(Clearwisdom.net) Lately some practitioners were surprised by the news that a well-known overseas practitioner died of cancer. This type of "news" is often used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to attack Dafa. Let's not discuss whether this "news" is true or not. Neither do we need to pay attention to the vicious attacks. I'd like to share with everyone my understanding of how to properly handle the relationship between well-known or "celebrity" practitioners and our own cultivation on the basis of the Fa.
Fa can strengthen righteous thoughts. "In Teaching the Fa at the 2004 International Fa Conference in New York," Teacher told us Fa principles on a similar incident. Let's study Teacher's words first to clear our minds and clean out interference. The following is a practitioner's question and Teacher's answer.
"Disciple: Students in Korea are using all sorts of ways to step up the effort to clarify the truth to different kinds of people, and they are gradually getting people's attention and support. The truth-clarification has yielded better and better results, and at the same time, all over the country great numbers of new students are pouring in. But recently, one after another, a few students have had accidents and died tragically. One died when the bus he was riding in flipped over, one drowned, and another died in an accident at work. One of those students was very active in clarifying the truth. The occurrence of several such incidents caused some of the newer students to waver.
"Teacher: I just talked about the old forces' interference to Fa-rectification and Dafa disciples. So why do the old forces do things like that, then? What is their goal? They think, 'All of you have come here to cultivate and you think that Dafa is good. Is your understanding of Dafa's goodness truly based on the Fa truths? Or rather, do you just go along when other people say it's good? Or is it that you say the Fa is good when you feel like you've benefited from it?' Cultivation and Dafa are solemn, and they can turn human beings into gods. The old forces can't stand that, so they want to test you. They want to see if you will still say Dafa is good and stay and cultivate when they have people pass away who have reached the end of their life spans. The old forces have done that, so when a student faces life-threatening danger, you can't say that he is not good or that he has some serious problems. That is actually the old forces creating a disturbance by taking advantage of human attachments. One thing is that it's easy for some students to waver, and if those kinds of students had all cultivated very well and solidly, those problems wouldn't have taken place. If certain students can't manage to get rid of long-standing attachments inside themselves, they can be persecuted and interfered with. [They might think,] 'I've been doing the exercises, and my illnesses have been cured. I feel so good. My life has become easier.' Their understanding always remains at that level and they can't understand the Fa on the basis of the Fa, and that makes it easy for problems to come up. Of course, these things don't always stem from that type of problem. The old forces have been doing this for a long time, and these kinds of things also happened before in the cultivation of students in Mainland China. So that's why in cultivation it is imperative to look at things with righteous thoughts and clearly recognize that cultivation is the most serious of matters.
"Of course, certain things have happened. Students in different regions have pretty much become clearheaded, they are able to understand things on the basis of the Fa, and they can thus handle those things correctly. There used to be some students who would often say, 'So-and-so at our practice site has done so well! We'll do whatever he does.' Let me tell all of you that you absolutely must not do that and absolutely must not think that way. Cultivators can't take other human beings as their role models. They must take the Fa as the teacher! (Applause) As soon as you start doing things [like I described] and thinking in that way, two problems will surface. One is that you will likely push that student to a place where there is no way out for him. And it's likely the old forces will lead him to have problems and even make him leave us early in order to test other students. [They'll think,] 'You're all looking to him. With things like this, are you still going to study, and are you still going to cultivate?' Under circumstances like this, there are really some students who think, 'If even he couldn't make it, will I be able to?' They waver. Isn't that the old forces taking advantage of gaps? [In that situation] even I, your master, can't say anything! The old forces say, 'Take a look. See how that test ended up? What we did was right, wasn't it?' So when the righteous thoughts are not strong, people's minds waver. You absolutely must be on guard against that! You should take the Fa as the teacher. You can't look at how well a certain individual has cultivated and as a result learn from that person instead of the Fa.
"Weren't there students like that when the persecution in Mainland China first began? Many students were looking to the assistants and doing whatever the assistants did. When the assistants gave in, they followed suit and gave in too. Of course, students are students of Dafa after all, so when they calmed down later on, they realized that they had been wrong. They started to study the Fa anew, and realized that that understanding of theirs had been wrong and that what they did was wrong. But, looking at that one part of it, didn't it bring shame to them? They did do that thing at one point, so for a cultivator, isn't that a black mark? So, causing people's minds to waver will bring trouble to the cultivation environment. You absolutely must be attentive to that."
In my opinion, we practitioners from China should follow the direction of Minghui/Clearwisdom and treat "news," such as a practitioner's arrest or being sentenced to labor camp, or a practitioner's illness or death, as cultivation experience--that is, as practitioners, we didn't hear about the "news" by coincidence. It doesn't matter what other people say. If our minds waver, then it's time we find that human attachment and get rid of it. We should not behave like ordinary people and be controlled by ordinary human attachments to spread rumors and hearsay. It is imperative that practitioners diligently raise their xinxing. If we don't cultivate ourselves, we will become ordinary people. We will use human attachments and mindsets in the face of problems and conflicts. If we continue to act like this, are we still considered true cultivating disciples?
In fact, Dafa disciples should not see other practitioners as either "celebrities" or "ordinary practitioners." In old cultivation ways and in personal cultivation, there were very few such cultivation celebrities in ordinary society. Although there were famous immortals in history, their stories were left so that people could learn about cultivation culture. These immortals became well-known after they completed their cultivation and performed many miracles. In the past, people cultivated in seclusion deep in the mountains or forests, away from society. Besides, cultivators consider fame and gain as the biggest roadblocks on their cultivation path, and they try to get rid of them as soon as possible. Consequently, the majority of cultivators cultivated by themselves, and not many people knew about them. But today's Dafa practitioners cultivate in human society. Additionally, practitioners encountered cruel persecution. In order to more widely and effectively validate Dafa, expose the persecution, and save sentient beings, practitioners have formed companies that use mass media such as TV, radio, newspapers, and the Internet to clarify the truth. It is the nature of these Fa-validation projects that have made some practitioners "stars" in human society.
What we need to be clear-minded about is that fame was given to some practitioners by Teacher to better validate Dafa and save sentient beings, not for them to have a mentality of complacency or an attachment to fame and gain, or for any of us to have attachments to differentiating, admiring, or relying on others. This is a test for so-called celebrity practitioners and the practitioners around them. It's their cultivation path.
I think the reason that some practitioners are surprised by certain news about well known practitioners is because, consciously or unconsciously, they consider fame the yardstick of a practitioner's level and use it to judge whether a practitioner is diligent or not. This shows that we still have attachments to fame and gain in our cultivation, even though we may not realize it. So without knowing it, some practitioners gradually have formed thoughts of differentiating, admiring others, and relying on others. Some practitioners even treat the celebrity practitioners as role models, which may unintentionally increase those practitioners' tribulations and may make them the focal points of vicious persecution. The old forces may also take advantage of this gap and use the excuse to persecute practitioners and put our human attachments to test. Teacher has talked about this over and over again in his lectures, and we've had many lessons, such as the assistants and coordinators at various assistance centers before 1999, the Chinese prime minister at that time, the practitioner with the last name of Jing, etc. I think that all practitioners who are aware of such incidents should follow the suggestion of an experience sharing article and think about whether they unintentionally contributed to the suffering of practitioners who are undergoing persecution.
Cultivators need to let go of their attachment to life and death in order to reach consummation. Cultivation can help one to get out of the abyss of misery, but the purpose of cultivation is not to obtain longevity in human society. This is the attachment to life and death, exactly what cultivators need to get rid of. The evil forces who use such news to attack Dafa and sway practitioners' righteous belief would never understand this.
Practitioners cultivate in delusion and can't see the essence of things and underlying causes. But we need to look at things on the basis of Fa principles and realize that, when a practitioner leaves us early, that practitioner didn't end up like an ordinary person. The reason behind a practitioner's death is more complex. For example, it might be because the practitioner signed some kind of pact with the old forces to consummate in this way. Due to insufficient righteous thoughts, they walked the path arranged by the old forces. Or it might be due to the practitioner's slacking off in cultivation and therefore reaching his or her predestined lifespan. Or it might be some other situation. So practitioners should not be confused and interfered with by the evil or by their own human attachments and mindsets that might cause them to waver in their righteous belief and thoughts.
Some practitioners like to analyze what attachments led to a practitioner's arrest or death and discuss their analysis with other practitioners. Instead, they should think to themselves, "Why did I hear about this? Were my thoughts on the Fa after I heard about this? Were my thoughts righteous? Through this, did I find any attachments that I still have and need to let go of?" My main understanding is: to cultivate is to cultivate oneself and one's xinxing. Why do we always look at others? If we focus on looking within ourselves rather than looking at others, we will take each step more solidly, steadily, and diligently on the path of Fa-rectification.
The above is a record of a discussion that some practitioners and I had on this subject. We wanted to share it with everyone. Please kindly point out anything improper