of cultivation, if those practitioners who are victims of the persecution are able to handle the encounter of persecution well, they will be able to look inward for problems immediately, let go of their attachments and human notions, and make the best use of their time to do the three things well. When they elevate their level, the evil will be left at its wits' end. However, those who suffer a severe persecution such as long-term incarceration or torture are usually practitioners who fail to become immediately clear-minded and fail to elevate in their understanding of Fa principles, thus giving the evil forces opportunities to persecute them.
If Master had not offered salvation to us with unprecedented compassion and had not endured such huge karma for us, if Master had not eliminated the evil in the universe at an unimaginable pace and continued to give us opportunities before the Fa-rectification comes to an end, many practitioners who have suffered the persecution would have become victims of an even more tragic plight.
Practitioners who have been directly persecuted and those who are in contact with them should not look upon the persecution with a human mentality. When they feel happy that our fellow practitioners have finally escaped the persecution, they should not consider their having been persecuted an honor, or treat those practitioners as heroes. Otherwise, they are not validating Dafa. Moreover, they would hamper those practitioners who escaped the persecution from moving forward in cultivation and doing well in clarifying the truth about Dafa. Such a human mentality may even cause the practitioners who have been persecuted to develop an attachment to self and bring further unnecessary trouble to their cultivation.
If we indeed cherish our fellow practitioners, we must be responsible to them. We should restrain ourselves from flattering them and admiring them. We should remind them to study the Fa more diligently, send forth righteous thoughts more frequently, and hurry to clarify the truth. In recent years, the practitioners who have been clarifying the truth to a large number of people and who have never been persecuted are the ones who really have validated Dafa in a positive manner.
The situations of practitioners who have been victims of the persecution or of prolonged interference are very complex. For example, some practitioners are probably doing well in many aspects, however they fail to raise their level in some aspects and thus the evil is able to take advantage of their weaknesses.
Some probably have not let go of their fundamental attachments and are very attached to their own gains and losses. Some probably have too many attachments and always look upon cultivation with their human notions. Some, for a long time, do not dare to do the "three things" Dafa disciples are supposed to do. Master has told us in a solemn manner that cultivation is serious.
We, ourselves, have also realized that a small discrepancy leads to a great error. A deviation in a single thought may bring about a completely different result, not to mention what can happen when some practitioners are holding onto very strong human attachments. If we fail to cultivate well, there's no way we can do well in the three things Master has asked us to do. Or, we may be able to do the three things to a certain extent, but with very low efficiency. Sometimes our failing to cultivate well will cause interference and losses among practitioners. Cultivation is indeed a very serious matter.
July 26, 2005
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