(Minghui.org) (Continued from Part 2)
[Scenario 5] It's About Cultivation, Not Articulation
One day, a fellow practitioner said to me, “You are good at articulating what you mean. When you tell others things, they understand. But I am rather clumsy with words. I know what I want to say but I cannot make myself clear. What should I do?”
“It might not be related to articulation,” I replied. “When you understand things on the basis of the Fa and view everything in light of the Fa, you will be able to make things clear. When you keep letting fellow practitioners rely on you, it will be harder for them to validate the Fa on their own. Help them understand things on the basis of the Fa, not just on the basis of repairing devices.”
“I see,” said the practitioner.
[Scenario 6] Nothing Happens by Chance
A fellow practitioner went to help fix another practitioner's printer. When he got there, he tried to discuss the problem from a Fa's perspective, but he was stopped.
“See, other technical practitioners just come and fix the machine,” said the practitioner. “You not only want to discuss and share, but also want us to learn technology. Do you think everybody can learn these skills? Why not just get things done instead of wasting time?”
The fellow practitioner was speechless after hearing that.
I explained to him that he actually did a good job, since situations like this require more sharing and discussion than usual. If I were in that situation, I would respond like this:
“Why are you in such a hurry to get to work? You are busy printing brochures to save people, right? When your printer broke, it might be because there are places you need to improve. As a cultivator, if you only repair the machine and not use this opportunity to look within, you may have missed a chance to improve. If each time the machine breaks, you always just let others fix it, how can you improve yourself? If you are able to discuss the issue, look within, and find where you can improve, then you will have truly made progress within the Fa. And if you learn how to fix the printer yourself and no longer have to rely on others, you'll be able to validate the Fa by walking your own path. By doing that, the material you print out will be even more powerful in saving people. Wouldn't that be great?”
[Scenario 7] Practitioners Should Take Good Care of Their Own Tools
One fellow practitioner went out of town to repair a printer. Upon returning, she looked upset. I asked her what happened. She told me that she tried to show some basic techniques on how to fix the printer to the fellow practitioner while repairing the printer, but received a lecture instead.
“Why do you want to show me how to repair the printer? Aren’t you the technician for this sort of thing? We Dafa practitioners are like employees working in a big factory, and there are all sorts of jobs. Aren’t you responsible for maintenance? You should just fix it. Why do you always want others to learn how to fix the problem?”
She felt upset and did not speak for the rest of the time there. As a result, she fixed the printer to the point that it works, but still has some issues.
I told her that, first of all, we should not be upset when disturbed. Wasn't this a good opportunity to improve? Then, once we are calm, we can try to explain what things are all about.
For example, I would say the following to the practitioner being helped.
“Suppose this happens to everyday people. When your printer is broken and your friend comes to help. You might be very polite, bringing them drinks and snacks for the hard work. The only difference here is that a Dafa practitioner had come from out of town to help. Plus, the printer is your Fa tool, which is used to save people. That is why you should take good care of it. Similarly, when the printer acts up, it could be an opportunity to look within as well as a chance to learn some basic techniques for maintenance. Furthermore, practitioners who come to help are not repairmen. Rather, they come here out of compassion. As Dafa practitioners, we should be considerate of others’ time and effort.”
She agreed with my point of view.
[Scenario 8] Do Not Acknowledge the Old Forces’ Arrangement
When I went out of town to teach some basic techniques to repair and restore electronic devices, one fellow practitioner commented, “I think that before we all came down from heaven, there were probably only a few practitioners that were arranged for technical roles. That’s why today, we have an extraordinary shortage of technical manpower. Many practitioners do not learn or cannot learn.”
I said I did not believe so. Even if that were the case, it must have been an arrangement made by the old forces, not Master. If we acknowledge such an arrangement, the old forces will then focus their efforts on persecuting these technical practitioners to achieve the goal of testing Dafa disciples as a whole. In recent years, technical practitioners and coordinating practitioners in mainland China have been persecuted in batches. Perhaps it is because many of our fellow practitioners consciously or unconsciously conformed to the old forces’ arrangement and gave them a loophole to exploit.
Master said to us:
“Our Dafa disciples are shouldering many tasks at the same time. If you can do one thing well, while managing to do another thing well at the same time, then go for it.”Fa Teaching Given at the 2010 New York Fa Conference
My understanding is that Master has granted us the ability and wisdom to break through the old forces' arrangements and save all sentient beings.
Sometimes I joked with fellow practitioners, “Since 1999, how many years have we been validating the Fa and saving sentient beings for? A person who doesn’t know anything would have finished their entire education by now, and if he is strict with himself, he should have graduated with a Ph.D. by now, right?”
Fundamentally, I believe that having technical skills is a question of whether a practitioner is strict with themselves and holds themselves to a high standard in cultivation.
[Scenario 9] Be Very Cautious With Money-Related Problems
Handle Things by Following the Fa, not Human Sentiment
We often encounter such situations in the actual cultivation process. Some fellow practitioners have said, “I don’t have any skills, I'm not involved in any projects, and I have not set up a material center at home. But I want to contribute, so I want to give you this amount of money.”
What should we do in such a situation?
I will talk about some of my insights based on my own experience. I know a fellow practitioner named Jing, he was a helpful old gentleman even before he began practicing Falun Dafa. He was even more helpful after he obtained Fa. Later, some fellow practitioners even gave him the nickname “ask and you shall receive.” I spoke with him several times and suggested that he enlighten to things on the basis of the Fa, but he carried on in his usual way.
One day, a fellow practitioner he helped a lot took money from him for a project, but came back and told Jing that he was short 10,000 yuan. Jing knew the amount he gave was correct, but that did not help with the situation. In the end, Jing just let it go, thinking he might have owed the other practitioner in a previous life.
Eventually, Jing learned that the other practitioner often wasted money from other practitioners and had affairs with women. He was arrested and sentenced to many years in prison. Jing regretted enabling this practitioner; from then on, he learned a lesson and stopped indiscriminately helping out with any request.
Do Not Add Unnecessary Risks for Fellow Practitioners
Another fellow practitioner Yun asked me: “When others insist on giving me money for a project, what should I do?”
“If you do not have a big project, then you should turn it down,” I said.
“What if they insist?”
“If that is the case, then you should find out what it is they want. If they want to validate the Fa, then you can buy a computer and printer for them. Let them walk their own path to validate the Fa—wouldn't that be great?”
“If they refuse to take the computer, then what?”
“Then you should return the money. Because if a person is only interested in spending money to gain virtue, that is not right. When a person cultivates, they have to validate Fa themselves and save sentient beings.”
Several days later, Yun told me that she wanted to purchase a large inkjet printer. She wanted to know more about the machine from me because I had one. I said it was very expensive. She said that was no problem since she had the money. I was also concerned that it was big and noisy, which makes it hard to keep. She did not reply and left.
Later, she was arrested and her home was ransacked. I learned that the police confiscated 70,000 yuan from her home. Now I realized why she wanted to purchase the expensive equipment. She received too much money from other practitioners and wanted to spend it on devices for truth-clarification. As a result, the evil forces intensified their persecution because of this money. She lived a very disciplined and thrifty life herself. But the money everyone insisted on giving her for projects only harmed her in the end.
A fellow practitioner who gave her 10,000 yuan felt heartbroken. She knew that Yun was very strict with herself regarding money issues, so that was the reason she felt comfortable leaving Yun the money. However, it brought a tribulation to Yun instead. What a painful lesson! In the future, we must follow the requirements of the Fa on related issues to truly take the right path.
Once a fellow practitioner was arrested and held at a prison in another city. Practitioner Kai heard the news and discussed it with Jing; they wanted to go and visit her family. Kai was in a very good financial situation, and they thought it might help to leave a good impression on the arrested practitioner's husband, who was an ordinary person.
The two fellow practitioners drove to the arrested practitioner's house in a car worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, exchanged a few words, and left two thousand yuan for the practitioner's husband. Jing was happy and told me about it.
But shortly after that, Jing told me things got worse since their last visit. The husband of the persecuted practitioner squandered the money quickly and went to the local coordinator to asked for more money from Kai. He threatened that if the money is not received, he would report all of the practitioners to the police.
Jing felt awful about the event. It started with a good intention, but he and Kai missed the opportunity to clarify the truth further with the husband of the persecuted practitioner. They triggered his greed and jealousy, which brought about security concerns for the local practitioners.
That's why cultivation is so serious. If we do not follow the requirements of the Fa, we may end up failing in our cultivation and inviting further persecution. This incident also highlights a problem that many of our fellow practitioners have been unable to resolve—not clarifying the truth to their own families. To those who still haven't done so, please hurry!
The above experience really shows the seriousness of the cultivation and necessity of sharing our experiences. In the article “Reminders for Practitioners Involved in Technology Support,” the author pointed out that technical practitioners lacked an overall cultivation environment, so their xinxing could not keep up.
I personally think that this is not the case. They have a very good cultivation environment precisely because they often contact the material center. They often interact with many fellow practitioners who cultivate solidly. The difference is that most of our fellow practitioners didn't communicate, were not good at communicating, and wouldn’t communicate on the basis of the Fa.
We need to communicate and handle things well according to the Fa, not our human hearts. If we are truly able to think for the sake of our fellow practitioners and sentient beings, if we can really look at problems like divine beings of the new cosmos, and if we can base things on the Fa, we can often get to the core of the problem at once.
This principle is not just a matter of simply getting rid of our attachments. The way I see things, to become an Arhat is to get rid of all attachments in the human world. Then, to cultivate into a higher divine being, the standard for cultivators must be much higher than that of Arhats, so it goes beyond simply a matter of getting rid of attachments. It is whether we can be responsible for more lives. But how?
My understanding is that we have to help more fellow practitioners ascend as soon as possible, so that everyone can improve as a whole. How do we do this? I believe we have to treat others selflessly in the process of cultivation, consider things from other people's perspectives, and be responsible for more practitioners' consummation, instead of just giving them personal conveniences in everyday society.
Editor’s note: This article only represents the author’s current understanding meant for sharing among practitioners so that we can “Compare with one another in study, in cultivation.” (“Solid Cultivation,” Hong Yin)
(To be continued)
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Category: Improving Oneself
