(Minghui.org) One day I went to visit an aged fellow practitioner. She had strong righteous thoughts and didn't have the attachment of fear when doing truth clarification. She was very respectful to Master and steadfast in her belief in Master because Master had saved her life six times.

She was very grateful to Master and continued to do the three things every day. The old forces tested her about 10 times in her dreams and she remained clear-headed in her belief in Master. However, she was experiencing some symptoms of sickness karma. She was very frustrated and unable to identify her attachment.

I could see that she felt gratitude toward Master but not the kind of belief and respect truly based on the Fa. Elements of self were behind her gratitude, which was a shadow of the master and disciple relationship of the old cosmos. I shared my understanding with her.

Master told us in Zhuan Falun:

“......This period of ours in history is different from that of Chinese feudal society. Do kneeling down and kowtowing stand for taking someone as the master? We do not practice this ritual. Many people think: 'If I kowtow, burn incense, and worship Buddha with a sincere heart, my gong will increase.' I find this quite ridiculous. Genuine cultivation practice depends entirely upon a person him or herself, so it is useless to pray for something. You do not have to worship a Buddha or burn incense. As long as you really practice cultivation according to the standard of a practitioner, Buddha will be very pleased to see you. If you always do bad deeds in other places, he will be disgusted to see you although you burn incense and kowtow to him. Isn’t this the truth? Genuine cultivation practice depends upon the person him or herself. What’s the use of your kowtowing and worshipping the master if you do whatever you want today upon stepping outside this door? We do not care for this formality at all. You could even damage my reputation!”

I came to realize from reading this paragraph of the Fa that, as Dafa disciples in the Fa-rectification period, we must do as Master requires in order to be true to our belief and to be truly respectful to Master. We should let go of the attachment to life and death, save sentient beings, harmonize what Master wants, and align our every thought and every act to the standard of the Fa. And that is the true meaning of respecting Master and the Fa. If we cling to the notion of self and cling to the concept of gratitude, we are not being respectful to Master and the Fa. I told her the stories of fellow practitioners who experienced the miracles of the Fa after they truly let go of self.

She said, “Today I finally understand the meaning of being respectful to Master and the Fa. A huge knot in my heart has been untied.”

Master told us in “Cautionary Advice:”

“It has been four years since I began teaching Dafa. Some students’ xinxing and level of realm have improved slowly; they remain at the perceptual stage in their understanding of me and Dafa, always being grateful towards me for the changes in their bodies and for the manifestation of supernormal abilities—that is an ordinary human mindset. If you do not want to change your human state and rationally rise to a true understanding of Dafa, you will miss the opportunity. If you do not change the human logic that you, as an ordinary human, have formed deep in your bones over thousands of years, you will be unable to break away from this superficial human shell and reach Consummation. You cannot always count on me to eliminate karma for you while you fail to truly progress in comprehending the Fa and rise above human understandings and notions. Your ways of thinking, your understanding, and your appreciation towards me and Dafa are the product of ordinary human thinking. But what I’m teaching you is in fact moving beyond ordinary humans to a rational, true understanding of Dafa!” (Cautionary Advice, Essentials For Further Advancement

I started thinking about the meaning of this paragraph of the Fa. As Dafa disciples, we will never know the meaning of Master and the Fa if we keep using the mindset of the old cosmos' beings and if we don't change the old cosmos' deviant way of thinking and the attachment to self. And that is the real disrespect to Master.

I also have seen a problem: many fellow practitioners have not broken away from the old cosmos' notion of Master and disciple, which has the elements of self and deviation hidden in it. Dafa has created brand new everything for all beings, and the new notion of Master and disciple should be brand new, too. I suddenly feel that the name “Master” is the greatest and most sublime appellation in the cosmos, and it encompasses very profound meanings and enormous boundless substances, from the extremely macroscopic to the extremely microscopic. As disciples who are respectful to Master and the Fa, we should not use this name casually.

I used to say “Respected Master” instead of “Master” to show my respect. Now I realize there was a notion of “self” behind it. Only the title “Master,” which is determined in the Fa, can express true respect without any notion of self or selfishness. After realizing this, every time I burn incense, I stay in a pure state of mind with no self and gather everything in my being to say “Master.” And immediately I feel my whole self immersed in Dafa and the boundless wisdom of Master. At that moment, I am enlightened to the meaning, at my level, of the Fa.

“There is no affect between master and disciple

The Buddha’s grace remolds Heaven and Earth” “The Master-Disciple Bond,” Hong Yin II

I have a clearer understanding of the true meaning of “respecting Master and the Fa.” The boundless cosmos is created by Master's wisdom, which is ubiquitous and exists in an extremely small and extremely large scale because Truthfulness-Benevolence-Forbearance is ubiquitous.

Above is my limited understanding at my current stage. Please take the Fa as the Master if you find anything that deviates from the Fa.