(Minghui.org) Throughout the ages, tyrants and those who resist them have clashed. No doubt, any resistance against oppression would be answered by the brutality of the tyrants, who try to stay in power through suppression.
Tyrants rule through fear and go to great lengths to plant fear into the hearts of men to deter any resistance. Resistance against tyrannical rule is known to result in cold-blooded suppression, exile, arrest, prison, torture, and even death.
In my opinion, however, for a Falun Dafa practitioner, the thought of unavoidable oppression is actually a human notion that needs to be eliminated. To my regret, due to a failure to understand the Fa well, I and other practitioners have let such a human notion take hold of our minds – whether knowingly or unknowingly.
We shouldn't confuse our efforts to clarify the facts about Falun Dafa and resist the persecution in order to save sentient beings with ordinary resistance against oppression.
Too often we give the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its dark minions a powerful tool because we downgrade our own power as cultivators. We suspect that we could be persecuted if we step forward to do what a cultivator is supposed to do and regard our Dafa books and truth-clarification efforts as "evidence" that the evil can use to indict us. When we let such notions take hold, we endorse the persecution or, to put it more explicitly, we give the evil the power to persecute us.
Practitioners must keep in mind that our truth clarification, resisting the persecution, and saving sentient beings are fundamentally different from resisting tyranny.
Ordinary people's resistance against tyranny and oppression is a matter for ordinary human beings, which is the manifestation of the rule of the old cosmos in the human world. In contrast, we do the three things not as ordinary people but as Master's disciples, the divine guards of Dafa who have descended to this world. We are not resisting tyranny, but assisting Master in Fa-rectification.
We are not under the control of the evil. Master is in charge of us, and thus practitioners should never acknowledge the evil's persecution of practitioners. Under Master's protection, given that we immerse ourselves in the Fa and conduct ourselves always with righteousness, the evil can do nothing to us but will be eliminated by us.
Even if there are loopholes in our cultivation due to human attachments we have not yet let go, it is a matter of how to improve ourselves in the Fa, not an excuse to be used by the evil for persecuting us. In this sense, we should not fear the evil. On the contrary, the evil will fear us.
As practitioners we face two paths. One is the cultivation path in the Fa-rectification period arranged by Master, while the other is to cultivate only to attain personal consummation as arranged by the old forces. Our choice between the two paths depends on whether we conduct ourselves with righteous thought and actions as required by Master or give ourselves to the rule of the old cosmos and our human notions.
If we think that our Falun Dafa books and truth-clarification materials will be used to persecute us, we will be targeted for persecution. Even as we endure such tribulation and persecution with remarkable tenacity, we still fail to meet Master's requirement.
While I was pondering this, the reason why Master repeatedly emphasized the importance of Fa study became even more obvious to me. Only through studying the Fa well can we gain a clear insight into the relationship between Master, Dafa, Fa-rectification, Dafa practitioners, and the old forces.
The fundamental difference between our cultivation in the Fa-rectification era and normal people's resistance against tyranny and oppression is that we “fundamentally change their way of thinking ” (Zhuan Falun) Under the guidance of Dafa we will maintain our righteous thought and actions at all times, completely negate the arrangement of the old forces, walk the path of cultivation in the Fa-rectification period as arranged by Master, and fulfill our prehistoric pledge to save sentient beings.
These are some of my personal views. Please kindly point out anything inappropriate.