Don't Use the Persecution as the Criterion to Evaluate Fellow Practitioners

If this persecution had not happened, Dafa would have consummated everything in the cosmos and saved all sentient beings. However, due to this persecution, multitudes of sentient beings who had a predestined relationship with Dafa have lost the chance that all beings have been awaiting tens of thousands of years, and countless of lives have been ruined. This persecution is evil and should have never existed. However, we are unconsciously judging other practitioners' various performances during this persecution as the criteria to discern whether practitioners are in a good or bad cultivation state. As a result, we have been adding energy to the evil persecution for a long period of time.

For example, some practitioners evaluate whether fellow practitioners are right or wrong according to whether they have been persecuted or not. They say, "I have been doing things this way for many years, but I have not been persecuted." Some practitioners use the criterion of being arrested or not to discern whether others are in good or bad cultivation state. They will say, "Wasn't he cultivating well? Then why was he arrested?" If a practitioner is not persecuted while clarifying the truth face to face and distributing fliers, other practitioners admire him and think that he is cultivating well; likewise, if he has been arrested other practitioners will say that he is irrational and did not pay attention to safety, and they even immediately link this practitioner's deficiencies with his being persecuted.

Master has taught us the Fa in this respect. I realize that although a practitioner does something well we should not immediately think that he has cultivated well; conversely, if he does not do something well, then we should not immediately think that he has not cultivated well. We should look at things from all aspects. In this way, we can conform to the Fa principle of taking the middle way and being harmonized.

While facing the persecution, we should certainly look inward, no matter whether it's from the angle of personal cultivation or improving as a whole body. Master taught the Fa "Pacify the External by Cultivating the Internal" (from Essentials for Further Advancement). Dafa disciples should do everything according to the Fa principles and judge whether an action is good or bad, right or wrong using the Fa as our only criteria. We should not enlarge the evil persecution, whether intended or not, and we should stop using the persecution as the criterion to judge whether a practitioner is right or wrong.