(Minghui.org) I never believed that I had been significantly affected by the Chinese Communist Party culture since being a rebellious youth born in the 1990s, as I barely listened to propaganda or political lectures when I was in China. I left China when I was 17, and studied abroad. I easily got rid of some surface communist culture behaviors and thoughts.
But recently, I began to feel that something was standing in the way of my assimilating to Dafa, and I had difficulty improving myself. I tried to look within myself but I couldn't figure out why.
Not until after the 2020 U.S. general election when I read the latest Minghui editorial and Master's new scripts did I realize that the reason was because I failed to keep up with the progress of the Fa rectification.
Reading How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World
I started to practice Falun Dafa in May 2019. I knew I was starting very late, so I paid a lot of attention to my personal cultivation. I measured myself against the requirements of the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, and I did improve dramatically every day in the beginning.
However, I recently found myself unable to improve. It was as if my cultivation had entered a bottleneck. My home environment became very tense, and even rats came into my house. I tried to look within and send forth righteous thoughts, but nothing worked. My life had entered a closed loop, in which I simply repeated the same thing every day like a robot. I wanted to change it, but I didn't know how.
I then thought of the book How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World, and decided to listen to the audio version. I listened to each chapter very carefully, applied it to my daily life, and compared it with my living environment and my behavior. I realized that deep down in my life, I was influenced by the evil communist specter. What I said and did appeared to be my own words and actions, when in fact they were not in line with Dafa or tradition, and contained many factors of the evil communist spirits.
On Education
As I said at the beginning, when I was in China, I barely listened to any political lectures. I didn't study, and even openly provoked teachers because I was rebellious toward the Communist Party’s education system. But my behavior actually reflected the “denial of teacher authority and tradition” ideology that the communist specter instilled in western young people.
After I left China, my western education made me stay neutral on many things, thinking that everyone has the right to choose their own life and should not judge others’ lives too much. I felt that such Western education made people very kind. In fact, I had fallen for the devil's ploy of “confusing students’ values with moral relativism” in the infiltration of Western education.
On Feminism
I was very supportive of feminism, and especially admired single mothers who were very good at making money (because I grew up in such a family). I even thought that a family doesn't necessarily need both parents. Instead of having an unreliable father, it’s better to just have a capable mother. This led me to look down on my husband. If he can’t make money, I can.
I left my child under my parents' care, thinking that I was happier being out in society than at home with my child. My friends told me that my husband was not cheating if he had a prostitute, because sex and love are separate for men, and they are only solving their physical needs.
After I listened to the chapter about family in How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling our World, I realized that almost all young people are accepting the lies instilled by the devil and are following the path arranged by the devil, who is truly destroying human beings and turning them into non-human beings.
On Globalization
Reading the chapter on globalization changed my perception even more.
I went back to China to work for a well known Chinese-foreign joint venture investment bank in 2017. I was exposed to all the internal information that ordinary people could not access, such as domestic and foreign investment, financing, mixed reform of state-owned enterprises, listing of US dollar “fund of funds” [a pooled investment fund that invests in other types of funds] and “unicorn fund” [a private startup company valued at over $1 billion], etc. At that time, I thought that such globalization was very good because it accelerated the world’s progress, quickened financing for various projects, created jobs, and built a world economic community.
However, after I read “Chapter 17: Globalization and Communism,” I realized that at that time I was looking at the world from the perspective of a person with vested interests.
I knew that Chinese high-tech companies were hiring scientists from the U.S. at high salaries to join Chinese (Communist Party) companies (which really means stealing core technologies), that Chinese (Communist Party) managed a large number of US dollar fund of funds and US-Canadian pensions, and that some Chinese state-owned enterprises were taking shares and controlling many household names in the U.S. and around the world through proxy holdings or very sophisticated maneuvers.
My boss always communicated with us from the perspective of the elite community and interest group, so it seemed to me that the world's financial system was serving the same group of people. Who were they? The rich at the top of the pyramid.
When my mother was disgusted with some financial investment companies using all kinds of tactics to get the lowest price for the equity of others who are going bankrupt or need money urgently, I told her that this was all just business, so she shouldn't use morality to measure it. Now I know that I had warped notions about globalization and I had ignored morality.
Self-Reflection
I was shocked upon looking back at everything I had done and said during the past 20 years. Every little thing I did and said in my youth was all the thinking of a new type of human being who fully accepted warped ideas instilled by devils. Unlike the CCP's violence, killing, lies, jealousy, malice, and corruption, which can be easily recognized, the devil's disguise penetrates every subtle system of the West and is much harder to discern.
Master said in Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference:
“From another perspective, when you look at the surface of our human bodies with human eyes, the human form and the skin and flesh tissues are very fine and tight, but when you look at the human body with a large, high-magnification microscope, you find that a person's particles and his body that is made up of those particles are as coarse as sand, and there are lots of gaps. And if people had the technology to magnify things more, the gaps would be shockingly large. In the concept from a more microcosmic level, the gaps among particles are so large that they're just like the spatial distance between molecules and planets. With such a large distance, isn't it easy for beings and matter that are made up of even more microcosmic particles to pass through freely? So sometimes they burrow into a person's surface, and on the surface it looks like that person, and in the microcosm it's still that person, but another being has stuck itself in the middle.”
My understanding of the teaching is that at a certain microscopic layer of interstices within everyone's body, we are all soaked in communist evil factors.
Dafa Is the Only Hope for Humanity
When I re-measured the world with the Fa and with what I learned from How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World, my perception of the world radically changed. Only then did I realize that the devil is very close to success, and is about to accomplish its goal of destroying humanity. As a human being, there is no hope at all! Destruction is the only ending.
At this point, I studied the Fa again and finally saw hope from the origin of my life. Dafa is the only hope for humanity.
“Dafa disciples are the hope of humankind—the one and only hope.” (“A Congratulatory Letter to the European Fa Conference in Paris,” Team Yellow Translation)
“Dafa practitioners are truly rescuing humanity, and that you really are humankind’s only hope.” (“2018 NTD and Epoch Times Fa Conference,” Team Yellow Translation)
When I first read these, I honestly didn't understand them. I knew that Dafa practitioners could save people by clarifying the facts, but why would Dafa practitioners be the only hope of humanity? It really didn't occur to me that on the human level, practitioners also play a great positive role in restoring tradition and breaking the devil's world constructed with layers of evil.
I then recalled the next two paragraphs from “Fa Teaching at the 2016 New York Fa Conference” (Team Blue Translation):
“Anyway, I just want to tell you that, as Dafa disciples, you should know how enormous your responsibility is, and this is not a child’s game. This undertaking has already come to the last stage, and I am extremely worried, yet you still do not treat it seriously. In the end, however, it will be too late even if you cry. Everything in the human world was arranged purposefully so as to arouse people’s attachments; there are so many things that prevent you from being saved. You do not consider yourself a cultivator and follow along with those things?! You are the hope for all sentient beings, and you are the hope for lives in your area!”
“This persecution is just too evil, and the things arranged by the old forces are just too evil. Everything I've established in 200 million years has been destroyed by them and they’ve gotten things into this shape.”
I now understand how serious the teaching is. Dafa disciples really need to be more rational on the path of cultivation and saving people. The world we face is vicious, and if we step a little bit off the right way, everything will be ruined.
I think that Master already told us everything in the past 20 years, including what Dafa disciples should do when certain things happen later. Master told us everything ahead of time, but I didn't get it at that time. If we are not aware of our own problems, we simply can not improve ourselves.
On the General Election
For the U.S. presidential election, although I knew that Trump was the chosen one, I didn't know what kind of challenges he is facing. After reading How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World, I realized that in the human world, Trump is dealing with this demonic plan that the devil has been creating in the United States for almost a century by using elites and politicians. I understand from Master's teachings that in other dimensions, it is a direct duel between tradition and mutation, divine and evil.
I then suddenly understood Master's recent poem “On the General Election” (Team Yellow Translation):
“In this majestic universe, the communist devil is making trouble.”
The communist devil not only refers to the evil Chinese Communist Party but also to the communist devil in the entire world that has been exposed in this U.S. general election. Only when it is exposed can it be eliminated, just like our attachments.
After understanding this, I sincerely increased my efforts to send forth righteous thoughts for this general election, not pursuing Trump to be re-elected, but taking the opportunity to eliminate all the exposed evils. After a whole hour sending forth righteous thoughts, I felt strong energy and a clear mind, and my state had changed. I was no longer depressed, as if a layer of microscopic, mutated, communist evil spirit deeply-seated in my body had been broken away. Afterward I could concentrate when studying Fa.
It has been a month since I realized that I was not keeping up with the progress of Fa-rectification. I went from confusion and panic to listening to the audio book and thinking about it, and now I have truly realized the responsibility and mission of Dafa practitioners. I can see very clearly that the world is actually “orderly in chaos.”
Everything happening is going on step by step according to Master's will. We, as Dafa disciples, are each taking on the tasks of our respective positions. In any case, the most important thing is doing the three things well, as it is the foundation of our cultivation.
Master said,
“Dafa disciples should not allow themselves to get ungrounded by any of this. Stick to the fundamentals, and you will be able to see the upheaval that’s taking place in the proper light.” (“Stay Rational,” Team Yellow Translation)
The above is my personal understanding, please kindly point out anything inappropriate.
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Category: Improving Oneself
