(Minghui.org) The author of the article “Remember to Only Follow Master’s Arrangements” enlightened that “… the situation will be whatever you want it to be. It all depends on how you think about it.”
I looked at the issue from a different perspective, Teacher’s call to return to traditional culture.
The 5000 years of Chinese traditional culture was a stepping stone for today’s Fa-rectification. It provides us with a reference for our thoughts and behavior. It is difficult to realize the higher level content of Master’s Fa without traditional culture as an underlying foundation. Without it, one would only continue to tumble and face tribulations when trying to dissolve the persecution.
Sickness karma, arrests, and illegal detentions have been with us for the past 20 years of the persecution. The practitioners in China live in a country filled with poverty, lies, killing, and famine, since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) assumption of power, as soon as they are born.
The traditional culture in China was destroyed by the CCP. Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, all of which provided moral and behavioral guidance, were denounced to the extent of extinction. Citizens were brainwashed under the CCP's oppression. People’s thoughts and behavior defy the bottom line of moral standards that deities set for us.
I heard a story related to traditional culture in China on Minghui Radio. Roughly it said that a Taoist was meditating one morning, and a person passed by him. The Taoist saw with his celestial eye that behind the person was a hoard of grotesque demons that waved and shouted. A while later, the same person returned, passing him again. This time there were nice deities, beautiful banners and flags behind him.
The Taoist was surprised. He stopped the person and asked him where he had gone. The person told him that he had gone to kill a debtor who not only owed him money but refused to pay him and laughed at him. Yet, when he was arriving at the debtor's place, he recalled that the debtor had a wife and an elderly mother. His wife and mother would have no support if the debtor was killed. So the person decided not to go through with the killing.
If we have grown up under a system that honors traditional culture, we will be able to understand the true meaning of:
“Compassion can harmonize Heaven and Earth, ushering in spring” (“The Fa rectifies the Cosmos,” Hong YinVol. II)
Following a compassionate, righteous person are always righteous deities, flags, and banners. The evil could barely defend themselves. They would not be able to control human beings and make them arrest or jail practitioners. There will be then no need for practitioners to avoid or hide from police when they come.
A practitioner in our Fa-study group is on the police department's blacklist. She always smiles. During the past 20 years of cultivation, she has always followed Master's requirement – being compassionate and kind to people.
She went to Beijing to see her son a few months ago. The police appeared in front of her as soon as she sat down aboard the train. She had over 100 copies of journals about Falun Dafa and over a thousand bills of paper money with Dafa information written on them.
One could imagine a big struggle between the righteous and the evil occurring in that train car. The police officer came toward her. She looked at him with a smile and righteous thoughts. She answered his questions kindly. A few minutes later, the officer left satisfied, without searching her.
This practitioner probably did not know that behind her kind smile and righteous thoughts were righteous deities, flags, and banners, and Master was helping her.
Another practitioner in our area was released from prison two years ago. She got angry and fought with anyone who would not listen to her or defamed Dafa when she clarified the truth to them. She felt this was protecting Dafa. As a result, someone she talked to called the police. She was again arrested, jailed, and sentenced to prison. She is currently still in prison.
If this practitioner had traditional culture as the foundation for her cultivation and righteous deities, flags, and banners (rather than a hoard of demons waiving and shouting) following her, perhaps the arrest would not have happened.
The two examples support what the author of the article said: “… the situation will be whatever you want it to be. It all depends on how you think about it.”
There is another point I want to add to the practitioner’s article. If our thoughts are based on a foundation of divine culture, we will have a reference and standards to guide us. It will be consistent with the Master's requirement to
“Return to tradition to connect with the divine” (“Creating Anew”).
The author’s description of the situations that can make one wonder (“whether the police who arrest them may be the ones that Master referred to as being beyond salvation” and whether the practitioner may be in danger), or can make one confused and unable to discern what will no longer exist. In other words, connecting to traditional culture and Dafa directly enables us to reach our destination more straightforwardly and gives us more confidence on our path of cultivation.
Divine culture teaches people how to behave as a person. Dafa teaches practitioners how to cultivate. One must know how to behave as a person first to be able to be a practitioner. Thus, the divine culture is indispensable for a Dafa practitioner. It is the most critical.
The CCP has been using its power and control to destroy traditional culture since it was established. The purpose was to keep the Chinese people from knowing how to behave and from cultivating. It created the inverse, turning Chinese people into demons, full of hatred, and created obstacles that have been difficult for today’s practitioners to overcome.
Master mentioned returning to traditional culture in his later Fa-lectures many times. How does one demonstrate “Remember to Only Follow Master’s Arrangements?” All one needs to do is to just follow what Master said.