Surface Fears and Fundamental Fears

I am one of the thousands who learnt Falun Dafa early on. I started practising in December of 1994, just two years after Teacher¹ introduced Falun Dafa to the public. I felt very blessed to learn such a great practice and to be protected by a true Teacher. However, at that time, I did not understand how much fear I had hidden within me.

Life and cultivation changed after July 20th, 1999, when the persecution of Falun Gong officially began. I started to experience fear at times. I was afraid that the police would summon me to the police station and arrest me or that I would be arrested if I went to Beijing. I was also afraid of being arrested if I were to go out to distribute materials, talk to people about the persecution or download Falun Dafa materials.

Since I knew that it was not right to have these fears, I tried to pull myself together and get on with some things to expose the persecution despite them. However, I was doing Falun Dafa work with a human mentality, treating it as something that I had to do, and fearing that I might be left behind if I did not do it. When I first started posting flyers and distributing materials, I had a dry mouth, my heart raced, and I perspired a lot. I was scared to the core of my being.

When I started posting, I was using starch glue instead of scotch tape. When I returned home, I took off my padded jacket and washed it because I was very afraid that I had splattered glue all over myself while rushing through the posting. I feared that the police would follow me home, find my padded jacket with glue on it, and use it as proof that I had posted the materials. My imagination was running wild.

As Fa-rectification progressed, and as I studied the Falun Gong teachings intensely, the black substance of fear gradually dissipated. Teacher taught us,

"If you are not afraid, the factor that would make you afraid will cease to exist." ("Eliminating Your Last Attachments")

After the publication of the Nine Commentaries on Communist Party², I watched the VCD of it once and read the Nine Commentaries three times. I realised that my fear comes from fearing the Communist spectre. After this insight, my fears greatly diminished.

However, recently, I witnessed so many practitioners being illegally arrested, and other practitioners have died because they could not release their fears of sickness. Others have become destitute. I became fearful again upon witnesses these things. Sometimes, my heart beat so frantically that I had to press down on my chest to control it. When this happened, I asked myself, do I have heart problems? Am I being taken advantage of by the evil? Then I realised, no, I am a Falun Dafa practitioner during this unique and extraordinary period of time. Although I may still have all kinds of attachments, I will not allow the old forces, dark minions and rotten ghosts to interfere with me. I will walk the path Teacher arranged for me.

I sent forth righteous thoughts, but my understanding still fluctuated. I read articles by fellow practitioners who wrote about their fundamental attachments, and I studied Teacher's article, "Towards Consummation." I also looked for my fundamental attachments, but failed to find any. Yesterday, when I was typing, I saw the Chinese character "fear" a couple of times. At that point, I thought perhaps Teacher was telling me something. What am I afraid of? I thought I was just afraid of the communist spectre. I had to acknowledge that there was far more to it.

I enlightened more after I shared with fellow practitioners: My fear of losing everything - being arrested, fear of all kinds of troubles, and losing my human body, came from my fundamental attachment of selfishness. Then, other attachments grew out of it. Just as Teacher said in "Towards Consummation:"

"Do you know that one of the biggest excuses the old evil forces use at present to persecute Dafa is that your fundamental attachments remain concealed? So in order to identify those people, the tribulations have been made more severe."

"Additionally, they manipulate wicked human beings to examine Dafa and its disciples, putting them through a comprehensive and destructive test that targets all human thoughts and attachments. Had you truly been able to get rid of those fundamental human attachments in your cultivation, this last tribulation would not have been so vicious."

I looked inside, and I knew that my fears existed because of my lack of righteous faith in Teacher, and not being clear on the purpose and meaning of validating Falun Dafa, which created a separation between myself, Falun Dafa and Teacher. Thus, I failed to immerse myself in the Falun Gong teachings. I thought I was cultivating, but there are also elements of validating myself. Some fears are human fears; I am still in the realm of an ordinary person. The latter fear relates to cultivation and it all originates from selfishness. I had not rid myself of the fundamental attachment of being a human.

I enjoyed writing before I started practising, and I even wrote some literary works, but I stopped writing after I took up the practice, believing that writing was just feeding into attachments of emotion. So, I let go of this pastime. However, I recognise that I seldom wrote about my cultivation. Since I have not cultivated well, I cannot write well. You may have noticed that I do not quote Teacher very much. It is not that I do not want to quote him; it's that I do not remember the quotes, or I cannot remember where the passages are. Therefore, I cannot quote Teacher often.

Perhaps what I have enlightened to at this point is not my fundamental attachment. The purpose of writing this article is to share with practitioners who may have similar experiences so that we can catch up with the Fa-rectification, rid ourselves of our fundamental attachments and walk our paths well and righteously.

Please point out anything inappropriate. Heshi.

Note:

1. Master/Teacher: Respectfully referring to the founder of Falun Gong, Mr. Li Hongzhi.
2. Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party: Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party is a series of essays published in late 2004 that reveal the true nature of the Communist Party. The Nine Commentaries have led millions of people to renounce their membership in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and come to gain a clearer understanding about the wrongful persecution against Falun Gong. "A book that has shocked all Chinese around the world. A book that is disintegrating the Communist Party." http://ninecommentaries.com