(Clearwisdom.net) Rescuing an "illegally imprisoned" practitioner is stepping out from a visible prison. I would like to talk about stepping out of an invisible prison. I personally understand that the invisible prison is also a mechanism arranged by the old forces for some practitioners and that we should destroy it.
A senior practitioner had practiced Falun Dafa for just one year before the persecution began in 1999. Since he had mostly cultivated Dafa on his own, even though no one went to talk to him to give up cultivation, he voluntarily stopped cultivation. Later his children, who were also Dafa practitioners, persuaded him to resume cultivation. He is still taking injections to treat his illness even though he is studying the Fa and practicing the exercises. He does not want to step out to clarify the truth. He just occasionally mentions that Dafa is good when seeing his old coworkers. When he meets tribulations, he seldom realizes that they are evil interference. He believes that few people in history have ever been able to reach Consummation and that Teacher knows which level each practitioner can reach and has arranged it just so. He thinks he can probably only cultivate to such a level, and just lets it be.
I think this is actually a form of invisible prison: a prison for the mind. I truly hope practitioners in similar situations can step out of such invisible prisons. I also hope fellow practitioners will help such practitioners so we can improve as a whole and progress together diligently.
Another example of the invisible prison is what happened to me. I have been trying to be a good person following Dafa principles and focusing on cultivating myself. I don't fight with others for my own benefit. I accept whatever prizes are awarded by my company and don't fight for anything not offered to me. I thought I had been doing quite well. However, one day, a coworker told me, "You have the best deal. You don't have to work hard to get good pay. For the year-end bonus, the company has regulated about how much you get and we have no objections about that. However, we have been working hard, and the company just forgets about us. We would feel better even if we got a smaller bonus than you." Another coworker said, "Now everyone only cares about himself. Who cares about others?"
I pondered for a long time after I heard this. I have been cultivating for a long time. I seemed to work hard on cultivating myself. However, I forgot that Teacher wanted us to enter the new cosmos and that the new cosmos will be built upon selflessness. In all these years, I have only thought of myself, and cared about myself. I don't have any contact with others except the few that I have to. I confine myself to a small circle of few people. Before I cultivated Dafa, I had persisted in a strong notion that was part of the Party culture--to stand aloof from things that do not affect me personally and not to comment on anything even if it is wrong. Over time, I have formed the habit of not paying much attention to anything. I thought I had no attachment to desires or pursuits. But actually I have been confining myself in the invisible prison of the selfish mechanism of the old cosmos. Since I began cultivation, I haven't made friends, and I don't contact other practitioners. Other than taking care of my own family, I don't even want to go visit my parents. The senior practitioner I have just mentioned was just like this. When others invited him to study the Fa together, he said, "I don't want to be interfered with by others. I want to study by myself." I have been living a life of cultivating alone and have always longed for serene cultivation deep in the mountains or woods. Such an attitude has a big impact on my clarifying the truth as I am not enthusiastic about saving sentient beings. I don't have compassion or sympathy towards sentient beings. Whenever I tried to clarify the truth, I easily gave up and left people alone when they didn't want to listen or refused to withdraw from the Communist Party and its related organizations. This was because I hadn't completely gotten rid of the poisonous Party culture from my mind and was confined in the invisible prison of selfishness from the old cosmos.
I share my understanding here so that other practitioners in similar situations can take this as a lesson and waste no time in eliminating the poisons of the Party culture, eradicating the mechanism of the old cosmos, and catching up in the Fa-rectification process.
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