(Minghui.org) In the editorial “Starting Point,” the editors of the Minghui website pointed out many cultivation issues among practitioners.
The editorial stated: “Some situations have come up at each juncture with different people in various regions. Such situations have arisen for students and Dafa disciples to discern things and cultivate in the Fa, and to learn to consider cultivation as the starting point whenever they encounter something, assimilate to Dafa so as to save more people, instead of continuing to be influenced by human attachments.”
The human attachments they talked about manifest in many different ways. Here I'd like to share some problems that I have observed in my area that affect practitioners on a large scale.
Group Arrests as a Result of Centralized Coordination
Centralized coordination in our area originated in the early days, when most practitioners hadn't matured in Fa-rectification cultivation and they relied on coordinators to take care of many things.
Under such circumstances, some coordinators collected and saved money on a large scale, made bulk orders of supplies, and then distributed the supplies to different practitioners for them to make “truth-clarification” materials to distribute to the public.
The coordination network eventually led to several group arrests that involved hundreds of practitioners.
When this happened, instead of discussing how to walk a more righteous path as a group, the coordinators singled out one practitioner, leading other practitioners to believe it was his or her fault. They thus freed themselves from taking responsibility and continued to coordinate activities in the same fashion.
New Problems Arise in Rescuing Practitioners
More problems occurred when centralized coordination continued in rescuing practitioners who had been arrested.
The coordinators assigned most of the work to only a few practitioners who are good at rescue work. However, as those who have participated in the rescue will know, this project involves many steps, from talking to the families of those arrested to gain their support, to writing letters to the police to persuade them to stop doing evil, to designing, printing and posting flyers about the case, and to timely communication with lawyers, etc.
The imbalanced distribution of manpower ended up with the situation where a few practitioners were overwhelmed with the rescue work, while other practitioners were left with nothing to do. This situation further prevents every practitioner from taking initiative to do things and fulfilling their own responsibility.
On the other hand, when the coordinators focus entirely on large scale arrangements, they couldn't pay enough attention to things happening in their own area. A lot of things that should have been done were neglected and some things even became a mere formality.
For example, in one area, while the coordinator was busy arranging for practitioners to go to other cities to send righteous thoughts, he never arranged practitioners to send righteous thoughts close to a prison or police station in his own area.
Overemphasis on Sending Righteous Thoughts Affects Practitioners' Cultivation
Another problem I noticed in my area is that the main coordinators frequently order practitioners to send forth righteous thoughts, with constantly changing requirements.
In the past few months, the main coordinator in our area sent out emails every few days, ordering local practitioners to send righteous thoughts for a lengthy period or to target different places or perpetrators with their righteous thoughts.
At first, practitioners from each Fa-study group were required to send righteous thoughts together from 1 to 3 hours every week. Then it was increased to one hour every day, which was far beyond the capacity of those who had to balance their jobs, family, personal cultivation and other truth-clarification activities.
Worse still, when the main coordinator noticed that any group didn't send righteous thoughts for an hour, he criticized the practitioners with a dictatorial tone.
Some practitioner dared not to point out the problem to him, some ignored his orders, and some didn't even bother to check their emails anymore to find out the new requirement from him.
In addition, when the coordinator frequently changed the target for sending righteous thoughts, it seemed like he was doing things on a whim. Without a systematic plan, some important prisons or detention centers were left out.
With so many things going on, the coordinator himself was also overwhelmed and sometimes sent out the wrong information regarding a practitioner's trial, which caused more confusion among practitioners.
In fact, sending righteous thoughts is only one aspect of counteracting the persecution; we need to do a better job in many other aspects. Heavily focusing on sending righteous thoughts and frequently changing the target disturbs practitioners' stable cultivation environment and causes interference.
Suggestions
Centralized coordination isn't suitable under the current environment in China. In fact, after the first group arrest took place in our area, the Minghui website suggested that large cities in China shouldn't have a main coordinator.
I hope that practitioners who continue to insist on having a main coordinator will take a look at the Minghui editorial “Starting Point.”
No coordinator can take on every project in our cultivation and truth-clarification activities. Everyone has their own capacity for the things they can do or think of. I think it's time for those coordinators to let go some of the things in their hands, and encourage more practitioners to take on more responsibility.
With the persecution now lessening, I noticed that some practitioners still fall short in their personal cultivation. We need to create a stable cultivation environment for them. Perhaps it's better for the group to take more time to study the Fa, reflect and measure ourselves with the Fa, instead of being trapped in a work-oriented mode.
Dafa will not be affected if any coordinator is missing. But for each practitioner, they cannot go anywhere without Dafa. No matter who the coordinator is, no one can manage fellow practitioners with their human thoughts or do things against Dafa.
These are some of my suggestions, just to share my thoughts with practitioners. Please point it out if anything is improper.
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Category: Improving Oneself
