(Minghui.org) A number of practitioners in our area have recently been arrested. At first, one or two were arrested, and they were released the same day. Seven practitioners were then arrested together when they were reading Falun Dafa’s teachings. They were held for more than 48 hours.
In the most recent case, a practitioner was arrested while clarifying the truth. The police initially said he would be released in 15 days, but when his family went to pick him up, the practitioner had been transferred to the city detention center, and the charge of administrative detention was changed to criminal detention. It has been more than a month now, and he remains in the detention center.
Why is this still happening today when most of the evil factors have already been eliminated? Over the years, practitioners in our area have been relatively stable on their paths, but what is happening this year? I’ve been thinking about it and had a few realizations. I feel this is aimed at our entire group of practitioners.
Conflicts Among Coordinators
The coordinators in our area have different opinions. They each insist on their own opinions and cannot agree with one another, which caused many conflicts. We all know that the coordinators work very hard and do so much for everyone. I really admire and respect them from the bottom of my heart. But when conflicts arise, they should also carefully examine themselves for attachments and remember that coordinating projects is an opportunity to cultivate themselves.
We are all humans cultivating so we all have attachments, which we should strive to get rid of. When we see a fellow practitioner has an attachment, we should quickly point it out. We should not have conflicts because we have different opinions. These conflicts can cause estrangement or even resentment toward other practitioners.
A practitioner recently pointed out my shortcomings. My first reaction was to disagree. He said, “Whether you think what I said is right or not, you should search inward carefully and think about why I told you this.” I then realized that my mindset of wanting to argue was not me, and I immediately negated that thought.
After he left, I thought to myself, “When he pointed out my shortcomings, why did I refute him? Because I had a competitive mentality. Why was I so unconvinced? Because I felt I was right and looked down on him. That was jealousy. Why did I want to force him to accept my opinion? Because I have the desire to show off and the attachment to self.” After discovering these attachments, I talked with him. This time he was calm and was able to accept my suggestions.
Looking Outward at Others’ Shortcomings
I suddenly remembered that Master Li (Dafa’s founder) gave me hints in dreams about my attachments. In those dreams, I had disputes with others. When they said mean things to me, I thought about some sarcastic and sharp words to use against them. However, my throat was suddenly stuck. I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t make a sound. Whenever I had these dreams, I thought that Master was giving me hints to eliminate my competitive mentality. But now I’m awakened, and I realized there was more to it.
For many years, I’ve looked outward. I’ve wanted to convince the other practitioners to do certain things. When they didn’t follow my suggestions, I even wrote articles for Minghui and when they were published on Minghui and Minghui Weekly, I used it to validate myself and argue with them. When I look back now, how strong my attachments were! Even after my articles were published, the other practitioners still insisted on their opinions. It was as if they hadn’t seen the articles. Why couldn’t they see them? Master’s hints to me in my dreams were very clear. Although I felt that my reasoning was well-founded, I opened my mouth and couldn’t make a sound – the other practitioners just couldn’t hear me at all. It was because they were blocked by my attachments.
When I saw Master’s new lectures that touched on certain issues, I always thought to myself, “Those practitioners will see their shortcomings when they read it. Master said it so clearly, why can’t they change?” I wanted to use Master’s lectures and Minghui to change others. What a bad and strong attachment it was! I’ve been obsessed about this for so many years and let this attachment survive for so long, but I did not realize it. Master’s Fa is for us to look for our own shortcomings. Whenever we see something, we must look within ourselves instead of looking outward and criticizing other practitioners.
I once heard a story about a fellow practitioner’s student. This student had many bad habits, didn’t do the homework, always made trouble, and would not listen or change. The practitioner really disliked the student and always got angry with him. But one day, the practitioner suddenly realized she was wrong and began to reflect on it, “Why do I dislike this student so much? Because he is very disobedient. He affects the overall atmosphere in the class and affects the other students, which then leads to the average grade of the class going down. My class ranking will get worse. This makes me unhappy. It’s the attachment to fame! Moreover, when he doesn’t listen to me while other students are watching, this affects my prestige. It’s still an attachment to fame. He is stubborn and won’t change, isn’t that just like me? Am I not the same in this regard? I have not been diligent for so many years. Master has given me many hints, yet I still did not awaken and I refuse to change!
“I have not been diligent, I forgot what Master told us to do. I refuse to wake up even after Master gave me so many hints. Master has not given up on me and has been mercifully giving me more hints and having fellow practitioners help me. If He didn’t give up on a disciple like me, then how can we give up on practitioners who have come through all the ups and downs with us? We are all Falun Dafa practitioners. We should look at everything with a compassionate heart and not focus on the shortcomings of others. We should look inside ourselves to find our shortcomings instead.”
Cultivation of Speech
I’m not a coordinator, but I know who our local coordinators are and what each one does. I had no intention of finding out this information, yet I knew everything. This was because some practitioners did not pay attention to cultivating their speech and often casually talked about the coordinators. This really increased the risk for the coordinators. When this was pointed out by others, they would say that they didn’t expose the coordinators intentionally. But weren’t the coordinators still at risk? Cultivation is such a serious matter, and Master has talked about this so many times. We really should pay attention to it.
Some practitioners casually tell others who they are close to about what another fellow practitioner does. No matter how close we are, we should not talk about what another practitioner does. This is even true for practitioners who are husband and wife. They should not talk about it even if both of them know. We absolutely cannot talk about sensitive information to our family members who are not practitioners. To put it more seriously, we must stop betraying and exposing practitioners and Dafa projects!
When conflicts arise among fellow practitioners, we start to blame each other and both parties want to change the other. The conflicts can become more and more serious, and we develop resentment toward one another. We both think the other person is wrong and is doing things against Fa’s principles. If it doesn’t get resolved over time, and if we do not improve and our attachments do not go away, we’ll continue to wonder why the other person does not want to correct themselves. We sometimes even complain to other practitioners about it.
Using Righteous Thoughts to Dissolve Resentment
If we see that a practitioner has an attachment, we should kindly point it out. If the practitioner can realize it, he or she will improve. If the practitioner doesn’t realize it, it could be because there are negative factors manipulating them, and we should not accuse the practitioner behind his or her back. We should send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the bad factors.
Although our accusations and complaints seem invisible, they are in fact a tangible substance. Even when we have complaints in our minds and don’t say them, the substance is still there and will be all added to fellow practitioners’ dimensional fields. This is especially true for the coordinators who are facing all the local practitioners. If each of us puts something on them, it will create a lot of interference, which will affect their cultivation.
Master asks us to send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the bad beings and factors in other dimensions. We all know the importance and power of sending righteous thoughts. But when we complain about fellow practitioners, we are adding bad things to their fields. This is exactly the opposite of what Master asks us to do. Complaining about other practitioners is basically siding with the evil factors and acting as a demon. If a practitioner gives up cultivation because of this or even goes to the opposite side, we will have committed an enormous sin!
When we are all able to purify our minds and treat other practitioners with compassion, we will find that although every practitioner has some kind of attachment to eliminate, they are all diligent and working hard to validate Dafa. We should step out of the conflicts and treat them as opportunities to improve our xinxing and find our hidden attachments. In this way, we can turn bad situations into something positive.
When something goes wrong in a group of practitioners, everyone is responsible. Everyone is part of the group and has given the conflict a push in the wrong direction.
Relying on Others Are CCP Notions
When a practitioner gets arrested, our first thought should be to immediately disintegrate the evil factors that are persecuting him and strengthen that practitioner’s righteous thoughts, so that he can break through the tribulation. We should then look for our own shortcomings and ask ourselves, “Why did this happen? What attachments do I have?” We really should not examine that practitioner for his or her attachments. Looking for the practitioner’s attachments will not strengthen their righteous thoughts, but will only increase the interference he’s enduring.
When a practitioner gets arrested, of course, the coordinators need to organize our efforts and rescue him. However, if for various reasons, the coordinators have not taken action or are a bit slow, we should not complain. Our resentments are tangible things and will be added to the coordinators’ fields.
Every one of us should act as a coordinator when needed. Everyone should be responsible and take the initiative to think: “What can I do for practitioners when they are persecuted? What can I do for the one-body?” If articles to expose the perpetrators’ crimes have not been written, we can pick up a pen; if the specific information about the persecution has not been found, we can try to collect the information; if the time for sending forth righteous thoughts for the detained fellow practitioner has not been determined, each person or each Fa-study group can independently arrange times to send righteous thoughts for the practitioner, either from home or at a spot near the detention center. We can also help the practitioner’s family go to the police station and ask that the practitioner be released.
If we all just waited, however, and relied on the coordinators and demand they arrange things, it will undoubtedly increase the pressure and burden on them. Many of us have not realized that waiting, relying on, and demanding are all part of CCP culture. We have accepted this mindset and don’t realize it’s something we should eliminate. The manifestation of this concept includes: “You are my fellow practitioner, so it’s your responsibility to help me;” “My machine is broken, come and repair it for me;” “You have to provide me with materials;” “Coordinator, come up with the materials and arrange for us to go and ask for the practitioner’s release.”
Many of us have not realized that we can all learn to surf the Internet, do simple repairs, and print materials by ourselves so that the burden on other practitioners will be lightened. Otherwise, this invisible pressure will fall on just a few people.
I know a coordinator practitioner who worked day and night for Dafa projects. The huge pressure left him with little time to study the Fa, and many practitioners still didn’t understand his situation. The tribulations from his family and the pressure from the other practitioners made him helpless. He felt that he couldn’t make it, so he asked Master for help to eliminate his karma. He then saw a scene of billowing black water flowing under his feet, filled with sentient beings who had been destroyed. Those were all sentient beings from his world and were, in fact, all divine beings! When we don’t do well, the corresponding sentient beings will not be saved. As he watched his sentient beings being destroyed, the practitioner had tears in his eyes but couldn’t do anything. I understood how he felt. These tears were remorse for those beings and feelings of guilt for not being diligent.
Every Dafa disciple is an independent king presiding over his or her own world. We should establish our own mighty virtue. If we push all the responsibilities on others, how will we build up our own mighty virtue and what will happen to our sentient beings?
Looking inward is a powerful tool that Master has given us. We should not look for the shortcomings of those practitioners who were arrested, and we should not complain that the coordinators haven’t done well. We need to look for what we can do and what responsibilities we can take on instead. In this way, Dafa disciples can truly become an indestructible one-body.
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Category: Improving Oneself
