(Minghui.org) Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
In the 30 years of my cultivating Falun Dafa, I have come to deeply understand what Master told us: “The entire cultivation process for a cultivator is one of constantly giving up human attachments.” (Lecture One, Zhuan Falun) All the tribulations and conflicts I experienced were arranged for the purpose of removing my attachments. Looking back on the path I have traveled, the hardships have become things of the past, and the difficult years seem to have been a process of wearing down the hard shell of my notions. Cultivation comes down to purifying my heart, placing it in the Fa, and assimilating to the Fa.
Twenty years ago, a fellow practitioner was abducted and incarcerated at the Masanjia Women’s Forced Labor Camp in Liaoning Province. We were all deeply troubled. Two practitioners from another area came to visit us and said, “Don’t remain passive. We should speak out in support of our fellow practitioner and strengthen her with righteous thoughts, because Dafa practitioners have done nothing wrong. It is the police who are breaking the law.”
Later on, we spoke with the persecuted practitioner’s family members, who were not practitioners. Eventually we decided to go together to visit the practitioner in the labor camp. At that time, she was on a hunger strike to protest the persecution, and the situation was urgent.
Early one morning, three family members and three practitioners drove the Masanjia Labor Camp in a rental van. We practitioners felt a little nervous, so we silently sent forth righteous thoughts. After several hours on the road, we arrived at the main gate and went into the reception area. The guard responsible for visits told us that we could not see her. However, we insisted that we would not leave without seeing her, and her family members maintained a very positive attitude. The practitioner’s father-in-law was nearly 90 years old. He told the guards how much he missed his daughter-in-law, how she had always cared for him with the devotion and respect of a daughter, and insisted on seeing her. We practitioners remained calm and composed, sending righteous thoughts in our hearts to disintegrate the evil arrangements. Master strengthened us, and the guards became much less aggressive.
Before long, a guard who seemed to be in charge of administrative affairs arrived and said he would help get our visit approved. Another practitioner and I, plus the persecuted practitioner’s older sister, went with the guard to an office building on the other side, apparently to find the relevant officials. I remained in an empty room on the first floor while they continued on. I calmed down and stood there, gazing out of the window toward the labor camp building and sending righteous thoughts to disintegrate the evil factors. Suddenly, I felt a powerful energy envelope me. It was as though I had been immobilized. There were no distracting thoughts in my mind whatsoever. I was simply eliminating the evil in other dimensions. I felt Master strengthening me with his boundless divine power.
After the three of us returned to the reception office, the door opened, and a male guard came out with a vicious look in his eyes. Immediately afterward, eight more guards rushed out and lined up along one side of the reception room, staring at us as though trying to intimidate us. We were then permitted to meet with the practitioner. Two practitioners remained outside the reception room, while the four of us went inside.
The reception room had two rows of long benches facing each other, with a small tea table in between. The practitioner slowly walked out from the passage on the opposite side. She looked somewhat weak. Her husband called out her name and said, “Don’t be afraid! I understand the laws now. If anyone bullies you, we will sue them!” His voice rang out and was very encouraging. We sat down on one of the benches. At first, a female guard stood nearby watching us, but after a while she left. As we encouraged the practitioner, we also learned something about the conditions inside. The meeting proceeded smoothly.
In that den of evil, where the persecution was rampant, the guards wanted to isolate and persecute the detained practitioner. However, none of us accepted what they initially told us, which was that we were not allowed to see her. We were determined to see her, and, in the end, we did. Throughout the entire process, our hearts remained pure. Master strengthened our righteous thoughts from beginning to end, and we felt very steady inside. The guards initially tried to intimidate us, but that didn’t work. Before that, the labor camp had brought in two police vans and parked them outside the reception room, as though we could be arrested at any moment. But by the time our visit was over and we walked out, the vehicles were already gone.
This practitioner continued her hunger strike to protest the persecution inside the labor camp for more than a year and was force-fed cornmeal gruel. But her determination never wavered. Eventually, she succeeded in disintegrating the evil persecution and was released a year early.
This incident also happened many years ago. At that time, problems had arisen in my cultivation. As a result, the police abducted me and ransacked my home. The apparent reason was that their superiors had assigned them a quota for sending Falun Dafa practitioners to forced labor camps, and they had selected me. However, I did not cooperate while I was in the detention center. I went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution. Eleven days later, I returned home safely.
But a month after that, the police plotted to take me from my home straight to a labor camp. Early one morning, they showed up and were getting ready to surround my home. I ran out of my home, narrowly escaping, and saw a neighbor who drove a motorized three-wheeled taxi passing by. I got into his vehicle and left. The police were on the east side of my home, less than 40 meters away, but they did not notice me. My wife later told me that the police had surrounded the apartment building until about 2 p.m. They searched our apartment but found nothing and eventually left.
Under Master’s protection, I was able to leave safely. Not long afterward, I had a vivid dream. I was locked up in a dark room, and the situation was frightening. I looked up and saw a window. I quickly climbed up and leaped out. A broad, soft hand caught me and held me securely. I was standing in the center of that hand as it carried me forward. An indescribably sacred feeling surged through my entire body. I knew it was Master’s hand. It was Master who resolved the tribulation for me. I felt that if I did not cultivate diligently, I would truly be letting Master down.
My tribulations were not over yet. After some time, I returned home and decided to work at a factory where I could work the night shift. In one of my dreams, Master gave me a hint that there were black weevils in the rice. I came to understand that my thoughts were not pure enough. Soon after, the police came to the factory to investigate an unrelated case and discovered me. Once again, I was taken to a detention center. Three day later, I was sent to Masanjia Forced Labor Camp.
On the way there, I thought that I should follow the path arranged by Master and that a forced labor camp was not where I belonged. But whatever lay ahead, I still needed to do well what I should do. They gave us physical exams in the labor camp. While undergoing an electrocardiogram, I loudly clarified the truth to the police officer next to me. I could feel energy surging through my body. The results of the test showed my heart did not meet the required standards, and the labor camp refused to accept me. The police were supposed to get 1,000 yuan for getting someone into a forced labor camp, but that fell through, and they had to release me.
The police initially contacted my family and demanded 5,000 yuan to release me. My wife did not listen to them and did not pay a single cent. In the end, she went to the police station and took me home. On the way back, my heart was filled with mixed emotions. I was grateful that compassionate Master had once again saved me. I silently asked myself, “What is there that I still cannot let go of? I came into this world in this lifetime for one important purpose only—to follow Master in Fa-rectification.”
After these tribulations, I reflected on my cultivation and discovered that my attachment to self was very strong. I was unable to consider things from other people’s perspectives and lacked compassion. This was particularly evident in my family relationships. I also had a very deeply hidden attachment to lust. These were all areas in which I needed to rectify myself. The evil persecution in the human world was not something we should have to endure. However, if we do not cultivate away our attachments, these attachments can create the material field that the evil factors need in order to persecute us. Identifying these bad thoughts and eliminating them—and not allowing things that do not belong to me to remain in my dimensional field—is a serious and ongoing process of cultivation.
During the work when the exterior walls of our apartment building were being insulated, the workers accidentally cracked the edge of the glass on our balcony. It was a small crack, and we did not pay much attention to it. But as time went on, the crack grew until it nearly extended across the entire pane. In addition, the balcony still had the single-pane aluminum-framed windows used when the building was constructed decades ago, making it very cold in winter. So we decided to replace the balcony windows.
My wife suggested that we take the opportunity to renovate the rooms as well, since our home had looked rather shabby over the years. Deep down, I was not willing, but I had no suitable reason to refuse. I only suggested keeping the cost down because we were not well-off and did not have much time. This renovation, however, helped me discover many stubborn attachments and notions within myself. Master used this situation to show me the human thoughts rooted in self-interest that I normally had difficulty recognizing.
We bought a new kitchen wall cabinet and a base cabinet that came as a set. The wall cabinet had doors while the base cabinet was an open-shelf design without doors. To save money, we had to mount the wall cabinet ourselves. At first, we discussed where to put everything. I emphasized, “Once the wall cabinet is mounted, we can’t move it. If we did, we would have to drill new holes in the wall.” My wife said that this arrangement was fine. Although it was somewhat difficult, we got the wall cabinet mounted.
Then we began installing the doors. Just as I started on the first door on the wall cabinet, my wife stopped me. She wanted to switch the wall and base cabinet. I thought this was absurd and said, “The way it is now is how the manufacturer designed it. The wall cabinet should be on the wall and the base below it. If you really wanted it the other way, why didn’t you say something beforehand? We can’t change it now.” We then began to argue. In the end, I got angry and walked away, while my wife decided to take down the wall cabinet herself.
I walked out of the kitchen, still angry. But suddenly, a thought entered my mind: “Milarepa rebuilt a house several times, tearing it down and starting over, yet he never complained.” I realized that I was wrong. My insistence on having things my way was itself an attachment of mine. So I turned around, went back into the kitchen, took down the wall cabinet, drilled new holes, and we mounted the base cabinet on the wall together.
As a practitioner, I knew that my anger came from defending my acquired notions. I believed the other person was being unreasonable and that I was right. When this manifested in family relationships, it was even harder to remain mindful when interacting with fellow practitioners. I realized that only by changing my notions could I resolve the problem at its root, because this is precisely what cultivation is about.
But many notions cannot be let go of all at once. The next two incidents gave me an even deeper insight.
The wooden entry door to our apartment had been temporarily removed so that the floor tiles could be installed. After the flooring was finished, I wanted to put the door back but discovered that it was gone. When I asked my wife about it, she said, “That door was in the way and made the place look smaller. You never close it anyway, so I gave it away.” I immediately started to argue with her, but after saying just a few words, I sensed that my state of mind was changing. An argumentative mentality was churning up inside me, and a sense of imbalance was trying to take control of me. So I stopped talking and went away to calm down.
Then, the very next day, I discovered that my wife was painting the open sections of our newly installed windows. I was utterly astonished! The new windows were made of thermal break aluminum, with a smoky brown exterior and white interior. My wife explained that when the windows opened inward, the exterior paint color became visible inside the room, and she did not like it. She preferred white, so she wanted to paint those parts white. I said, “The finish of your paint job won’t be nearly as good as the original factory finish.”
She replied, “I don’t care as long as it’s white.” I was truly speechless. I could easily have used paint remover to strip off the paint, but I knew I should let go of my attachment and accommodate her preference.
I thought to myself, “If she likes it, then let her do it.” We are fellow practitioners, and fellow practitioners need to have even more tolerance for one another. When we see another practitioner’s attachments, we should cultivate ourselves rather than focus on the other person’s shortcomings. Otherwise, the evil factors can exploit the loopholes and create even more trouble, thereby affecting our cooperation in assisting Master to save people. I also came to understand that, in daily life, whether something turns out well or badly is sometimes not that important. What matters more is recognizing our own human thoughts and attachments.
For a long time, I followed NTDTV’s news during the day because I could watch it at the shop where I worked. At night, I often browsed Dynamic Internet, while only occasionally checking Minghui. Without realizing it, I had become increasingly concerned about the Russia-Ukraine war, the situation in the Middle East, and the direction in which the Chinese Communist Party was heading.
Although I understood that everything in the human world was arranged, I still could not resist the urge to follow these developments. Gradually, this formed a new attachment. Was it curiosity? Or was it a desire for something in the human world? I wasn’t too sure at first, so I kept looking inward. Then, one day, I suddenly understood that, deep in my heart, I was always filled with hopes for the human world. I hoped to see a scenario that conformed to my own desires. This was a hidden, fundamental attachment to the human world.
Dafa was not spread for the sake of how things should turn out in the human world. Fame, gain, sentiment, and desire in this world are all things that practitioners must let go of. Why should I remain attached to the direction in which the human world is heading? I should simply focus on cultivating myself well and fulfilling the most important task of validating Dafa and saving people so that I am worthy of Master’s sacred grace. That is what matters most. The knot formed by this attachment finally unraveled, and my heart once again felt lighter.
Master said,
“You should always maintain a compassionate and calm heart. Then, when you run into a problem, you will be able to do well because it gives you some room as a buffer.” (Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun)
This is a basic requirement Master has for Dafa disciples, and it is also the standard I use to judge whether my heart has been moved.
As I have come to regard worldly fame, gain, sentiment, and desire more and more lightly, I am also able to see some of my acquired notions more clearly. In the past, in cultivation, I often reminded myself not to form notions about other people. Yet whenever my mind was challenged, I discovered that there were still many notions in my dimensional field. Whenever I have a negative thought about a fellow practitioner, I remind myself that this thought is not my true self. When I see a fellow practitioner’s shortcomings, I should not criticize them. Instead, I should put myself in the other person’s position, understand them, and offer help.
Tolerance means having a broad mind, and it also implies an expansive inner space. I understand that this includes being able to accommodate even others’ unrighteous thoughts. When our thoughts and actions conform to the standards of the Fa, we can dissolve and destroy what is unrighteous while also allowing things to coexist without being contaminated. When someone criticizes me, I no longer feel that I am being hurt, because the criticism is directed at my shortcomings, and those shortcomings are precisely what I need to cultivate away.
I am grateful to Dafa for purifying my heart! Thank you, Master!
(Selected submission for the 23rd China Fa Conference on Minghui.org)