(Clearwisdom.net) After I was released from prison, I read Zhuan Falun over and over and was eventually able to memorize Lunyu. Over time, I had the feeling that every word was aimed at disintegrating our ordinary human notions. Only when we are able to fundamentally change our thinking can we truly assimilate to the standards of the Fa.
When a person is born, he has to familiarize himself with how the world works, become acquainted with his parents, and gradually gain the experience of navigating through new environments like school and work. After he gets to know this world, his life is over and he reincarnates into another world. As this process unfolds, each life forms their own understandings and standards of behavior.
For practitioners, we are faced with the fact that the notions we accumulate have been arranged according to the standards of the old universe. These notions influence our words and deeds, and we gradually form attachments. We live our lives driven by these attachments, and forget our true nature. These notions form the basis for everything we do, and we lose touch with our true selves.
When a person is moved by something, it is caused by attachments that developed from these notions. In order to remain unmoved by things in the human world, we must rid ourselves of our attachments. To do this, we must first confront the notions behind the attachments. By assimilating to the Fa, we are able to reconnect with our true selves, and abandon some the notions that we've accumulated after being born.
For example, a person may be motivated to do well in society because they are attached to accumulating wealth. A person's attachment to living well comes from their notion that material goods can bring happiness. In order to lose this attachment, one needs to upgrade their thinking and realize that worldly possessions don't go with you when you die; they are just the result of having virtue and being destined for a certain position within ordinary society. With this kind of change in thinking, a person can slowly let go of their attachment to money and not be moved by it.
Under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and their ideas of class struggle and violence, the Chinese people have come to know the party as ruthless, terrifying, and something to never be crossed. These notions result in the attachment of fear. This fear of the CCP causes severe interference in practitioners when validating the Fa. It weakens our righteous thoughts, and makes our thinking impure, which results in persecution. The persecution in turn intensifies our notions about the CCP and strengthens this attachment even further. Some practitioners, after being tortured and released from prison, may find themselves holding onto their fear and find excuses to relax and not to progress diligently in their cultivation. If they had acted like a practitioner while the persecution was taking place and had realized their attachment to fear, they would have been able to change their notions and see the torture as an attempt to frighten them into compliance.
In my own case, when the guards suddenly threw me into solitary confinement, I realized that it was time for me to look inward. In that moment, I was able to see myself as a practitioner and adjust my thinking. I adjusted my thinking so that I wasn't afraid, and didn't feel resentment towards anyone, or anxiety about what was going to happen. I reasoned with the eight guards. When they ordered two other prisoners to put a straightjacket on me, I resisted and told them that I did not belong here. Twenty minutes later, they gave up saying, “Forget it, go back to your cell.” The illusion of fear disappeared.
Later, I refused to have my picture taken or any blood drawn. Seven male police officers came towards me with electric batons in their hands. Several prisoners held me down. I thought to myself, “When human beings dare to treat a divine being like this, they are surely being manipulated by the evil in other dimensions. I refuse to acknowledge this test; they are not qualified to test me.” As soon as I was able to realize the illusion that this situation had created, the fear in me disappeared. I closed my eyes and refused to pose for the picture. I sent forth righteous thoughts and asked Teacher for assistance. Suddenly, my left arm went numb. I opened my eyes and saw an electric baton shocking me. The guards were looking at me in disbelief since I didn't even react one bit to the electric shock. I told them calmly, “Shocking me with an electric baton is an action of fascism, and you will have to answer for this.” They were still looking at me, stunned. I struggled to free myself from the prisoners' hands and left the room.
The persecution itself is not what has made us mature. It is only that we were able to treat ourselves as practitioners, and follow Teacher's words. This requires that we elevate our thinking and change the notions that we've held onto in the past. We should realize that the persecution is aimed at cultivators and not just ordinary human beings. In doing so, we can leave our attachment to fear behind and pass our tests while validating the Fa. Since we have understood the Fa based on the Fa, we've matured as practitioners and are no longer behaving like ordinary people.
Under the threat of torture, I was able to remember what Teacher said in Zhuan Falun,
“There is another state in which as one sits for a while, one finds that the legs are gone, and cannot think where the legs went; the body is also gone; the arms are also gone; the hands are also gone—only the head is left. As one keeps practicing, one finds that the head is gone as well, leaving only one’s own mind, a little thought that one is practicing here. It is sufficient if we can achieve this state.”
I held a single wish in my heart: to let go of fame, personal gain, emotion, and every other notion that goes along with life or death in the human world. I refused to go along with everything that the police officers, my supervisors, local authorities, the 610 Office, and other so-called experts asked me to think or do. I had only one thought in mind: “Believe in Teacher and the Fa.” Every day in prison, I memorized the Fa, sent forth righteous thoughts, and clarified the facts to the guards and prisoners. A few months later, none of their torture methods would work on me. I became free of a lot of the interference, and the guards told me, “We will leave you alone from now on.”
The old forces arranged the thinking that considers the persecution as an ordinary human affair, when in fact this is just a trap to keep us from recognizing the persecution for what it is and negate it fundamentally.
Right after I was arrested, I was thinking, “The old forces managed to take advantage of my gaps, but I will never betray my fellow practitioners.” I wanted to shoulder everything like a martyr, but actually I had forgotten who I was. I viewed the persecution as just people harming other people. When I faced a trial, I gave into feeling helpless. But this was just due to my own lack of righteous thinking. I wasn't thinking of my sacred mission to save sentient beings, and wasn't able to firmly refute the so-called crimes they accused me of with absolute confidence. I passively refused to follow their orders, but in my heart I had given up. When I was first put in prison, a guard asked me three times, “When do you think that you'll be getting out of here?” The last time he asked me, I answered, “When I am released after my six-year term is up. Things will just happen as they should.” The guard replied in anger, “How come you have no confidence in yourself?” I now realize that Teacher was giving me hints through the guard's words.
We all have human notions which we have to struggle with, but the important thing is to be aware of them and not to acknowledge the old forces' arrangements. Some of our motivations are so well-hidden that we don't realize how much they can control our thoughts and actions. On the surface we may not acknowledge the persecution, but deep down we may still act according to its arrangements. It is precisely because of these notions that the evil is able to persecute practitioners.
To stop water in a pot from boiling, you have to remove the firewood from under the pot. Adding more cold water to the pot can only temporarily stop the water from boiling. Our notions act just like the firewood. The water can only boil when there is something to fuel the fire. Continuing to protest the persecution with an ordinary mindset is like continuing to add cold water- it won't fundamentally change the situation. The only way is to remove the firewood, and fundamentally remove the human notions and replace them with righteous thinking based on the Fa. Only in this way can we break all attachments and negate the persecution at its source.