Letting Go of Self

After reading the article, “To Truly Care For Fellow Practitioners Who Just Broke Out From the Den of the Evil” in the 268th issue of Minghui Weekly, I looked within and found that my wrong frame of thoughts was alienating me from my fellow practitioners.

When fellow practitioners were persecuted, I did not treat it as my own thing, did not actively cooperate to rescue them, nor paid enough attention to sending forth righteous thoughts. I feel that I am responsible for the persecution of my fellow practitioners. I blamed myself and was ashamed to visit them. Sometimes I feared that their families might not like to see me or I might make trouble for them if I visited the arrested practitioners. In reality, I was protecting myself and my style of “individual cultivation.”

Despite the above reasons, this is not the right condition for a Falun Dafa practitioner during the Fa-rectification period, but rather it reflects human mentality, principles, and sentimentality. This condition causes friction among practitioners and prevents us from forming one body. If we could reflect with righteous thoughts: “What’s the purpose of securing the release of fellow practitioners? How can we help them catch up? What are righteous thoughts for disciples during this precious time? What should I do to form one body? How do we eliminate the evil which is the chief culprit behind the persecution of fellow practitioners?” then we might do better.

It is actually a problem of understanding the Falun Gong teachings, the Fa. The key to resolving it and improving lies in studying the Fa and practising cultivation. Master said,

“The Fa can break all attachments, the Fa can destroy all evil, the Fa can shatter all lies, and the Fa can strengthen righteous thoughts.” (“Drive Out Interference,” Essentials for Further Advancement II)

Furthermore, “caring,” “cooperating,” and “helping” are the same thing, regardless of the terminology.

The key is understanding the process of dissolving into and forming one body. When fellow practitioners have troubles, we must treat them as our own things, and resolve them together. During the period of personal cultivation, the tests and tribulations we encountered were caused by our karma and attachments. However, during the Fa-rectification period, the reasons behind tests and tribulations are more complicated; many of which are caused by external factors taking advantage of our loopholes. Especially when fellow practitioners are persecuted, these are the exact reasons, so we should eliminate the interference together. There is no shirking this responsibility!

Looking back on my cultivation, sometimes I shifted responsibility away from myself with the selfish mentality of protecting myself, but I was not aware of it. For instance, when other practitioners did not feel well or met with different kinds of persecution, my first thought was that it was their problem and I put the blame on them. While blaming other people, I was actually pumping myself up and strengthening my human mentality as well.

Because we have been deeply poisoned by the Chinese Communist Party we have a long way to go to attain the realm of “considering other people first” and benevolence. However, I feel that if we make more of an effort to advance, we will improve quickly. As long as we have a pure and righteous mind, whatever we do will be done smoothly and with wisdom.

So, in Fa-rectification, just as we turned the large truth-clarification materials sites into small sites all over the country, we should gradually learn to think independently and become mature based on the Fa.