(Minghui.org) As the Fa rectification gets closer to completion, several issues have surfaced in our cultivation.
Some practitioners are very interested in commentaries by the China expert at NTDTV. They feel at a loss if they don't read his latest commentary. They spread his words among one another with great interest, showing off and disturbing others. Their hearts move up and down based on events in society.
My understanding is that the primary audience of NTDTV is ordinary society, not Dafa practitioners. The commentaries are at the level of everyday people, analyzing the current events and helping them see and understand the fundamental problems of Chinese society. The purpose is to expose the true nature of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its atrocities against Falun Dafa practitioners and the Chinese people.
As Dafa practitioners, we can certainly watch it and use the materials when telling others about Falun Dafa. But we cannot pay too much attention to this. If our minds are always on these issues, haven't they become interference to our cultivation?
However insightful the commentaries are, they are meant to awaken the goodness in people. They are not for guiding cultivators. As cultivators, we are guided by the principles of the universe. How could we be so interested in human affairs? Isn't this clinging to a human mindset? How can we succeed in cultivation this way?
Moreover, when we don't cultivate speech and pass on hearsay embellished with our own understandings, we may stir up fellow practitioners' attachments and interfere with them doing the three things well. The karma resulting from this is no small matter.
Cultivation is a serious matter and no minor detail can be overlooked. Don't think that simply passing around someone's words is no big deal. The old forces do not think so and are measuring us with the standard of a Dafa practitioner. When you hold on to your human mindset and interfere with practitioners around you, won't this bring trouble to you and/or your fellow practitioners? Isn't this dangerous?
Some practitioners pay a lot of attention to the power struggle in China's central government, speculating that so and so is going to arrest so and so. Every step of development of human society nowadays is arranged by gods for saving people. As Dafa practitioners, the development of the political environment is for us to recognize the urgency of saving people before the end comes; it is not for us to develop an attachment to the current political environment.
The Chinese Communist Party will not redress the issue of Falun Dafa because it, itself, is the culprit of the persecution and will be eliminated. I believe that the evil head of the CCP will be tried in the end, but not by the CCP.
Some practitioners have asked, “Master had said that the old forces do not exist anymore, so why are practitioners being arrested and persecuted after they filed lawsuits against Jiang Zemin?” They are troubled by it and could not understand why. That is because they are looking at it at a superficial level with a human mindset. They treat suing Jiang Zemin as just another task to complete, not understanding it from the Fa.
Some practitioners appeared to be persecuted after they sued Jiang Zemin, but that is not the reason. It is because these practitioners still have human notions and are not completely aligned with the Fa. For those practitioners who truly cultivate and do the three things according to Master's wish, who dares to touch them? For those who filed lawsuits against Jiang for purpose of saving people, who dares to touch them?
Master said,
“Although the old forces no longer exist, the things they arranged in the Three Realms are still having an effect. So in other words, even though the evil beings left now are few, and today the world's people as a whole are rapidly awakening, the evil still won't quit just like that. So during this time, before the evil beings are ultimately and completely eliminated, they still play a role and they are still that evil--it's just that their power has diminished now and there are fewer places where they can do evil.” ("Teaching the Fa at the 2004 Chicago Conference")
My understanding is that the old forces still exist in our dimensions when we do not cultivate well. The way we think, our attachments, our notions, and our thought karma were all arranged by the old forces. When we have an attachment that we cannot suppress or eliminate, that's because the factors of the old forces are behind it.
The old forces' arrangements include the attachments we cannot get rid of for a long period of time, our interest in hearsay, our interfering with fellow practitioners, disrupting the Fa, and attachment to supernormal abilities, etc. When we do not follow the Fa to get rid of them, when we unintentionally indulge in them, aren't we following the old forces' arrangements? They, of course, will take charge of us, interfere with us, and persecute us.
Just because someone filed a lawsuit against Jiang Zemin, it does not mean he has let go of his human notions. When the old forces interfere with him, they do not care that he had done well in one thing. When they see a gap in his cultivation, they will use it as an excuse to persecute him.
There are practitioners in my area who have been persecuted after they filed lawsuits against Jiang Zemin. Some were illegally detained, some were tortured to the point of being hospitalized and some even lost their lives. Among these practitioners, some had passed around things that are not part of Dafa; some had attachments to the celestial eye and trying to see things about others in other dimensions; some eagerly promoted those with supernormal abilities among fellow practitioners; some did not cultivate solidly and wandered between different Fa-study groups and showed off how much he or she knew; and some have had attachments to competitiveness, resentment, lust, personal gain, etc. for a long period of time.
Master said in "Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A."
“Of course, each one of our Dafa disciples says that we don't recognize the old forces' arrangements, but that's not something you just say--you have to follow the requirements of Dafa and the Fa-rectification. “I absolutely will not acknowledge any of those things you arranged in the past, old forces. I don't even acknowledge you." When your righteous thoughts are very strong you can purge it and you can reject their arrangements. (Applause) And that's because we absolutely cannot acknowledge them.”
In order to walk the Fa-rectification path righteously, you must follow the Fa strictly in every thought and everything you do; put your mind on doing the three things well; and then you will be able to negate the old forces, reject their arrangements, and raise your level.
Master said,
“You have gone through great trials and hardships to arrive at where you are today. By all means, you shouldn't let your heart and mind bob about like duckweed, stirred at the first hint of wind.” (“On the Novel The Cosmos's Calamity”)
and
“Cultivation practice is a serious matter. The distance has become greater and greater. It is extremely dangerous to add anything human to cultivation practice. ” (“Digging Out the Roots,” Essentials for Further Advancement)
Let us all cultivate genuinely and solidly by following the Fa. These are just my own personal understandings, please point out anything inappropriate.