Purity of Words

In Teaching the Fa at the Discussion on Creating Fine Art Master Li said: “Just yesterday I was saying that whatever Dafa disciples do, human society will emulate it in the not-too-distant future. Right now, during the Fa-rectification period, everything in the world revolves around Dafa—that’s for sure—because the Three Realms were created for the Fa-rectification. Why am I discussing these things with you today? It’s because Dafa disciples with artistic skills have abilities and energy. If the things you do aren’t upright, or aren’t upright enough, you’ll reinforce the unrighteous elements, which will affect human society even more. In cultivation, you’re supposed to rectify yourselves by cultivating away everything that’s not good.”

The Fa in this paragraph made me enlighten that no matter whether we write a piece of news about ordinary stuff or an article, or read the articles written by other practitioners, we are rectifying ourselves. Since we belong to the generation who grew up in an unusual environment in mainland China, our thoughts are is still full of the after-effects of those turbulent years of the past. As a result, our thoughts, speech and writings might unknowingly contain some distorted elements. Once we don't pay enough attention, the articles we write may have some exaggerated and empty words and expressions, and be full of personal viewpoints and emotions. Emotion in fact is a manifestation of distorted elements. When people read the articles whose words are inter-fused with emotion, naturally they cannot gain the effect they are supposed to get. It is necessary to go through the process of understanding this point, in order for our words to become pure.

When reading classical Chinese literature, such as Shijing (Translator’s note: Shijing is also called “The Book of Songs,” which is the earliest collection of Chinese poems including 305 poems of the Zhou Dynasty, 1122-256 B.C.) and Shen Xian Chuan (Translator’s note: A collection of stories about celestial beings in ancient China) etc., I found that ancient people chronicled events with a peaceful mind. They seldom used words and expressions steeped in emotion. No wonder Confucius said: “Among the three hundred poems, one sentence can cover all of them, i.e., the thought must be pure and righteous.” In other words, as a “poet,” his thoughts must be pure. Only the people with pure thoughts were able to create these poems that can still be appreciated and recited by people one thousand years later. Today, how many people can really understand these ancient people?

As Dafa disciples in the period of Fa-rectification, not only every word or expression we use has something to do with our future, but it is also a test for us to see how well we have done in terms of rectifying ourselves. Therefore, our burden is pretty heavy.

Translated from Chinese at: http ://www.yuanming.net/articles/200310/25466.html