(Minghui.org) I discovered my attachments in the process of using the law to clarify the truth about the persecution and it was a wake up call.
I was subjected to all sorts of persecution, which greatly interfered with my efforts to validate the Fa and help Master save sentient beings. It also brought big losses to my cultivation, and made my life difficult. I had no choice but to use the law to confront the persecutors directly.
I was isolated and felt helpless but I did not forget my responsibility as a practitioner, and I started this project under difficult circumstances. Although there were no practitioners around, I found the Justice Forum column on Minghui.org. I chose a project as my starting point, and an expert on the forum guided me step-by-step. The practitioner’s encouragement and support helped me gain a lot of confidence and motivated me. I felt that “Dafa disciples are one.” (“Teaching the Fa at the Conference in the Midwest-U.S.”)
I knew Master arranged this practitioner to work with me and he did not give up on me no matter how dire my situation became.
The process started with information gathering, followed by administrative review, and then administrative litigation. The whole process was a way to stand up to the persecutors, let them see that Dafa is good, and try to save them at the same time. I started with the thought to solve my own problems, and then I tried to show others that Dafa is good. When I gathered information I didn’t just focus on one issue.
Whether the Heart Starts with Saving People
I’ve always looked young, but I had a few gray hairs. When the project reached the administrative review stage, I noticed my gray hair suddenly increased. When I reached the administrative litigation stage, gray hair appeared on the top of my head. I thought, saving people is truly hard. It’s even causing my hair to turn gray.
It’s challenging for someone who isn’t specialized in the law to write a professional legal document. One may remember that an article is from a certain law, but forget which law another article is from. They may forget when this or that document was mailed, when it is due, what format it needs to be in, or what content it needs to have. I’m usually not that meticulous but I had to deal with these details.
The whole document has to be written with rigorous logic. But I’m casual, so I was lucky to have the forum practitioner who patiently helped me. The forum also has legal training courses for amateurs. I followed them so I could learn and I took the course three times.
Most people who write legal documents focus on techniques. I felt that as a practitioner, aside from knowledge and techniques, it’s more important to write in a way that can inspire people. One needs to put one’s heart into it and remember to have compassion. I feel this has to do with my xinxing. Unless one has compassion as broad as the sea, what we write won’t have powerful energy.
I sent the documents out multiple times, but they were returned each time. They were rejected because of insufficient contents, insufficient evidence, or I wrote them in the wrong format. I patiently corrected them each time and sent them again. In the end there were no more flaws, but they were still rejected. I was disappointed, but not entirely. I noticed people’s kindness emerging between our communications, and that was what I was looking for. It motivated me to keep going.
Because the project was aimed at the persecutors, I couldn’t help but remember how I was persecuted—the prison guards’ twisted faces and gestures, the policemen’s violence, their lack of humanity when they ransacked homes, and how they spied on or followed people. My relatives’ pain and feelings of being powerless all touched my heart. Am I still kind? Is my heart as open as the sea? Are my righteous thoughts still strong?
If we start from the standpoint of personal interest, our righteous thoughts may waver. My standpoint contained factors of solving my own problems and thus was not entirely righteous or for others. The old forces were watching and harmed me when my righteous thoughts were lacking.
Strict Requirements for Myself
The law is rigid and caused my rigidity to emerge when I was not careful. Practitioners should have compassion and be powerful. To balance the two requires wisdom.
I was arrested and taken to a detention center. My main consciousness did not overcome my human attachments and bad thoughts. It was interfered with from all directions and I was pressured by the old forces. It manifested in my writing and my interactions with others.
When gray hair appeared on the sides and back of my head I decided to stop working on the project and look inward. One day, Minghui Radio was broadcasting an article, which sounded familiar. It turned out the article was written by me. I talked about compassion, and I pledged to be compassionate to sentient beings. When I heard this it was as though I slapped myself in the face. I felt Master was giving me a hint, telling me that I did not do what I pledged and this was the problem.
I realized that in the process, using the law itself is not the purpose, nor is it to resolve one’s own problems. The fundamental purpose is to save people. One can have the thought of ending the persecution, but it should not be our goal. If the fundamental purpose was missed, utilizing the law is meaningless. Rather, it wasted time and effort. The evil can always find loopholes.
Everything we do must be for saving people to be truly effective. Otherwise it will be wasting time and one will feel regret in the future. One must be cautious when using the law. A police officer told me when I was arrested, “You should be a lawyer.” I was a bit flattered, but now I feel what he said was ironic. Looking back at my mindset, I gradually took it as a technical job and I became interested in it. Indeed, I thought about becoming a lawyer.
All religions talk about compassion, but compassion in Fa-rectification cultivation is different. It shoulders different things and is much bigger. It has elements of selflessness, whether in our own cultivation or in saving sentient beings. As long as we do the three things well, everything we cultivate, everything we do, and everything we achieve carries an element of selflessness. Once we deviate from the Fa, the words we write become nothing but slogans.
Due to limitations of the human body, we need to maintain righteous thoughts all the time. I understood that to save those sentient beings, we need even larger compassion and wisdom and have stricter requirements on ourselves. Those practitioner who can do well have common characteristics, that is to be able to maintain righteous thoughts at any place and any time, and use the Fa to measure oneself and everything one encounters.
One cannot deviate slightly on the path of cultivation. If a thought that does not agree with the Fa is not rectified right away, the deviation will grow bigger and bigger as the project progresses.
This are my experiences and also a summary. The starting point being not quite pure seemed to foreshadow the difficulty of the process. If it wasn’t for Master’s protection, I wouldn’t have been able to get through this, let alone save people.
In closing, I truly believe I need to be strict with myself and cultivate well. I need to cherish every moment, diligently save people and elevate myself, while doing my work. Although I did not do well, Master never gave up on me. I have boundless gratitude to Master and I want to accomplish my mission well.
Thank you, Master. Thank you, fellow practitioners on the forum for your help.
Category: Cultivation Insights
