Clearwisdom Commentary: Thinking with a Sober Mind and a Righteous Starting Point

Clearwisdom Commentary: Thinking with a Sober Mind and a Righteous Starting Point

[Clearharmony Editor’s note: Clearwisdom.net is a very important and well-established Dafa website. It has played a fundamental role in documenting the persecution of Falun Gong, reporting on practitioners activities and the support from people around the world, and as a forum for practitioners to exchange their thoughts and views]

(Clearwisdom.net) In the process of exposing the persecution of Falun Gong in the past four years, many of our practitioners have gradually deviated from the starting point of validating Dafa and saving people in terms of their thoughts and actions. Strongly fluctuating thoughts on the issue of Falun Gong's welcoming Wen Jiabao among our practitioners have revealed some problems of our own, and our impure thoughts and actions have brought about an incorrect effect to society. This article aims especially at clarifying some major issues at hand, so that we can walk our future path properly, in hopes that all Dafa practitioners will pay attention to this matter.

1. The phenomena of deviating from the proper starting point

Since Jiang Zemin launched the persecution of Falun Gong on July 20, 1999, practitioners worldwide ended the period of personal cultivation and entered the Fa-rectification cultivation period, focusing on opposing the persecution and clarifying the truth. During this process, many of our practitioners have made use of ordinary people's ways that we believe to be relatively pure and permissible by Dafa's principles in this special period of time. There has been increasing interaction between Dafa practitioners and people in all walks of life. The purpose of doing so was to make it easy for people to learn the facts about the persecution and about Falun Dafa, therefore bringing them a good future. However, in the course of our actions, many practitioners' thoughts have been gradually mixed up with those of ordinary people's as they do things in accordance with ordinary society. They overly emphasized ordinary people's standards for doing things, the relationships with ordinary people and the concepts that ordinary people place an importance on--so much so that they have actually deviated, to some extent, from the starting point of exposing the persecution and the goal of saving the world's people.

Take the matter of Falun Gong welcoming Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao as an example. The first thought many practitioners had was almost identical to that of ordinary people in society, namely, perhaps Falun Gong is expressing its support to the new Chinese regime or complimenting the new Chinese leaders, so as to negotiate with the Chinese government for a peaceful settlement; whether what we are doing can be accepted by the pro-democracy movement; whether our actions can be understood by Taiwanese people; in case Wen Jiabao behaves in an unfriendly way towards us, we would be put into a defensive situation; so on and so forth. All in all, there's a strong sense of anxiety and being moved by ordinary people's thinking. The same situation occurs with many practitioners who do media work or many other Dafa projects, where they constantly follow a mentality of catering to ordinary people's notions and trying to figure out how to be more successful in ordinary society. As a result, they behave as if they were ordinary people running everyday people's media, operating an ordinary people's business and building up a network of ordinary human relationships. All of this is deviating from the Dafa disciples' starting point of clarifying the truth and saving sentient beings. If practitioners and local coordinators cannot think with a sober mind about these phenomena and the fundamental issues associated with them in a timely manner, they will not only be unable to walk their own path properly, but will also cause many sentient beings to lose their last opportunity to be saved.

2. Falun Gong's starting point and goal of opposing the persecution remain consistent and unchanging

Even though in the last four years we have utilized many ordinary people's ways to increase the interaction with society, such as setting up websites, running newspapers, visiting governmental officials, working with community groups and NGOs, organizing press conferences, distributing flyers, etc, Falun Gong's starting point and end goal have remained consistent, and they never have and will not change. We have been continually opposing and exposing the persecution, letting the public know the facts; we have been specifically focusing our efforts on Jiang Zemin, because he is the chief criminal in persecuting Falun Gong and Falun Gong practitioners. Our starting point is not some kind of struggle with ordinary people. We are carrying out our own duties as cultivators.

Falun Gong does not oppose any government or any political party. The Communist Party is bound to perish, but this is by no means an outcome brought about by Falun Gong practitioners participating in some form of ordinary people's struggle, but because the Communist Party was manipulated by Jiang Zemin in persecuting Falun Gong, and it has incurred such an enormous amount of karma and cannot tolerated by the heavenly principles.

3. The propaganda that Falun Gong is fighting the Communist Party for power is a ploy by Jiang Zemin to deflect people's attention

More and more people have seen clearly that it was Jiang Zemin that launched the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners under the policy, "ruin their reputations, bankrupt them financially, and destroy them physically." The persecution, setting out with a goal of "eliminating Falun Gong in three months", has lasted for 4 years so far. It brought enormous suffering to millions of Falun Gong practitioners and their families, and plunged Chinese society into a great moral disaster. It also ensures an outcome of complete destruction for Jiang Zemin himself. In the course of initiating, propagating, and perpetuating the persecution, Jiang Zemin has incurred a toll of 827 lives of Falun Gong practitioners to date (December 8, 2003). In addition, there are hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners who have been devastated by Jiang's cohorts through forced labour camps, mental hospitals, police stations and brainwashing centres.

It is a heavenly principle that good is rewarded with good and evil meets with evil. It is only a matter of time. Facing the persistent, peaceful resistance from Falun Gong practitioners in China and in other parts of the world, facing the great spiritual strength of Falun Gong practitioners, Jiang Zemin can clearly see that he will not be able to escape the punishment of history and justice. Jiang utilizes the illegal "610 Office", formed specifically to persecute Falun Gong, to control the Chinese media and the Chinese consulates around the world to deliberately distort the facts, saying that Falun Gong practitioners are fighting for the power of the Communist Party. One purpose is to deceive the Chinese people and westerners who know little about China in order to sustain the persecution. He also wants to distract people's attention to relieve the pressure he has been under as a result of his persecuting Falun Gong.

In opposing the persecution, the Falun Gong practitioners have done everything with only ways of laying out the facts and appealing to people's rationality, nothing new for ordinary society. The only difference is that our inner meaning and forms are purer. However, in the course of resisting the persecution, since some practitioners have had frequent contact with groups that have political intentions, they have gradually developed attachments of ordinary people. For instance, some practitioners would equate a political group's opposition to the Chinese Communist Party to support for Falun Gong, mixing up the common ground of opposing human rights abuses with these groups' political goals. When these deviations from the Fa are reflected to human world, the consequences are people always asking if we are involved in politics, if we are against the Communist Party and the Chinese government, etc. Only if we practitioners have pure and calm mindsets, can we better clarify the truth to ordinary people. This is because our pure words and deeds themselves manifest our starting point and our ultimate goal.

4. Saving the sentient beings and giving everyone an opportunity

What Falun Gong practitioners are protesting and asking for is to punish Jiang Zemin, the culprit for launching the persecution, as well as his cohorts. They have given up the opportunities Falun Gong practitioners offered to them and chosen to go on a road that will bring them to the point of no return.

At the same time, Dafa practitioners intend to save all sentient beings, regardless of occupation, social class, or position in the workplace. Their hearts and minds are what matters. Despite the fact that Jiang is utilizing the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party to persecute Falun Gong, we should not give up saving the Chinese governmental officials and the individuals in the Communist party. Wen Jiabao is a Chinese official, so we need to provide him with an opportunity to learn the facts. If we did not clarify the truth to him, how would he be able to make a sound judgment and take the right road?

After suffering four years of cruel persecution, hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners stood in front of Wen Jiabao with peacefulness and rationality, quietly holding banners that read, "Welcoming Wen Jiabao's Visit to the USA", "Bring Jiang Zemin to Justice", and "Falun Dafa is Good!" They quietly performed the exercises to the peaceful Dafa music. The scene itself is speaking volumes about the truth of the situation! As for what each life chooses to become after learning the truth, it is an individual choice, something that we Dafa disciples should not be attached to. What we should do with our heart and soul is to clarify the truth, give people opportunities to learn about the truth, and help more people to correctly choose their future. This has nothing to do with political power, politics or struggle for power, because the starting point and the ultimate goal are totally different than those things.

Those people who have treated Falun Gong and Falun Gong practitioners well may not see and feel the benefit for the time being. However, as long as they can continue doing things by following their conscience and good thoughts, they will soon see the wonderful future brought about by their actions of today.