(Clearwisdom.net) Recently, many practitioners from Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province, and its neighboring regions participated in rescuing the following practitioners: Mr. Wang Bo and his family; Mr. Liu Jiting, who was illegally sentenced and is currently imprisoned in Jidong Prison in Tangshan City, Hebei Province; Mr. Jiao Meishan and Ms. An Wenqi; and Mr. Xu Winmu, who has been released from detention. Practitioners are elevating as a whole during these activities. More and more practitioners are participating in these events. Their righteous thoughts are getting stronger and stronger. And they are becoming more and more rational.
Now looking back, we also see some gaps and problems in practitioners, individually and as a whole. I'm writing about them, hoping that we all can elevate in the Fa so that we can deal with these issues better and walk better the path of Dafa practitioners' Fa validation.
A. Rescuing Practitioners Should Be Based on Studying Well and Elevating in the Fa
In the past, we did very well sending forth righteous thoughts when trying to rescue imprisoned practitioners. We have been continuously sending forth intensive righteous thoughts for them several times a day. Many practitioners participate in the activity and some even do it at locations very close to the evil places. Many practitioners also attended practitioners' court trials, sending forth righteous thoughts in the court to strengthen the righteous thoughts of the imprisoned practitioners and eliminating the evil lives and factors that persecuted them. The Clearwisdom website has also published many flyers and booklets about those imprisoned practitioners. Many material centers have also edited, mailed, and distributed truth-clarification materials based on articles on the Clearwisdom website. These means are all very effective.
I feel that we have been solid in Dafa and have assimilated ourselves into Dafa. It is very clear to us that every practitioner is part of Dafa and all together we make up a group. So when a practitioner has a problem or faces tribulation or when we are needed to do something for Dafa, we all treat those things as our own things and cooperate actively and unconditionally. It is a manifestation of Dafa practitioners becoming mature in the Fa.
Many practitioners are thinking, "What should we do to rescue the imprisoned practitioners? What should we do to stop and eliminate these persecutions? How should expose the evil? How should we advance diligently together, walk well the path for practitioners, better clarify the truth, and persuade people to quit the Chinese Communist Party? How should we study the Fa well, cultivate ourselves well, and do well the three things that Teacher asked us to do?" These questions about cultivation in the Fa Rectification period can often be heard during practitioners' Fa study and sharing. We realize that we still have gaps in our cultivation and sometimes are not diligent enough. So we set stricter requirements for ourselves.
During the past several years, more and more small Fa study groups have been established. The group study and group sharing environments are coming back. Every practitioner actively harmonizes and assimilates to the Fa. Among these many small systems and environments, small groups have formed, raised up, become more stable, and matured.
B. The Process of Rescuing Imprisoned Practitioners Is a Process of Clarifying the Truth, Exposing Evil, and Opposing Persecution
Every occurrence of a problem is not a simple matter of finding the right solution. The process of solving a problem involves many factors and meanings of Fa rectification and cultivation for practitioners, such as considering the Fa first, elevating our xinxing, comprehending more Fa, validating Dafa, clarifying the truth, exposing the evil, helping people to quit the CCP, eliminating evil factors, saving sentient beings, rescuing imprisoned practitioners, and elevating as a whole.
The most important thing is the process and not the end result. Fa rectification and cultivation take place in the midst of ordinary things.
C. Practitioners Should Play the Main Role in this Historical Period
When we share among us, we can see that when the evil is viciously undermining Dafa and persecuting and interfering with us, though practitioners understand the Fa, sometimes they cannot comprehend or maintain full confidence in their roles as the main actors and are stirred up by anger and hatred of the evil.
When we calm down, we realize that the responsibilities and predestined tasks for practitioners are very critical. This is not based on one's imagination, but from the understanding that comes from cultivation in Dafa. I often remind myself of Teacher's words:
"Everyone, keep up your diligent efforts! Human history does not exist for [people] to take being human as its final goal, nor is human history a recreation ground created for the evil to display its viciousness. Mankind's history was established for the Fa-rectification, and only Dafa disciples are worthy of displaying their glory here." ("To the 2005 European Experience Sharing Conference")
"In fact, making progress in one's own cultivation is a part of the process of saving beings. Saving beings, improving yourself, and resisting the persecution are all acts that validate the Fa; only walking straight your path amounts to validating the Fa. Also, don't use the wicked things that happen during the persecution as an excuse for not validating the Fa or not validating it well, for the reality is, the wicked persecution arranged by the old forces was put in place to test you. Even though we don't acknowledge the old forces' existence or arrangements, they have done what they've done. You play the leading role in this period of history, and the existence of everything at present, whether it be evil or the upright gods, has to do with you. It is walking straight your path that is most important. In the final time, the evil's factors will dwindle, circumstances will ease up, and the world's state of affairs will change, but never will the path that you are to walk straight change." ("Walk Straight Your Path")
D. Thoughts on Earlier Events
1) There were few practitioners stepping forward to carry out critical tasks in rescuing imprisoned practitioners and exposing the evil.
Many practitioners distributed truth-clarification materials and sent forth righteous thoughts, but there were few participations performing actual tasks, coordinating activities, or sharing with others. For example, a few practitioners took active roles in writing articles to expose the evil or to share their understandings on the Clearwisdom website, editing truth-clarification materials, or coordinating actual activities. It was still not enough to organize and help all practitioners to elevate in the Fa.
Because of this, some rescue activities were delayed for a long time. For example, Mr. Liu Jiting, 61 years old, was taken to a forced labor camp for not giving up his belief in Dafa. In March 2006, he was arrested again and imprisoned at the Shijiazhuang City Number Two Detention Center. However, only a few people worked on rescuing him. Teacher had given us a lot of time, but we took almost no action. Eventually, the authorities held an illegal trial and sentenced him.
The lack of sufficient sharing among practitioners and their failure to use the power of the entire group of practitioners led to mistakes and loopholes. For example, Mr. Jiao Meishan, 55 years old, once paralyzed, recovered after practicing Dafa. On March 3, 2006, he was arrested and imprisoned at the Shijiazhuang City Number Two Detention Center. However, the work to rescue him has not yet begun. Practitioners from the Xinhua District in Shijiazhuang City and others who can help should act immediately.
2) Coordination and experience sharing among practitioners is important.
We have formed many small regional groups, but it takes a lot of effort to coordinate the regional groups into a single big group. For example, the coordinators of the big group and the regional groups need to cooperate with each other. Actually, this can be done. Many issues can be resolved by submitting sharing articles to the Clearwisdom website or reading articles on Clearwisdom. The key point is that we should take action instead of passively waiting for directions from others.
Some activities needed more coordination and sharing among practitioners to avoid big interference. This was another gap.
3) There was also the problem of being overzealous and irrational.
Some practitioners thought that since the evil was so diminished, it could not control humans any more. They became overjoyed or irrational. For example, many practitioners did send forth the righteous thoughts for practitioner Mr. Wang Bo and his family, but they did not treat this seriously enough. Instead, they thought the evil was so weak that Mr. Wang Bo and his family would be released very soon. When the authorities put them on trial in court, some practitioners were asking, "Haven't they been released yet?"
Losing their strong righteous thoughts and not holding themselves to Dafa's strict requirements, some practitioners started to take things for granted. For example, when the Xinhua District Court in Shijiazhuang City held a trial against Mr. Jiao Meishan and Ms. An Wenqi, some practitioners said, "The evil appears so weak that we can just let their family members rescue them from the court."
Another thing was to shout "Falun Dafa is Good" and "Truthfulness, Benevolence, and Forbearance are Good" at the end of a court trial. It is good to say these things, but we must maintain a pure mind when doing it. I have no intention of discussing whether it is right to do it in that situation. What I want to say is that we must maintain a pure mind and also consider the impact of Dafa on the society and ordinary people's perceptions. It is not just for our temporary joy.
4. We must grasp the essentials of clarifying the truth and exposing evil.
Many practitioners sent forth righteous thoughts, distributed truth-clarification materials, and wrote letters to relevant government offices and people in charge. But not that many used this opportunity, treating it as their own issue, to have face-to-face conversations with the people who participated in persecuting practitioners to further clarify the truth, persuade them to quite the CCP, and expose the evil.
The government offices and staff members that persecute practitioners are a complete system that the old forces use to persecute Dafa. Many people inside this system are those we should save. And the evil factors and lives there are what we must eliminate. When we use these persecution cases to go to their offices or talk to the people who have committed or assisted in the crimes, clarify the truth to them, and persuade them to quit the CCP, we are saving them and disintegrating the evil.
Many people would say that we did not have the opportunity to do these things, but they just blocked themselves. This was a gap in their understanding of the Fa. When the problem occurs, isn't it an opportunity for us to clarify the truth and save sentient beings? Of course we do not wish to see practitioners get in trouble, but when they are indeed being tortured we should never circumvent it. We have many friends and relatives that have connections to the people in the evil system and could introduce us to them. The real issue is whether or not we want to do it.
A practitioner from a distant location thought that he must rescue the practitioners and save the people in the Chinese legal system so that they coujld position themselves well and not commit crimes against Dafa any more. Even though he did not know anyone, he was able to sit down with several of them and use stories and examples that they could understand to clarify the truth about Dafa and awaken their consciences. He thought this kind of opportunity was very easy to lose so he had to take advantage of it quickly.
Some practitioners went to see the policemen, staff in court, and attorneys. They clarified the truth to them and persuaded them to quit the CCP, truly saving them, disintegrating the evil and rescuing practitioners.
I hope fellow practitioners can do more sharing on how to take advantage of the opportunities to truly clarify the truth and save sentient beings.
5. Do not get attached to any particular approach to solvie problems.
We just need to focus on clarifying the truth, saving sentient beings, disintegrating evil, and rescuing practitioners. Do all the things that we need to do together, as these activities are all connected to each other and none can be ignored.
When there is no progress on something, we need to stop and think: are we deviating from the main path of Dafa or are we misinterpreting the Fa? We should then adjust ourselves with regard to the Fa, instead of trying to come up with a new idea to solve the problem as if we were doing ordinary people's things.
For example, when deciding whether to do something, we should think whether it will have any substantial impact and help us to clarify the truth to the people in Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province, who participated in persecuting practitioners; persuade them to quit the CCP; disintegrate the evil; and rescue practitioners. If it does not help much, we should go back to those things that we are supposed to do.
Some things which we did not do well before we can restart from the beginning and do them well now and in the future.
I hope our fellow practitioners will kindly point out the gaps in my thoughts.
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