(Clearwisdom.net) Recently, practitioners in Qingdao City and surrounding areas have shown symptoms of serious illness. I'd like to share my understanding of the best way to help practitioners who are experiencing sickness karma.
Every Falun Dafa practitioner who has progressed in cultivation during theFa-rectification period has accomplished magnificent and glistening feats in validating the Fa and saving sentient beings. Since we are cultivating in the human world, however, those aspects of our nature that have reached a high standard are separated, and we must continue to wrestle with attachments and shortcomings that remain before we can achieve consummation. Even though a practitioner may fail to do well in some part of his or her cultivation and is taken advantage of by evil forces, it only means he or she did not do well in that one particular matter. It does not mean that this practitioner is not good as a whole. We should be very careful, therefore, in how we view practitioners who are suffering from sickness karma. As we deal with this issue, our first thought as one body is very important.
I realize that among practitioners nothing that happens is accidental. Everything that happens is a test of our xinxing improvement as one particle of a collective whole. Everyone's thoughts and actions during the process of cultivation are manifestations of the truth of his or her realm within that one body.
Whenever something bad happens, my first thought is to look inward for my own shortcomings. I have reflected deeply on this issue. Whatever occurs, even though what has happened does not directly impact me, even though I believe that my thoughts are in line with the Fa, or even though I am not responsible for something that is not in line with the Fa, as long as I am aware of it, I must look inward unconditionally and measure everything from the perspective of the Fa. We should not judge others to be right or wrong when we are still steeped in a bad situation. Nothing that happens is accidental. Problems of this sort will not occur unless there are attachments that we must let go of or opportunities to improve as one body.
The Qingdao practitioners who were suffering from sickness karma were all looking inward to find their shortcomings and, thus, were already immersed in a very painful process. If we, hoping to help them, forced upon them our own personal understandings of the Fa, the suffering practitioners would find them very difficult to accept because our understandings would, of course, only reflect the Fa at our own different levels. Even if they did not say so, they would resist what we had say to some degree because they had not fully enlightened to it on their own. We must be more considerate of the feelings of practitioners who are suffering from sickness karma. We can share with them our own experiences in ridding ourselves of attachments and overcoming sickness karma to help them understand that they can get over it very quickly. Then they will relax and feel less pressure. The most important thing we can do, however, is study the Fa with them, since only the Fa can help them upgrade their levels. When we study the Fa with them and their xinxing improves, they will then know the Fa of a higher level and their physical bodies will thus also exist in the dimension of that higher level. In that case, won't the substances of the lower level dimension be disintegrated? Teacher said,
"The Fa can break all attachments, the Fa can destroy all evil, the Fa can shatter all lies, and the Fa can strengthen righteous thoughts." ("Drive out Interference" from Essentials for Further Advancement II)
Once, I was arrested. At the police station I recited the Fa while looking inward for my shortcomings. My family was allowed to visit one day and told me that the the local practitioners believed that I should go on a hunger strike. They said that eating meals while in detention showed a lack of righteous thoughts. I remembered the Fa I had just recited,
"But a person always has to enlighten on his own to what he should do in the face of tribulations. Every time a person improves, the Attainment Status he has validated and enlightened to rises." "The path a Dafa disciple takes is a glorious history, and this history has to be created by his own enlightening." ("Path" from Essentials for Further Advancement II)
I told my family that I was resolved to walk the path arranged by Teacher. I could not say whether the local practitioners were right or wrong. That was their personal understanding and not what I enlightened to at the realm of my own level. I could be steadfast only on a path illuminated by my own understanding of the Fa. Whether or not I ate meals was my own personal decision and others should have respected the choice I made. Besides, there were more pressing issues to be concerned with: the police routinely detain practitioners, torture them and extract confessions from them by torture. These are crimes committed by the police against the people. The people must go to the police, procuratorate offices, and the courts at various levels and lodge complaints against these crimes. Lawyers who have a sense of justice should be invited to sue the police for this criminal conduct. The local practitioners should have set their minds at rest and not worried about me. I was confident that Teacher would take care of everything for me.
Later, I was tortured so severely that I had to be taken to the hospital. I heard a doctor in a low voice tell a police officer, "The patient is in critical condition. We'll see if she can survive the night." My first thought was to prove the doctor wrong. Teacher's Fa was resonating in my mind,
"I am rooted in the universe. If anyone can harm you, he or she would be able to harm me. Put simply, that person would be able to harm this universe." (Zhuan Falun)
I understood that when Teacher lifted me from hell and cleansed me, my name was already deleted from hell. Therefore, my life or death could only be decided by Teacher and no one could harm me.
About a year later I was released from the brainwashing center, and my family took me to several hospitals for medical exams. The doctors and health professional all agreed that it was too late for me to receive treatment. They said that there was nothing to do but wait for three months and see how my illnesses progressed. I was very calm when a doctor asked my family to push my sickbed out of the room so he could brief them on my condition. I experienced a feeling that is possible only when one truly lets go of life and death and understands that they no longer exist. I told my family that the principles of the universe were turned upside down at this human level and that I would recover in three months.
Three months later, my condition was exactly as I expected. The trial, the sentence, and the ordeal imposed on me by the authorities had all been completely negated. This would have been impossible had I adhered to human principles. It is truly as Teacher taught us:
"Good or evil comes from a person's spontaneous thought" (Zhuan Falun)
These are just some of my personal understandings. Please point out my shortcomings.