Reflecting on the Words of a Detained Fellow Practitioner

In July 2005, the coordinator in our village was unlawfully arrested. Each time this practitioner's family members visited him in prison, they told us that he was very concerned about fellow practitioners outside, and asked if we were very diligent in our cultivation. His family members always said to him as encouragement: "They are doing well."

This time was no exception. The fellow practitioner in prison asked about two practitioners who had been detained a year earlier, and asked if one of them was still suffering abuse from her husband. His family members told him about the situation. He thought for a while and said, "I know now. If you are truly doing very well, her husband would have stopped treating her that way."

Hearing these words, I felt very sorry in my heart. This practitioner cared so much about other fellow practitioners, even when he was suffering in jail. Yet, none of us had ever paid him a visit of our own accord, let alone kept sending forth righteous thoughts for fellow practitioners in detention.

In fact, the practitioner he mentioned, who was often beaten and scolded by her husband, lives quite close to my house. In the past, whenever I saw the helplessness in her eyes, I felt rather sad. We used to share together and I asked her to recite "Expounding on the Fa," but she said even if she recited it she wouldn't understand the meaning. I said to her, "Just recite it. Master will help." I also sent forth righteous thoughts to support her, but without much effect. Later, I lost confidence in her and thought she had insufficient righteous thoughts. Consequently, I became reluctant to help her further, and the evil continued persecuting her through her husband.

I felt very guilty. If I had treated her problem as my problem, what could have been the outcome? If I had viewed her shortcomings as the result of my own shortcomings, what could I have done? If I had truly been responsible to fellow practitioners and to the Fa, and hadn't tried to find excuses to cover up my selfishness, what could the result have been? Who would still dare to persecute our fellow practitioners? The evil would have long been eliminated.