(Minghui.org) Greetings Master! Greetings fellow practitioners!
I started practicing Falun Dafa in 1996. I was reported to authorities in 2010 because I visited the Minghui website. As a result, I was arrested by police at my workplace. After being released, I was forced to leave home to escape further persecution. I have been homeless for three years.
These past three years of cultivation have had a deep effect on me. The loneliness of being so far away from home, not knowing how to cultivate and look within over the past ten-plus years, the inflated attachment of validating myself, conflicts with practitioners while validating the Fa—so many things have touched my heart. I have suffered heart wrenching pain during the process.
Compassionate Teacher constantly gave me hints. I gradually began to sense the wonder of assimilating to the Fa. I learned how to look at and cultivate my heart, as well as how to practice genuine cultivation amidst conflicts. I would like to report to Master and share with practitioners about my personal cultivation during the past three years amidst conflicts with practitioners.
Letting Go of Self in Genuine Cultivation
The police wanted to arrest me again several days after I was released in 2010. Several practitioners took my entire family to another city. Practitioner A offered us a room in his house. I had much fear at the time, due to the persecution that I had just experienced. I seldom went outside, and only occasionally purchased some vegetables or did some planting in the field.
I always lowered my head and skirted around the police while I was outside. If a car stopped nearby for several days, I suspected that plainclothes officers must be inside. It's really more like what Teacher said, “With a preoccupied human heart, crossing the ocean proves arduous.” (“The Knowing Heart” from Essentials for Further Advancement II)
I studied Zhuan Falun for almost six hours per day, hoping to remove my fear, practiced the exercises every day, and sent righteous thoughts more than ten times a day. I also studied Teacher's other Fa lectures. After about two months, my cultivation state improved and my righteous thoughts became stronger. I have since been able to walk the righteous path of validating the Fa and saving sentient beings.
Due to my fear, the evil took advantage of this loophole and created a false phenomenon eight months later. A person in a police uniform knocked at my door and asked for water. For the security of practitioner A and my entire family, local practitioner B helped me to move out at about 10:00 p.m. that same night.
Practitioner B arranged for my family to live in the attic of a building, with one bedroom and a living room. The surrounding environment was very dirty because pornographic facilities were nearby. I thought it was not a proper place to validate the Fa. Moreover, the rainy season bothered us due to a leak in the roof. As soon as we had it repaired, the hot summer came. My family couldn't tolerate the heat, and couldn't study the Fa in a state of tranquility. They were not satisfied living there. When practitioner B came to visit us, I complained to her about the living environment, but I didn't consider her concerns. As a result, a barrier developed between us.
Practitioner B came to me several days later and asked me to stop doing the Fa-validating project at hand, and transferred it to another practitioner. I disagreed because I thought that the practitioner was not the right person to do that project. I thought she was more suited to clarifying the truth to people face to face. We shared with each other with no consensus, as we each stuck to our own opinions.
Several days later, practitioner B hosted a meeting with several coordinators. In the meeting, she said that I should return to my hometown to validate the Fa. She said, “You should cease being homeless. Our local Dafa practitioners can validate the Fa, too.” However, several coordinators said I was doing well here and suggested that I stay. Practitioner B didn't say anything after she heard them say this, so I continued staying there.
I struggled to hold my tears back and didn't say anything. Upon returning home, I couldn't help bursting into tears. I felt so miserable due to grievances and heart wrenching pain. I thought of Teacher's Fa, “When it's difficult to endure, you can endure it. When it's impossible to do, you can do it.” (Zhuan Falun)
I said constantly, “I must be able to endure this. I must be able to do this. I must be able to pass this test.” When I was still not able to pass it, Teacher's Fa emerged in my mind,
“Of course, you will not be informed of tribulations or conflict ahead of time. How can you practice cultivation if you are told everything? It will not serve any use. They usually occur unexpectedly so that they can test one's xinxing and make one's xinxing truly improve. Only then can it be seen whether one can maintain one's xinxing. Therefore, when a conflict arises, it does not occur accidentally.” (Zhuan Falun)
My body shook all over. I knew that I hadn't maintained my xinxing well, but gradually I calmed down. I recalled what had happened to me and identified my problems, which included selfishness, anger, jealousy, and a pursuit for fame. Moreover, I was shocked when I became aware of my habit of showing off. This attachment had actually intensified over a long period of time.
I hadn't looked at matters from practitioner B's perspective. Actually she put in a lot of effort for me and helped me find a place to live. Due to the urgency of the situation at the time, she couldn't find a place that satisfied us. However, she did not intend to find such a place for us! Why couldn't I understand and tolerate her? As a coordinator, she had her own opinions about assigning Dafa projects to practitioners. Why was I so angry? Was I practicing the principle of tolerance? Why couldn't I calm down and share with other practitioners? When I looked deeper inside, I identified a strong attachment to self. When something was not consistent with my opinion, I treated others with unkindness, and became angry. When such negative thoughts couldn't be removed, I had conflicts with practitioners.
We started working on producing DVDs for the 2013 Shen Yun Performing Arts at the beginning of this year.
Practitioner B and I had some problems getting the DVDs to play properly, and also had some conflicts between us. During a meeting for coordinators, we resolved to produce DVDs that were of optimum quality. I felt a bit annoyed and after studying the Fa I ran across this paragraph:
“Someone asks, 'Why do we always have tribulations in cultivation practice? Those problems aren't much different from those of everyday people.' It is because you are practicing cultivation among everyday people. You will not be suddenly turned upside down with your head facing the ground, flying up there and suffering in the air – it won't be like that. Everything will assume the form of everyday situations, such as someone may have irritated you today, someone has upset you, someone has mistreated you, or someone suddenly speaks to you with no respect. It is to see how you will react to these issues.” (Zhuan Falun)
I was suddenly enlightened, “Ah! Isn't this happening to me? Practitioner B is helping me to improve my xinxing!” I suddenly saw the light, and all my anger vanished.
After I studied the Fa, I looked inside and asked myself, “Why did that practitioner treat me like that? I must have strong attachments that I was not aware of. Otherwise there wouldn't have been such intense conflicts between us.” I found that the human attachments I had identified surfaced again, including pursuit of fame, the mentality of showing off, anger, jealousy, and self-validation.
As those human attachments expanded, my attachment to self became stronger, and continued to strengthen the other human attachments. As another practitioner shared in his article, “The attachment to self is the root of all attachments.” Giving up "self" is something we must do while cultivating. We should let go of all human thoughts and notions, try to understand and tolerate other people's shortcomings, cooperate with others, and harmonize the one body. Wherever there are shortcomings, we should quietly compensate for them. This is truly letting go of “self” and truly upgrading in cultivation.
Cultivating Myself Amidst Conflicts
Practitioners in a neighboring community produced some stickers and truth-clarifying materials in October 2011, without the proper approval. Practitioner B took some back. I saw that those materials had been downloaded from a non-practitioner's website, weren’t very good, and I expressed my opinion.
Practitioner B said, “These stickers were used a lot in other locations and the results were good, however we haven't done it yet. Why can't we use them? Someone asked Minghui already and the reply was, 'Local stickers can be produced on their own.'”
I said, “But the Minghui editors don't know that the wording on these stickers is too direct. We can produce stickers that expose the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) persecution of local practitioners. We can download the sticker formats from the Minghui website and include facts about the persecution in our local area. However, for all materials relating to clarifying the truth about Dafa, we should ask for approval. We shouldn't produce them on our own if they are not published on the Minghui website, except for materials relating to persecution in our local area. The materials on the Minghui website are complete and very effective in saving sentient beings, and we should not use materials from other websites. We should walk a righteous path and not lead other practitioners awry.”
Upon returning home, I felt more pain in my heart, and my tears fell. A paragraph of Fa came to mind,
“Why do you encounter these problems? They are all caused by your own karma. We have already eliminated for you many, numerous pieces of it, leaving only that tiny bit which is divided into tribulations at different levels for upgrading your xinxing, tempering your mind, and removing your different attachments. These are all your own tribulations that we use to improve your xinxing, and you will be able to overcome them. As long as you upgrade your xinxing, you can overcome them. Unless you, yourself do not want to do so, you can make it, provided you want to overcome them. Therefore, from now on when you come across a conflict you should not consider it a coincidence. This is because when a conflict occurs, it will take place unexpectedly. But that is not a coincidence—it is for improving your xinxing. As long as you treat yourself as a practitioner, you can handle it properly. ” (Zhuan Falun)
I gradually calmed down, studied Essentials for Further Advancement in the afternoon, and felt the Fa go into my heart. I felt a bad substance oozing out of me, and suddenly felt my cosmic body become completely transparent. At that moment I truly enlightened to the meaning of genuine cultivation. Teacher said,
“Study the Fa and gain the Fa, Focus on how you study and cultivate, Let each and every thing be measured against the Fa. Only then, with that, is it actually cultivation.” (“Solid Cultivation,” from Hong Yin)
I realized that only by measuring myself with the Fa, rectifying my every thought, and taking the Fa as Master, could I truly improve myself. I changed my notions, and my xinxing upgraded. My conflicts with practitioner B dissolved.
Elevating Myself While Harmonizing Into One Body
A practitioner returned from another city in August 2013, and brought some soft plastic cases to put Shen Yun Performing Arts DVDs in. Locally, we had used hard plastic rectangular cases to package them. I told her, “Shen Yun didn't provide a square cover format this year, so using square soft cases is an irresponsible way to package the DVDs, and I will not accept it. I will follow the requirements set forth, and will not do anything that does not align with the Fa.” My tone was very serious. Practitioner B noticed that I was very excited about the matter, so she suggested that we have a meeting with other coordinators that night, where I explained my feelings about the various case designs.
After a long discussion we decided to continue using the rectangular soft case. However, Practitioner B disagreed because that had been decided only between Practitioner C and me. She wanted to use the smaller case. Before she finished speaking, I got excited and pointed out several of her shortcomings. Practitioner D stopped us and said, “Will Teacher be happy with your behaving this way? What are you competing for? It's not important what kind of DVD case is used. What does matter is removing your attachments.” I tolerated this and didn't say anything, but my attachment of competitiveness was not removed.
I was very irritated on my way home. I thought, “We are doing it well. Why bother to make changes?” I didn't pass the test. Several days later I watched Teacher's Fa lecture to Australian practitioners. I realized that we were all practitioners walking on a divine path, so I shouldn't argue with other practitioners. I should let go of my attachments to competitiveness, jealousy, and fame. I looked inside again to identify my shortcomings. I found another attachment, dissatisfaction with practitioners. On the other side, I emphasized only the elegance, greatness, and quality of the rectangular soft plastic case, but didn't consider the security of practitioners during distribution. The attachment to “self” was still having an interfering effect. Teacher said,
“But true improvements come from letting go, not from gaining.” (“Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A.”)
I let go of my selfish notions, and harmonized with practitioners and the one body. I produced some Shen Yun DVDs with the square hard cases, making sure everything was to standard. Practitioner B told C, “I am no longer concerned with what type of cases you use. It's my fault, as I have the attachment of competitiveness.” The conflicts between practitioner B and I have now been rectified by Dafa. We are cooperating quite well as one body. Just as Teacher said,
“If you can actually do it, you will indeed find: 'After passing the shady willow trees, there will be bright flowers and another village ahead!'” (Zhuan Falun)
Thank you, Master! Thank you, fellow practitioners!
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