Freeing Oneself from Party Culture

I am a new practitioner as I started cultivation at the end of 2010. I have been looking for the Fa all my life and I always had the feeling that I was looking for something but didn’t know what. This search led me to displaying eccentric behaviour, a superiority and inferiority complex, selfishness, lack of action and numbness in the heart. After I found the Fa online and read Zhuan Falun I had the clear feeling that I had found what I’ve been searching for and I cried.

After reading it several times I understood that the universe is True, Good and Tolerant so I felt relief and could relax my mind a little.

I was born in Romania in 1980 towards the end of the communist era and I grew up surrounded by the party culture and the party way of thought. My parents were also born in the communist era and they knew it was evil and all lies but in order to protect our family and us they never spoke the truth for fear we might repeat it in school and get reported. Growing up in the party culture created a huge conflict in me, a painful battle between the normal human nature and those notions we were forced to educate ourselves with. I know I came here for the Fa as I always wanted to cultivate myself and get better but in Romania the evil party culture was still strong. We were tricked and forced into it.

I had traits that were good in me like diligence, wanting to correct myself according to a higher truth and wanting to make this world a better place but I had no higher standard to judge myself with. The party culture made me accept its notions and its infestation of my mind became even worse. The problem was that right and wrong were so mixed up that one could not say that what the party said was completely wrong, so one could only try to rectify oneself and others according to the party’s notions.

While I am writing this article I am also reading for the second time 9 Commentaries on the Communist Party and I understand better and better all those unrighteous elements that want to prevent people from being saved by Dafa. One of them is trying to correct others according to an imposed standard which makes one harsh, heartless and looking down on others while believing one is righteous and upholding the truth.

Personally I have gathered a lot of contempt, hatred and disgust against anyone that doesn’t fit that “truth”. I also apply that to judge myself with therefore my mind is always full of hateful and fearful comments against everything so it cannot become tranquil. I have been cultivating in the Fa for more than a year truly believing that I was better than all the cultivators I met and that only I understood the Fa properly and I also used the Fa to justify my bad thoughts about other people. I have been doing it completely wrong thinking that not having your heart moved by ordinary human sentimentality meant having a heart of stone thus repressing the compassion that arose every time I saw someone suffering. I also started imposing my wrong understandings on everyone with the intention of helping them get better and getting angry when they didn’t accept what I said.

Reading the 9 Commentaries made me see that I am still applying party culture to cultivate myself instead of the Fa and that I misunderstand the Fa horribly. Fear and doubt bother me when I send righteous thoughts or when I study the Fa and I feel I still don’t have complete faith in Master and the Fa. These notions make me confused. In the end this confusion that has led to a lot of internal fighting and conflict exhausted me and almost made me give up my mind and body to be ruled by this foreign spectre. When saving people I tended to give up easily because my strong will was not so strong so I almost drained myself of everything human and turned into a cold machine believing that I cannot know right from wrong and I have to listen to what I was told if I want to do good in the world. It was my attachment of pursuit and zealotry that was being exploited here.

My father started feeling a lot of pain shortly after I returned home from Sweden in August this year. When this happened I looked inward to see what was wrong on my part and I couldn’t find anything wrong so I thought it was his karma being paid off and didn’t give it more thought. I practised the exercises, read the Fa as usual thinking that maybe I have to get rid of my attachment to family but my father was getting worse and worse. He was in hospital with severe pain that didn’t recede. I thought I should keep my heart unmoved, then I noticed that everybody around me was very agitated and fearful for my father’s life, my family could not sleep well and were all very sad. I also noticed that I had a deep disgust and superior feeling towards them considering myself a much better person because I had no attachments. My father was getting even worse. Seeing him completely powerless and exhausted by pain, my heart moved and I understood that I have to get rid of those ugly notions about him.

I also read Falun Gong and understood the righteousness and beauty of the Fa as opposed to the falsehood and cold ideology of the party. Only now do I truly understand better the importance of cultivating Xnxing and how to actually do that.

Recently I have been doing the three things without compassion and without understanding the Fa. It’s amazing how notions and attachments block a person from understanding the truth and making progress in cultivation.

I understood this when I read the 20th Anniversary Fa Teaching: “So for sure there is a path that you will be able to walk through to completion. It is a path that has to meet the requirements, and only that way will the sentient beings of the cosmos admire you and not be able to interfere; will your path be free of problems; and will your journey go smoothly. Otherwise, if you are carrying all sorts of attachments and human thoughts, you will meet with a great deal of trouble, and that trouble will serve to block your path. When you fail to walk the correct path, one reason for it is karmic causes. Among them is the trouble that accompanies a being in the background; past favours done for others or scores to settle; old promises; all of the different connections one might have with a being, and so on. Another cause is the attachments that come from one’s human mindset.

Especially notable are the notions that one forms, or habits of thought that one forms, which make it very hard for a person to recognize when human thinking is unconsciously at work. And if one can’t recognize it, how is one to get rid of it? This is particularly challenging in the setting of China, where the evil Party has destroyed traditional Chinese culture and rigged up its own evil Party stuff instead—what we refer to as “the culture of the Party.” It’s indeed going to be hard to recognize the Truth of the cosmos when one uses the habits of thought bred by that culture. And one won’t even be able to recognize that certain bad thinking and behaviour are at odds with universal values. If one can’t recognize bad thinking for what it is, then what can be done? There is no other way but to act according to Dafa.”

The party culture is the same in all communist countries, not only China and it confuses people and, in my case, even cultivators.

Today, I understood that until I completely identify and eliminate all these twisted notions and elements in my mind I will never reach the true standard of a cultivator. Projected on others these notions block that person from obtaining salvation. My understanding is that my notions are stopping my father and my entire family from being saved and are also stopping me from clarifying the truth to them or myself. Now I am very determined to do that with maximum speed.

I believe that my notions about my father allowed the old forces to persecute him as Master says: in 20th Anniversary Fa Teaching: “When the evil sees human thinking [in Dafa disciples], it seizes upon that to do bad things, for the old forces think that that’s how things should be done. While saving sentient beings, we still need to negate all of that interference from the old forces. All along, that is how we have managed to make it through.”

I want from all my heart to set myself and all the beings free from the bonds of the old cosmos and get saved with Dafa.

Cultivation is a wonderful process of rediscovering oneself and I am truly grateful for being counted among Master’s disciples. I want to completely assimilate to Dafa and help others see the glory of Dafa.

Thank you Master for your magnanimity and grace!
Thank you Dafa disciples!