(Clearwisdom.net) As practitioners, we may understand “not killing or raising (animals or plants)”. Here I'll share my experiences with fellow practitioners.

Before I cultivated in Dafa, I loved flowers very much. When I started cultivating, I didn't understand the Fa well, and I didn't take cultivation seriously. I kept all the flowers my father gave me. My father also loved flowers very much. One day, Master enlightened me to help me understand why I loved flowers so much in this lifetime. As I got more mature in my cultivation, I understood that Master enlightened me, through different fellow practitioners, to not plant flowers. I immediately gave away all my flowers. However, tests and tribulations always come with cultivation. How one goes through the tests depends on how deeply the practitioner believes in Master and the Fa. My parents often made different excuses to give me flowers, but I refused. Perhaps because my heart was steadfast, my father hasn't given me any flowers since then.

Fellow practitioner “A” is a chef, but he doesn't have to kill any living things. Even if he has to, he is determined not to do so. So the manager sent another chef to do it. However, one day someone gave a live chicken to the manager, and he wanted to eat it the next morning. He asked “A” to cook the chicken. No other chef was there, and “A” didn't want to offend the manager. So he wondered what he should do. Thinking of the Fa principle that a practitioner should not kill, “A” decided that he must follow what Master has said and not kill. Then “A” said to the chicken, “I am a practitioner, I cannot kill you. Please remember Dafa is good and I will offer you blessings after my consummation.” Then he went to do other things. The next morning, the other chef did not come in. When “A” was thinking about what to do, he found that the chicken was dead. Later on, “A” understood that because he followed the Dafa requirement, that chicken made the choice for itself. Again, Master helped practitioner “A” harmonize and benevolently resolve a life.

Practitioners “B” and “C” are sisters, both lived in a village in northern China. Farmers in northern China have less income than those in southern China. Both families of the sisters practice Dafa. They follow Dafa and its higher standards. Although they earned less money because they didn't raise any animals, let alone dogs, they have lived a happy life although they lived in a harsh environment. They made use of their time to do the three things better. One can see that all their thoughts are on the Fa, and they really did what Master required, “A Dafa disciple should put the Fa first in everything he does”. (“Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Boston”)

Regardless of whether they live in a city or a village, there are some practitioners still planting flowers or raising dogs or cats. Some of them haven't enlightened; some of them don't think it matters. Some of them said they did so for other family members. Some said the flowers at home could help purify the air. Some said dogs could help protect the home. Some said they could not bear to see a stray cat suffering, etc. Some practitioners continue to keep flowers, dogs, and cats for different reasons.

I am worried for those practitioners. The Fa rectification is in the last stage; why can't they eliminate their sentimentality or attachment? Why can't they see through the different forms of emotion? The emotion occupies a part of their hearts, such that they don't think more about cultivation. They make you worry: Is the soil too dry? Do the branches need to be cut? Is it time to change the water? Some practitioners even lose their temper over the animals.

One day, I heard two elderly women discussing that people today are not right. In the past, a male could not raise a cat and a female could not raise a dog. One of our fellow practitioners saw that the dog raised by a practitioner was (in another dimensional space) as big as a lion.

Let's encourage each other to follow Master's lecture:

“A cultivator's goal is to go beyond the human world and achieve the Consummation of his being. When he is attached to getting worldly things or to self-interest he can't reach Consummation. When a cultivator cultivates in this world he is to get rid of all sorts of human attachments, and only then can he become a divine being. Otherwise, any attachment or any element in the human world that weighs on your mind becomes a lock that fastens you down and prevents you from leaving. That's why when you validate Dafa and save sentient beings you cultivate yourself at the same time.” (“Teaching the Fa at the 2005 Manhattan International Fa Conference”)