(Clearwisdom.net) Jiang Zemin appeared publicly for the first time in months on October 9, on China Central Television (CCTV), dispelling widespread rumors of his possible death that surfaced earlier this summer. I'd like to share my thoughts about this topic from a cultivation perspective.

I. How Do We Treat Sending Righteous Thoughts?

Master said as early as in March 2002,

"If you send forth righteous thoughts at the head of the evil from nearby it, the evil won't keep replenishing and protecting it fast enough, and that creature will take his last breath. The reason is, it has none of its human things left, and its skin is entirely sustained by the evil beings--sending righteous thoughts eliminates them. If that replenishing can't be kept up it will drop dead. Last time when the students sent forth righteous thoughts nearby it in Malta, it almost collapsed. That's how it is." ("Touring North America to Teach the Fa")

I felt quite uneasy because of my sense of guilt and remorse when reading this again recently. That is because, as I see it, over the past 10 plus years, our righteous thoughts overall have not met Master's requirements. The Hong Kong-based Asia Television (ATV) broke the news of Jiang's possible brain-death on July 6, and the Minghui website proposed to "set off fireworks"("A Time for Fireworks and Celebration"). That was a time when Dafa disciples should have kept up their righteous thoughts and righteous deeds, and more intensely sent forth righteous thoughts to disintegrate the rotten ghosts replenishing Jiang. It was a time to set off firecrackers to, in the ancient Chinese tradition, frighten off the rotten ghosts, and to take the opportunity to clarify the truth about Falun Gong and the persecution more broadly.

II. Why Do We Take Such Slow and Leisurely Steps?

Yet in reality, after "A Time for Fireworks and Celebration" was published on Minghui, how many practitioners responded by intensifying righteous thoughts and clarifying the truth to more people? How many set off firecrackers and took the opportunities that presented talk to people about Jiang, Falun Gong and the persecution? How many of us continued to think that it really did not matter whether this mastermind of countless heinous crimes died or not, and went about doing things as usual while remaining unperturbed? And for those who did realize that we needed to send more righteous thoughts, how many met the following standard?

"You should focus your attention and your effort, your mind has to be absolutely clear and rational, the force of your thoughts needs to be focused and strong, with an air of supremacy and of destroying all evil in the cosmos." ("Righteous Thoughts")

Take myself as an example, I was dozing off during Fa study sessions, with my palm not pointing straight up when sending righteous thoughts. Couldn't such righteous thoughts have only limited effect? Of course, quite a few practitioners' righteous thoughts are powerful. Yet there are too many of us who have not reached the standard, who have failed to do so because of attachments to personal understandings, and taken slow and leisurely steps. Haven't I been among those taking slow and leisurely steps? Haven't I through these years failed to enlighten until the test had already passed? Or even still held onto incorrect, personal understandings even after the test had passed? When this kind of situation occurs again in some other form, will I make the same mistake again? We all need to think about this. We cannot take it for granted, or assume that we are right, and let go of such cultivation opportunities.

III. Do We Understand the Fa Principles?

Regretfully, I feel that many practitioners cannot look at the issue from the basis of the Fa. Some let it go after a moment of rejoicing; some had doubts about the news; some unwittingly looked for the attitude of the CCP media for clues after years of developing a fixed mentality under the long-term influence of CCP propaganda. Quite a few practitioners were asking: "Did Jiang really die? Why were there no media reports from within mainland China?"

The old forces can see clearly such a gaping omission in Dafa practitioners. Wouldn't this give them excuses to sustain the persecution and to force more tests upon us? How could they not make use of this opportunity to commit sabotage? As a result, we saw Jiang resurface, barely gathering what little breath he had. Had we understood the situation differently, another outcome may well have transpired.

My personal understanding is that the purpose of Minghui's first publishing "A Time for Fireworks and Celebration," followed by a series of sharing articles, was to remind practitioners to take the opportunity to disintegrate the final surface form of the evil, and to clarify the facts widely. At the same time, why were rumors of Jiang's death widely reported overseas yet not reported from within China? In addition to the old forces and the wicked CCP's attempt to sustain the persecution and hold onto power, I think it also implied an underlying principle: The evil will not go away by itself. Its final layers at the surface level must be disintegrated by Dafa disciples' righteous thoughts and righteous deeds.

On this issue, the omissions and deficiencies we practitioners have manifested are significant. It was as if many of us were following the crowd, thinking, “Since everyone else has started to set off firecrackers, so will I.” Some coordinators in my area, for example, bought boxes of firecrackers and distributed them to everyone, but didn't encourage group Fa study and sharing despite being aware that many of us had no understanding of why we were doing this. We took the effort as something to check off on our “to do list.” We didn't have a clear and rational understanding from the Fa of what we were doing, and why. It was just something we felt we had to do. It didn't help our own solid cultivation, nor did it play the role of disintegrating the evil with righteous thoughts.

I propose to fellow practitioners that we search within regarding the resurfacing of Jiang Zemin, that we look carefully for any human thoughts and unclear understanding with regard to the evil forces and the CCP. Let us ask ourselves: Are my understandings of Dafa and of cultivation rational understandings? Or emotional ones? What, ultimately, do I believe in? Do I really understand what solid cultivation is, and what enlightenment is?

IV. Are You Moved?

I wrote the following poem to express my thoughts on this issue:

Don't Be Moved

Though the toad still wears a human skin,
Long ago did its soul enter hell.
To bolster evil it has mustered up a showing,
Like a walking corpse, assaulting everyone's nostrils.
One needn't debate whether it is dead,
Around the world rings the call for Jiang's trial.
Hasten to quit the Party and learn the truth,
Lest you land in court with the Devil.

Above are my personal understandings. Fellow practitioners, please kindly point out any deficiencies.