Distinguishing Righteous Thoughts from Competitiveness

I was deeply impressed by the righteous thoughts of fellow practitioners when I read an article on the Clearwisdom website (a Falun Gong related website) in March of 2003. The article described what happened when police broke into a Falun Dafa material production centre: the practitioners stood up, sent righteous thoughts to stop the evil, and then talked to the policemen showing them the wrongfulness of the persecution and revealing Jiang's regimes lies, resulting in no loss of any material.

One night, a fellow practitioner came to my home to tell me that the police might soon be harassing practitioners' families, and he wanted to warn me to be careful. The next day I did not feel good on the way home from my mother's place. Even after getting home, I felt that something was going to happen. During dinner my wife asked me to hide our Falun Dafa books and Master's picture. I was not affected and even felt resistant. I could not concentrate on studying the Falun Gong teachings after dinner. I sat in meditation, thinking about how to deal with the police once they came.

I was still sitting in meditation when the policemen came. The first thought I had when the police entered the room was to see if the books were hidden. A face-to-face conflict took place, the loss was great, and the lesson was painful.

Arriving at the police station, my first thought was to straighten myself out, to see where the problem was and why this had happened. I found that, though I appeared to have sufficient righteous thoughts, a lot of competitiveness and human feelings had been mixed in with those thoughts. This competitiveness had caused me to miss Master's hints time and time again. As a result, the old forces took advantage of my shortcoming. I felt like a fool without a mind. Each time I recall the state I was in at that time, I always feel discomfort.

After one year of continually studying the Falun Gong teachings and clarifying the truth about Falun Gong to people, I gradually gained a more rational understanding of my fall. A person is most easily controlled when he is not rational or clearheaded. Master can do anything for us in other dimensions, but in this dimension we need to be clearheaded and act righteously. Having "righteous thoughts" is not about being irrational, having righteous thoughts is not about competing, and having righteous thoughts is not about being fearless of death for the sake of being fearless. Having righteous thoughts is about being benevolent, harmonious, rational and wise. And it is being responsible for everything that is right.

What Master has taught us is the characteristic of the universe -- "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance." We are continuously assimilating to this characteristic, cultivating into an infinitely merciful enlightened being. Master has pushed the part of our body that has cultivated well beyond the human side. On the surface, practitioners are just humans, but all of the miracles are the result of the well-cultivated side having an effect, and sending forth righteous thoughts is the well-cultivated side having an effect. How can our godly sides do things so irrationally and without wisdom?

The reason that the above-mentioned fellow practitioner was so fearless was that he had reached a certain level in cultivation. It was not something that he acted out, but rather it was achieved through cultivation. It was a display of the divine powers of the Buddha Law, and it is gods who are validating this in the world. So, whatever we do, we must have righteous thoughts, not competitiveness. Don't carry any human attachment, but completely oppose all the factors of the old forces. The closer it gets to the end, the more potent the old forces' poison is, so we need to be even more rational and firm in doing well the three things. We should not fall short of the mission and responsibility that Teacher has bestowed upon us.