(Clearwisdom.net) After I finished reading the recent "Fa Teaching at the 2007 New York Fa Conference," I felt that a lot of practitioners' questions were not meaningful, and I felt sort of disappointed. There was a question near the end of the lecture as follows:
"Disciple: It has been less than a year since I obtained the Fa. I have consistently tried hard to do the three things well and keep up with the enormous current of Fa-rectification. What kinds of suggestions do you have for disciples who have obtained the Fa only recently?
Master: This is a great question."
In contrast, while many practitioners were asking questions for themselves, others were able to formulate their personal questions from the angle of the whole body. For those practitioners who have a chance to see Master, when you ask questions, do you think about how many fellow practitioners are counting on you, how many of them who have sentient beings and our whole body in their hearts hope that your questions will represent them?
I remember before the persecution began on July 20, 1999, Master arranged a meeting with highly educated intellectuals in Beijing and wanted to answer their questions about science, which was intended to teach the Fa on this particular subject. However, practitioners there did not do well. Master said,
"I told people to bring together those practitioners who are college professors and scientists in the scientific community in Beijing, along with some Dafa assistants, so that I could talk to them in detail about the subject of science. In the end, what I intended to do wasn't satisfactorily accomplished, because many other students showed up and raised questions that didn't focus on the subject I wanted to discuss. So it became hard to talk about." ("Teaching the Fa at the Western U.S. Fa Conference")
If we do not do well or cultivate well, how much damage could we cause to Fa-rectification and regret forever? Have we thought of this?
In fact, we Dafa disciples have heard a lot of encouragement and praises from Master. However, what has been our response? We should ask ourselves, "How have we done? Have we done our best and not caused Master to worry too much?"
One practitioner said it well. He said that we should not be complacent because of Master's praise and encouragement. We should find our shortcomings, including those that our merciful Master did not point out. We know that 20 million people have quit their membership in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is very good. However, we should consider the fact that there are millions of Dafa disciples. If each one of us persuades only one person to quit each year, what would the number be then? Have we really done enough? Many practitioners have been cultivating for so many years, and yet some of them still have primitive attachments, including filthy minds, lust, showing off, and attachments to money and material things (including myself). Even coordinators have had conflicts among themselves and have not wanted to resolve them smoothly. When something affects one's personal interests, bad thoughts appear, preventing one from truly cooperating with others.
I remember a period of time before the persecution started. A practitioner that cultivated well talked about some attachments related to fame, success, and heroism during a conversation with another practitioner. Although he did not directly point at me, he said, "Some practitioners think that a practitioner that cultivates well is always a leader of the group. In fact, he often behaves like a stepping-stone." I was surprised when I heard this. Indeed, I was that kind of a person who had unintentionally acted like a leader. I was influenced by this notion. I was truly ashamed. I searched within my soul and asked myself, "What on earth do you seek?"
I found that I still had strong attachments to gain and fame embedded in the work of Fa-rectification. If I did something well or smoothly, I felt happy; if I experienced a setback, or did not get recognized, I felt a loss. Master said in Lecture Two in Zhuan Falun,
"He thinks that he has cured an illness. When others call him a qigong master, he will become delighted and very pleased. Isn't that an attachment? When he cannot cure an illness, he drops his head and feels fizzled out. Isn't it caused by his attachment to fame and personal gain?"
I noticed that some practitioners talk about how many they have persuaded to quit or how much they have achieved and they feel happy and satisfied. Some practitioners feel bad when they experience some difficulties trying to persuade people to quit. We should ask ourselves, "What is our purpose? For whom are we feeling happy or dismayed? Were we happy because we saved a sentient being? Were we disappointed because people lost their chance of being saved? Or were we happy or unhappy for our own personal gain or loss, or for achievement?"
Master has been encouraging us with words such as "outstanding" and "magnificent." However, if we only see that we are outstanding and magnificent, we may forget that many bad things of sentient beings during this period of decay and extinction in the universe also exist in our own lives. Furthermore, they are also playing damaging roles during the Fa-rectification.
In "Fa Teaching at the 2007 New York Fa Conference," Master said:
"You know, in cultivation the most prominent sign that a person still harbors human attachments is his doing things that are not to validate Dafa but instead to validate himself! That is playing a destructive role."
Many of our practitioners carry degenerated factors. Whenever they encounter an issue, those factors will be activated without warning. They have already caused much interference and destruction without being noticed, especially among coordinators. Think about it, on many important occasions when we have done things according to our unrighteous minds or attitudes at the time, hasn't it already hindered our efforts? We, as coordinators, always looked at our efforts and achievements being great and proud, but we didn't seriously look at our own problems.
When Master talked about NTDTV's New Year Spectacular this time, he mentioned some problems we did not previously know about. However, Master has been praising and encouraging us a lot in the past. Fellow practitioners, why do we not seriously think about the reasons? Were we truly not able to reach the goal or did we not cultivate well enough? When Master praises us, as disciples, how we should treat Master's praise? Do we indeed act so that Master will be proud of us? Master said in "Fa-Rectification Period Dafa Disciples:"
"As soon as you heard me say that you had reached the standard for Consummation, you felt like a big burden had been lifted, you slacked off, and didn't want to do anything anymore, instead of taking what Master told you--something so sacred--to be motivation for becoming more diligent." ("Fa-Rectification Period Dafa Disciples" from Essentials for Further Advancement II)
Do we have this kind of problem? Master's encouragement should fortify our righteous thoughts and belief, and we should neither preserve nor nourish the negative parts in our minds. We Dafa disciples should keep our minds clear and be more diligent.
Some practitioners outside China have talked about Master having to take the lead in person after he saw that the Chinese New Year's Galas in the past few years were not good enough. They said that Master spent a large amount of time and energy on it, "You just cannot imagine." Then they talked about some disappointing stories about some practitioners inside and outside of China due to their attachments. After reading this, I felt extremely sad. As Dafa disciples, we should be more devoted in proportion to what Master has devoted.
I remembered a dream from another practitioner in which he dreamed how difficult it is for Master to save sentient beings in this last period of the universe. He saw that when Master began spreading the Fa, one day he followed Master to the Fa-teaching site. He noticed lots of people there. Some were curious, some came to see famous people, and some came to see the crowd. Those who had a little better behavior also tried hard in the crowd to get closer to Master. They all struggled forward, and the crowd began to violently move forward and backward with Master stuck in the middle. Master quietly watched the situation. This practitioner felt very sad. Suddenly a force surged forward and Master fell down. Master stayed quiet and tried to get up. This practitioner could not suppress his feelings any longer and began to cry loudly, threw himself to the ground and crawled towards Master, trying to hold him up.
I thought of what Master said:
"I've given my utmost concern not just to you, but to all lives. I have almost depleted everything of mine for all lives." ("Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Switzerland")
"...if under the greatest mercy since the beginning of Heaven and Earth and under Buddha's infinite grace you still can't do well, how could there be another chance?" ("Fa-Rectification Period Dafa Disciples" from Essentials for Further Advancement II)
After thinking about these words, I just wanted to kneel down for those of us who have not made every effort or who did not make enough effort but thought that they had done things pretty well, and apologize to Master. We shall be more diligent and truly purify ourselves, we should act as if we deserve the title of a Dafa disciple and let Master have a moment of relief and joy.
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