(Minghui.org) I am a Falun Dafa practitioner in my 70s. There are two incidents that are ingrained in my mind, with one being at the beginning of the persecution on July 21, 1999, and the second one that happened recently. It took me quite some time, but now I understand their meaning.
A day after the onset of the persecution, on July 21, 1999, I was doing the meditation exercise in the square in the morning as usual. To my surprise, there were a lot of people, and more and more people arrived after the exercises were done. I was in the very front when many police cars and buses arrived.
The police then started to push us into buses, first filling one, and then another. Two officers grabbed my arms and dragged me towards a bus. I had one thought, “I want to go home!” This thought had two meanings. One was that I wanted to follow Master to go home. The second was to go to my present home, so I could eat a meal and go to work.
It was very uncomfortable being dragged by the officers. So, I shook my right arm, and the officer was thrown four or five steps away from me. I was very surprised. Then, I shook my left arm, and that officer also was thrown away from me, just like the other officer. I was even more surprised.
These two officers grabbed me again, and a third officer pushed me back. They then tried to push me into a bus. They needed more officers, but they could not move me. Then, more officers ran towards us. I doubted if I could hold my ground, so I gave in. After I got on the bus, one of the officers entered the bus and sat next to the driver. He was out of breath and sweating while pointing at me. He tried to talk, but was fatigued and couldn’t say anything other than “You, you...”
The bus took us to the suburbs and dropped us there. I learned later that because all the detention centers were full of Falun Dafa practitioners, the police had no place to detain us. Thus, they dropped us off in the suburbs.
About a month later, I noticed large bruises on my shoulders and hand marks on my arms. I realized that they were from the confrontation with the policemen. No wonder the policeman was out of breath.
The police were trying to arrest me recently. I was shouting, “No persecution!” While pushing away the two policemen who were in their 20s and 30s, one of them fell to the ground. One of them called on the cell phone for reinforcements. Two more officers arrived, holding handcuffs. I wondered if I could resist, gave in again, and let the police put the handcuffs on me. At the police station, I was locked to a table with handcuffs and a waist cuff. I wasn’t allowed to eat or move for over 10 hours, and there were three policemen watching me on every shift.
When looking inside, I realized that when I was arrested, I let it happen because I thought that I was outnumbered. I asked myself, what if I didn’t give in would it have ended differently? This reminded me that even as a child, I was submissive and did not dare to put up a fight. I understand now that this was an attachment to eliminate.
After reading another practitioner’s article titled, “How To Understand Your Reaction When Being Illegally Arrested,” I understood the meaning of Master’s Fa.
Master said,
“For a long period of time the sentient beings in Dafa, especially the disciples, have had a misunderstanding of the Fa at various levels regarding xinxing improvement. Whenever a tribulation comes, you do not see it with the side of your original nature but view it completely with your human side. Evil demons then capitalize on this point and inflict endless interference and damage, leaving students in long-term tribulations. As a matter of fact, this results from an inadequate understanding of the Fa by your human side. You have humanly restrained your divine side; in other words, you have restrained the parts that have been successfully cultivated and have prevented them from doing Fa-rectification. How can the uncultivated side restrain your main thoughts or the side that has already attained the Fa? Having humanly fostered the evil demons, you allow them to capitalize on the loopholes in the Fa. When a tribulation arrives, if you, a disciple, can truly maintain an unshakable calm or be determined to meet different requirements at different levels, this should be sufficient for you to pass the test. If it continues endlessly and if there do not exist other problems in your xinxing or conduct, it must be that the evil demons are capitalizing on the weak spots caused by your lack of control. After all, a cultivator is not an ordinary human. So why doesn’t the side of you that is your original nature rectify the Fa?”
“You should also be clear that “natural” does not exist, and “the inevitable” has reasons behind it. In fact, “natural” is irresponsibly used by everyday people to make excuses for themselves when they are unable to explain the phenomena of the universe, life, and matter. They cannot imagine what “nature” itself is. Under the influence of this kind of notion you think that all these tribulations are inevitable and that this is just the way it is, thereby developing a passive and pessimistic attitude. So your human side must stay aware. More importantly, your side that has attained the Fa must be clear.” (“Expounding on the Fa,” Essentials For Further Advancement)
I finally understood that I didn’t rectify the Fa with my “original nature.” Instead, my human thinking created a helpless, negative state that was interfered with.
Validating the Abilities of a Buddha
Master said long ago,
“Gods walk the earth,validating the Fa”(“What’s to Fear?,” Hong Yin II)
Master sees us as divine beings, but we still see ourselves as ordinary people. Now, I understand better what Master meant by “abilities of a Buddha.” Part of the meaning of validating the Fa is to validate the abilities of a Buddha.
Without the abilities of a Buddha that Master gives me, how could I, an elderly female, make a policeman fall to the ground? How was I able to stand being locked up on an ice cold chair for over 10 hours?
I witnessed a close to 70-year-old female practitioner meditating on the square when the police were arresting practitioners. Several policemen tried to pull her up but failed, and they eventually quit trying. Such incidences have proven that Master has given us the abilities long ago. Why don’t we dare to use them?
Master said,
“I’ll tell you, for years I have been continually saying that Dafa disciples’ abilities are tremendous, yet many people don’t believe this since those abilities were not allowed to be seen. Under the effect of righteous thoughts, everything around you, as well as you yourself, will undergo changes. Yet you have never thought to give it a try. The old forces as well as the interference from the evil elements are precisely exploiting the gaps in your thinking. That’s what they have been doing all these years. All along the old forces have been directing rotten spirits and the factors of the evil Party to do this, causing you to fail in your efforts to save people. They do this because they don’t have the ability to defeat you in a direct fight. It wouldn’t matter what kind of mighty force they assembled, the instant you started sending righteous thoughts they would all be turned to ashes, completely destroyed and unable to amount to anything. If this kind of fighting continued on, the interference from rotten spirits and factors of the evil Party would be eliminated and disappear. When Dafa disciples are able to send righteous thoughts with good concentration and strong enough righteous thoughts—give it a try—if you could do that today, half of all the evil that now exists would be wiped out. It is exactly because you have all sorts of human attachments, as well as problems cooperating, that it is able to exploit your gaps, prevent you from succeeding at what you’re supposed to do, and weaken your power as you go about saving sentient beings. The evil has no other means at its disposal. When bad people in this world appear to be evil, and might act so ferocious, that’s because there are evil entities behind them propping them up. Eliminate those evil entities and that person wouldn’t be able to muster that ferocity anymore. If Dafa disciples can manage to pool their strength together in one concerted effort, and act with extremely strong righteous thoughts, think about it, that will truly amount to divine beings being present in this world. It would be simply terrifying to the evil!” (“20th Anniversary Fa Teaching,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. XI)
“Cultivation and a Buddha’s abilities are inseparable. So I only speak of those things in a general sense in terms of underlying truths and principles of Fa, and this allows you to comprehend. I give one example to allow cultivators to understand the rest—that’s the reason. It’s not that I ask you to not pursue those things but I go and tell you about them. Those things can’t be separated from Buddha Fa cultivation. What you pursue and the truths of the Fa that you should understand are two entirely different things; divine powers are a manifestation of another aspect of Buddha Fa. Your inability to see the extraordinariness of Buddha Fa’s divine powers results from your reading the book with a human mindset.” (“Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Switzerland”)
“Today is Easter, the day of a god's resurrection! (Enthusiastic applause) This is all I'll say today. On this special, glorious day, may Dafa disciples' divine sides also be resurrected!” (“Teaching the Fa on Easter, 2004, at the New York Fa Conference,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. VI)
Master has unlocked our abilities. Why would we continue to hold onto a human mindset? As long as we are doing things based on the Fa, we can use our Buddha abilities!