By a Falun Dafa practitioner in North America

(Clearwisdom.net)

Due to the persecution that I had suffered, I was attached to the time when the Fa-rectification would conclude. A fellow practitioner had a dream and told me that in this dream he saw me holding my arms together, squatting on the ground and shouting loudly, "I must hold on to the end!" I looked like I having a very hard time in his dream. The practitioner asked me, "Are you attached to the time when the conclusion will come?" I looked carefully at my mindset and saw that because my family members and I had suffered from the persecution, I no longer wanted to suffer and looked forward to the end. I placed that feeling before offering salvation to all sentient beings. It was my selfishness at work. I only thought about freeing myself from suffering, and I forgot that my mission in coming to this world was to save all beings.

Eventually I discarded a significant portion of this attachment and I knew that I should treasure every minute to do the three things well, but I was anxious before the Olympic Games. I was convinced that my attachment to time had been dealt with, and the anxiety arose because I wanted to give people a warning. I thought of the many Chinese people that the CCP had brainwashed and how they had become atheists, and I thought that a manifestation of extraordinary power would help awaken them. I considered my thought to be a righteous one at the time.

What I had expected did not happen, and I was somewhat disappointed. Of course the result would not depend on my individual state, but rather on the situation of the practitioners as a whole body. Looking inward, I found that my thought was not very righteous. I was thinking like an ordinary person, as I paid a lot of attention to prophecies. It was actually a manifestation of my mindset of looking for external things, depending on others, and laziness.

In my efforts to clarify the truth, I counted on prophecies to get the points across and often used them as a jolt to people's thinking. In addition, I often thought that if a significant event happened, I could use it to convince people and my efforts would be a lot easier, "Look, wasn't what I told you true? Hurry up and withdraw from the CCP and its affiliated organizations!" That was actually a form of taking the easy way out, persuading people to withdraw from the CCP and its affiliated organizations by counting on cosmic changes instead of telling them the facts, thoroughly and patiently. I wanted to avoid the difficulties of a thorough and patient process.

Actually, to save a person and have him accept what we say, we need to change his heart. We need to explain the facts well and thoroughly, which does not necessarily mean using a lot of words. We can mention prophecies, but if that alone could offer people salvation, then wasn't Master's arrangement for practitioners to clarify the truth extraneous? If this person were saved that way, then his salvation would have been based on prophecy, not Dafa. No wonder many people did not believe me when I told them that something big would happen during the Olympic Games. Not only did they not believe me, some wanted to bet this would not happen. My incorrect mentality was the reason for this outcome. I looked outward and surmised that the reason for them not wanting to believe what I said was their history of brainwashing by the CCP.

Moreover, by counting on cosmic changes to save lives, I was actually not taking the initiative to assume the responsibilities of a Dafa practitioner, but rather pursuing an external result.

I remembered Master's teaching about sending righteous thoughts,

"When you send righteous thoughts, you aren't required to enter a state of tranquility wherein you are not thinking about anything. You do think when you send forth righteous thoughts, and your thoughts are [supposed to be] very strong." ("Teaching the Fa in the City of Los Angeles")

What we have in our minds is critical. Adding other thoughts from our human mentalities, instead of following Master's teachings, makes our righteous thoughts less effective and less powerful. I suggest that every Dafa practitioner review again Master's teaching regarding sending righteous thoughts and do it correctly.

It was crucial when I realized that we practitioners must discard any mentality of counting on external changes, take the initiative to eliminate the evil, and explain the facts well as a part of walking our path well. We should not count on anything from society during the Fa-rectification era and should not count on how cosmic changes turn out. The cosmic changes are brought about by Dafa practitioners doing things following Master's teachings, not by some external factors. I remembered when a fellow practitioner said that anything that happens in society is a result of the cosmic changes, while the cosmic changes are brought about by the process of Dafa practitioners firmly doing the three things well during the Fa-rectification.

In conclusion, let's review one of Master's teachings from "Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A."

"Since you're Dafa disciples, you shouldn't put your hopes in so-called "natural" changes, external changes, changes in the ordinary society, or in some favors that someone might do for us. You are Gods, and you are the future rulers of different cosmoses, so who would you count on? All the beings are counting on you!"

We play the leading roles in the universe. Let's take on our responsibilities seriously and not depend on prophecies or some other "big events" in society that may occur in the future. For the same reason, what we are facing now, such as Eutelsat shutting down NTDTV's satellite transmissions and the attacks in Flushing, will need to be resolved by righteous thoughts and deeds of Dafa practitioners.

The above are my personal understandings. Please point out any of my mistakes.

Posting date: 9/22/2008
Original article date: 9/21/2008
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2008/8/18/184223.html

 Yearly Archive  Printer Version