(Minghui.org) After reading an article about helping a fellow practitioner when he or she faces tribulations, I looked within and enlightened that we cannot help practitioners by telling them to look inward. This changed the direction of my thoughts concerning this issue.
Practitioner A said that practitioner C had a physical examination because of some illness symptoms and would stay in A's home for a few days. After hearing that, I thought nothing that happened was accidental and that I needed to look within.
Once C arrived at A's home, we were told that C had had undergone surgery in 2016 in a big hospital. I suggested not to recognize the false appearance of sickness karma and not to mention the name of the illness. I looked at it as a form of persecution.
C was in a wheelchair and was carried upstairs. Seeing how emaciated she was and the drainage tubes from her stomach, I thought it was much worse than I had expected. C told me that she thought she was dissolving karma. She asked to stay in A's home because her family were non-practitioners, and she would rather study the Fa and do exercises with practitioners.
We agreed that we should strengthen our righteous thoughts and deny the arrangement by the old forces. The coordinator in our area came in the middle of our Fa study. Before finding out anything, she talked about the Fa principles and asked C to look inward. The coordinator suggested that C had failed to look inward and then left for some other appointment.
I suddenly realized that our asking practitioners who are experiencing tribulations to look inward is actually forcing our notions onto the practitioners. Gradually, it evolved into blaming others and looking down upon fellow practitioners. Before we knew it, we were standing on the side of the old forces and trying to find excuses for the persecution. It might have worsened the practitioners tribulation.
It dawned on me that looking inward means looking inward at oneself. We have to cultivate ourselves, not others. The best way to break through the persecution by the old forces is to create an environment of powerful righteous thoughts through Fa study and group exercises. Master said, “If you just have that wish you’re all set. When it comes to who’s actually doing it, it’s the master.” (Zhuan Falun)
I begged Master to enlighten me on what attachments I should get rid of regarding this issue. As I read Master's Fa, a sentence struck my mind: “At the same time there’s a black type of matter. Here we call it karma, while in Buddhism it’s called bad karma.” (Zhuan Falun)
The words “bad karma” made me realize that I was learning how to distinguish the bad from the good. When I saw the appearance of fellow practitioner C, I thought, “It's so serious!” Even though I did not speak the words, the thoughts the human brain produces are matter. I had acknowledged the illness.
I used to think the reason why practitioners could not break through tribulations was either because their righteous thoughts were not strong enough or because their bad karma was too great. I did not look for any problems in my own thoughts.
Master said,
“You’re a practitioner, so if you always think it’s a health problem you’re actually asking for it—you are asking for that problem, and now it’s able to set in.” (Zhuan Falun)
As cultivators, we have energy. The reason why some fellow practitioners could not pass tests has partially to do with our thoughts. We were told C's tribulation was a specific illness. Some practitioners gasped “Oh, dear!” Thus, we agreed that it was an illness and at that time had reverted to ordinary people's thoughts.
When invited to send forth righteous thoughts for those in need, some practitioners asked for the name of the sickness karma, as if righteous thoughts could help with some minor but not serious karma.
When visiting those in tribulations, they asked if the person was feeling better. They were evaluating the issue with human notions. Some practitioners looked helpless when mentioning those in serious tribulations. My understanding is that all the above reactions are actually due to failing to see the false appearance of sickness karma.
Master said,
“The root of your health problem has been plucked out now, and only that little bit of black qi is left, coming out on its own, so that you have a little hardship and go through some difficulty. If you didn’t bear anything it really wouldn’t work.” (Zhuan Falun)
Master never told us to use ordinary people's names or descriptions for the health problems. Are they not just little bits of black qi coming out on their own? Our old thinking patterns have led us down the wrong path. Dafa can accomplish anything. I concluded that the reason why some practitioners could not break through was not because Dafa could not eliminate the sickness condition, but because our faith was not strong enough.
Master said,
“If you’re going to be real practitioners, you have to look at things from a really high level, and you can’t use ordinary people’s opinions to interpret things.” (Zhuan Falun)
We have to treat everything from the perspective of a cultivator, look inward, and have one hundred percent faith in Master and Dafa. No matter how serious the appearance is, we should stay firm in our belief: “...just by staying unmoved you would be able to handle all situations” (“Fa Teaching Given at the 2014 San Francisco Fa Conference”)
Dafa practitioners have the final say. We can eliminate the interference by the old forces and strengthen fellow practitioners' righteous thoughts. Their problems are our problems. When the old forces see our righteous and unwavering thoughts, they will withdraw.
Master said,
“And we’ve said, too, that if every one of us cultivates inward, if every one of us examines his own character for causes, if when we don’t do well we look inside ourselves for the cause, and we try to do better next time, and if we think about other people first any time we do something...” (Zhuan Falun)
If every one of us could follow Master's teaching, it would make a big difference.