(Clearwisdom.net) After carefully studying Master's lectures and reading practitioners' articles, I want to share some of my understandings. I believe that Dafa has truly brought us rationality.
Through Fa study and solid cultivation, we all can know and understand the principles of the Fa at deeper levels, and this enables us to achieve the state of rationality at a level far above human notions. This is life's real freedom--breaking away from and surpassing the constraints of low-level matters and truly controlling one's will. We who have benefited from Dafa want to help more lives break away from constraints and walk towards a new life.
I believe that human notions are various kinds of factors that have been forced upon humanity over the course of history. It is precisely this history where the old cosmic forces can hide and exert their control over humans. Inside this immense time-space, the old forces touch and permeate everything. A life lacking in reason tends to accept control from the low-level factors. It unknowingly follows the control, accepts the arrangement and becomes a pawn in the old forces' game.
Looking at the process of growing up in human society, there is nothing that is not steeped in human notions. These notions are so strong and so delicately carved that a person has difficulty explaining many of the notions in his or her own mind. Why do people deem these notions correct without even a second thought? For example, what does "being involved in politics" mean? In reality, people are not very clear on this. After someone hears these words, what comes to mind are merely some vague impressions that were instilled by an evil spirit, such as the memories of historic photos, newspaper articles, political studies, television programs, elementary school textbooks, and other information. Human thinking can only arrange these elements into the so-called mode of thinking that seems to comply with scientific laws. In the social culture where science is omnipresent, this standardized mode of thinking is taken for granted as correct, so our own mind cannot awaken to challenge it. Only Dafa can melt away these notions.
Master said, "You must cultivate your inner self and not pursue things externally." ("Lecture One" in Zhuan Falun) Since the first day of cultivation in Dafa, we have known these words that on the surface sound very common. But when I look at them today, these words exhibit their everlasting nature and their omnipresence even more. Only through searching within can one rationally understand all the issues and become a rational cultivator. I think if we are unclear of the essence of a problem in cultivation, we cannot truly overcome it. A cultivator should not try to overcome his tribulations muddle-headedly, as there is no way he can succeed like this.
The evil spirit of the CCP slanders Dafa as being a "heresy" and forcibly instills this evil lie into people's minds, trying to make everyone assume that others probably think this way, too. If someone accepts this kind of control, he will think that the evil spirit is powerful and that most people also consider Dafa to be bad. He would believe that it is very difficult to change the current environment, which he perceives to be enormous.
I feel that a life will be whatever one chooses it to be. If someone really deems the evil spirit to be as powerful as it says it is, his incorrect thoughts can actually strengthen the evil spirit, thus falling into the evil spirit's trap. For this deceived life, the evil spirit is a menacing presence. In the eyes of other lives who can see things clearly, the evil spirit is merely an illusion. During our truth-clarification, we can tell that there are very few irrational individuals who completely believe in the evil spirit's words, while most people are only partially confused and need guidance, thorough explanation and reminders. From my experience, only one out of a dozen people is truly fooled by the CCP, and recent experience tells me that this percentage is even lower now.
A good way to overcome fear is to not always become immersed in the conflicts of one's mind. Instead one needs to take action when the right course of action is clear. Without doing this, it is easy to become confused. After someone becomes clearheaded in the course of doing something, he or she is able to let go of the fear. While doing it, one can find that the truth-clarification can change a lot of things, and it can also change one's views and deepen one's understanding of the Fa.
We should not act like people who are constantly thinking about their own gains and losses and their future. If we can become clearer in our own minds why we are cultivating in Dafa, our righteous thoughts can instantly brighten our minds and make us gain self-confidence and courage. Someone becomes fearless when he or she really does not have any concern over selfish gains or losses. The source of our strength would be limitless, then. So how can we let false impressions in our minds intimidate us? They are not at all powerful, and it is not so much a matter of defeating them as it is mainly about overcoming our own negative sides. I have a lot of shortcomings, but I do not want to immerse myself in them and constantly distract myself by becoming obsessed with them. Remembering that there is nothing in life that is more meaningful than the Fa, one would be able to muster up the courage and go forward. The evil is afraid of a life who has righteous thoughts, but not vice versa.
If one takes the evil spirit's words as being right, deeming something as being political just because it said so, then it is actually elevating that evil spirit. A cultivator can only take the Fa as the standard. I came to understand that negating the old cosmic forces first means one negates the notions that have been forced upon us by the old forces. In particular, it means that one should negate the notions and the cause-effect relationships that the old forces have shaped in one's mind. The existence of such things in one's mind is designed to make one believe in them without doubt and follow its mode of thinking to understand things. In this way, the deceived individuals can also reach their own conclusion that the evil spirit has hoped for; meanwhile, these individuals may still feel that this conclusion had very naturally occurred in their minds, without recognizing the mind-control by the evil spirit.
In this aspect, the evil spirit has fully taken advantage of the warped mode of thinking that modern science has conjured up. Science makes people believe that rules are derived from people's intelligence at different levels and have nothing to do with the concepts of good and evil. People are willing to accept the conclusion that these rules must have come from higher intelligence and are thus correct. Science has made people neglect looking at things from the perspective of good and evil.
We should not make judgments confined by the logic of the old cosmic forces, as these kinds of logic themselves are evil. My understanding is that it is very important to let one's consciousness coming from the Fa surpass one's postnatal human notions. Even though the old cosmic forces were able to put these notions, such as being involved in politics, into people's minds, we are certainly able to eliminate those notions from more and more people's minds. We, of course, should first purify ourselves. These human notions are excuses that the old forces have used for their persecution and interference, as well as the hiding places where they can perpetuate their existence.
I believe that many of us have had such an experience: as one deepens one's understanding of the Fa, the surrounding environment greatly changes. These changes are not realized through certain human methods or forces. The thoughts of a cultivator are powerful. It is the changing of one's fundamental thinking that is the most complete and fundamental, and only by studying the Fa well can one become more clearheaded.
What was discussed above are some of my personal understandings and limited to my cultivation level. I just wanted to share it with fellow practitioners for their reference.