(Clearwisdom.net)
Fa-Rectification Is Going on in The Entire Cosmos
"But as to our Dafa, let me tell you that nobody is worthy of testing It. Because all beings--and this includes every being in the cosmos--are created, made, and shaped by It, no one is worthy of testing It... I'd say that no one is worthy of testing Dafa. Yet they have, so they've committed a sin, and they will have to bear responsibility for everything they've done."
("Teaching the Fa at the Western U.S. Fa Conference")
"Meanwhile, we have to eliminate the evil things, period, because they damage the cosmos and damage sentient beings... So if the evil has reached the point of being no longer savable, how to handle it isn't a question of one's personal cultivation--it is guarding the Fa of the cosmos. When necessary one can use different abilities of different levels to eliminate it."
("Teaching the Fa at the 2001 Canada Fa Conference")
As Falun Dafa practitioners, we should clearly know that we are within the Fa-rectification period. Any interferences or damages, no matter how large or small and no matter how they manifest, are directed at the Fa and are sins committed by the evil. We absolutely cannot allow them and must firmly eliminate them. The evil looks for excuses for its bad deeds, such as: "Those practitioners have karma." "They need to improve their understandings of the Fa." "They need to be tested."
When a fellow practitioner was arrested and put under persecution, how did some of us respond to it?
"He is being persecuted because he has this or that attachment." "They are arrested because they weren't careful enough in doing such and such, so the evil took advantage of them." "She didn't do well last time when she was arrested. This is a chance for her to make up for it."
If we examine these thoughts carefully, aren't they the same as the old forces' excuses? Although we are saying that we don't recognize the old forces' arrangements, aren't we following the paths arranged by the old forces if, to some degree, we agreed to the old forces' thoughts?
Then what should we do? We should follow the requirements of the Fa and the Fa-rectification. Teacher said,
"All beings in the cosmos are repositioning themselves. Humans aren't worthy of testing this Fa, and neither are Gods. Whoever touches it commits a sin. They've seen all of this as well."
("Teaching the Fa at the Great Lakes Fa Conference in North America")
We should know this clearly, and this thought needs to be our first reaction no matter how the evil is manifested. The thought should be, "The evil is committing a sin." What's our first thought when we see a person holding a knife and trying to kill someone? It must be, "This person is trying to murder another person. He's committing a crime." Right? We wouldn't think, "The other person must have done something that made this person want to kill him." If so, the murderer would have an excuse, "Yes, I want to kill him just because he did such and such." How can we allow a murderer to find excuses for his deeds? Shouldn't we handle things in the Fa-rectification period the same way? We need to know that the evil is not simply ending people's current lives.
"Master wants to save all sentient beings. But the evil forces are truly committing sins against Dafa by using all sentient beings, with the ultimate purpose of destroying them."
("Dafa is Indestructible")
Does it mean that we don't need to worry about our own attachments and shortcomings? Of course not. However, we should not think about those things first. And we should correctly handle the relationships between Fa-rectification and ourselves. Why?
- This is because the evil has committed sins against the Fa. So we need to eliminate both the evil manifestations and the evil itself. This is from the standpoint of Fa-rectification. It is the essential reason why we need to eliminate the evil. It is not completely wrong if we say, "eliminating the evil" while hoping to eliminate our own karma, to improve our levels, to pass some tribulations, to establish mighty virtue, etc. However, it is not a pure thought, and it doesn't accord with the requirement of the Fa-rectification. It also might give the evil excuses to persecute us.
During our individual cultivation, "from what standpoint you view Dafa is fundamental." (From "Digging Out the Roots")áThen, during Fa-rectification, isn't it a fundamental issue for us to clearly understand from what standpoint we should handle things in Fa-rectification?
Let's analyze the two notions from different standpoints.
From the standpoint of individual cultivation, the reason that the evil could succeed in doing bad things is because Falun Dafa practitioners have attachments. This means that we will be persecuted if we have attachments. Thus, we need to try our best to eliminate all our attachments. In this way, the evil will not be able to persecute us. This is actually the logic of the old forces.
From the standpoint of Fa-rectification, we would know that it is now the Fa-rectification period. The evil is committing sins against the Fa. Therefore, we need to eradicate the evil. Our having attachments, however, would negatively affect the results of eliminating the evil, so we need to get rid of them. This is the requirement of the Fa-rectification. However, the old forces are unwilling to acknowledge this or believe this.
When comparing these two notions, we would know that the first notion is to avoid the evil's persecution while the second one is to eliminate the evil. The first one is passive and the second one is active. The first one is for ourselves, while the second one is for the sentient beings. The first one follows the old forces' arrangements while the second one is the direction in which Teacher has pointed us. The first one is within the scope of individual cultivation while the second one has us melt into the Fa-rectification. Now we can clearly see why sometimes we were unable to meet the requirements of Fa-rectification, why sometimes we unintentionally followed paths arranged by the old forces, why many things that shouldn't have happened did happen, and why there were various kinds of interferences which caused irretrievable losses. It was simply because we didn't handle things truly from the standpoint of Fa-rectification.
After clearly understanding this, we will be able to correctly handle the relationships between our individual cultivation and the Fa-rectification as we assist Teacher with rectifying the Fa in the future. And we will be able to take it as our constant responsibility to eliminate the evil. Whether we send forth righteous thoughts to directly eradicate the evil, or we remove everyday people's bad thoughts against the Fa when clarifying the truth to them, or we show the beauty of the Fa through the arts, or we study the Fa and practice Falun Dafa exercises, we need to clearly know that the evil is being eliminated when we do those things. The clearer this understanding is, the more solid we are, and the more quickly and more completely the evil will be eliminated.
"As I've said, everything that happens today in the ordinary society is the result of Dafa disciples' thoughts. Even though the old forces do exist, if you don't have those thoughts they can't do anything. When your righteous thoughts are strong enough the old forces can't do a thing."
("Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A.")
Let's use an example to help us discern from which standpoint we can send forth pure righteous thoughts, not be taken advantage of by the evil, and completely deny the old forces' arrangements.
Some practitioners planned to go to Tiananmen Square to display Falun Dafa banners. What was their purpose? What was the motivation for their plan? Each practitioner might have a different answer, especially at the beginning of the persecution:
"Falun Gong is so valuable. It can teach people's hearts to be good and improve their moral standards. Why aren't we allowed to practice it? I want to try my best to urge the government to change its wrong decision and allow people to practice Falun Gong. If so, wouldn't society improve?" This person's motivation was to the improvement of everyday people's society.
"I used to be very ill. I spent a lot of money on medicines, but they did not help, and I lived with continuous pain. After practicing Falun Gong, I became healthy. Now that Falun Dafa is suffering abuse, my conscience is telling me to demand justice for the Fa. I am not afraid of being arrested or beaten up. That can actually help eliminate my karma." The motivation here was an individual's own conscience that demanded justice for Dafa.
"This is the test of life and death. Every practitioner needs to go through this, sooner or later. We won't reach Consummation without passing this test. Let's go now. We might miss the chance if we don't hurry up." This person was motivated by a desire to reach Consummation in individual cultivation.
Some practitioners even had more than one reason for going to Tiananmen Square. Of course, no matter what motivated them, we should first recognize that their acts are great and magnificent. Now, however, it is the Fa-rectification period. If we continue to hold impure thoughts when doing such a sacred thing, the evil will find an excuse for persecution. Then, evil things will happen, such as our fellow practitioners getting arrested, beaten up, sentenced to forced labor camps, cruelly tortured, etc. Didn't those evil things happen because we had impure thoughts? The evil simply wants to do bad things. That is certain. Because of this, it is extremely important for Falun Dafa practitioners to constantly send forth pure righteous thoughts from the standpoint of Fa-rectification, to not give the old forces any excuses for persecution so that we can restrain the evil from doing bad things, and to actively eliminate the evil. This is the essential denial of the old forces.
In fact, many practitioners have done so. They have righteous thoughts and righteous actions: "I am assisting Teacher with rectifying the Fa." "This is the most righteous thing in the cosmos." "I don't allow the evil to persecute me." "Whoever wants to persecute me will be eradicated." With these thoughts, they went out to validate the Fa in an open and dignified manner and came back safely.
But, and I want to emphasize this, another practitioner might say, "OK, by keeping such a thought, that practitioner didn't get into any trouble. I'll do that also. Then I won't be persecuted." We can imagine the result. All of us should know that this thought is based on avoiding persecution, so it is just a little bit off. Even that little bit, however, is too much.
Firmly Keep In Mind That Our Mission And Responsibility Is To Save The Sentient Beings
"Master wants to save all sentient beings. But the evil forces are truly committing sins against Dafa by using all sentient beings, with the ultimate purpose of destroying them."
(From "Dafa is Indestructible")
"The reason I have come here is to save all sentient beings amidst the Fa-rectification at a time when the colossal firmament of the cosmos is disintegrating."
(From "Touring North America to Teach the Fa")
We have realized that all the things that the evil did to the Fa and to practitioners are sins against the Fa. Therefore we need to eliminate them. Considering it further, what is the result of the evil's committing sins against the Fa? The answer is that the sentient beings will be destroyed!
We know from the Fa that Teacher's method of rectifying the Fa to rejuvenate the cosmos is to save the greatest number of sentient beings. Then why did we, empowered by the paramount title of "Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples," come down to this world? Did we come here to be human beings? Absolutely not. Did we come here for individual Consummation? Again the answer is, "No."
"Today I can tell you this: your cultivation is absolutely not a personal, simple matter of reaching Consummation--your cultivation is saving the countless sentient beings in the cosmic body that corresponds to you and who've put infinite hope in you. The cultivation of you all is saving the sentient beings in every single gigantic cosmic colossal firmament."
("Touring North America to Teach the Fa")
We would clearly understand their meanings if we read the poems "Immense," "Fulfilling a Wish," and "Assisting the Fa" once more. Yes, saving the sentient beings is our ultimate goal. Didn't our eliminating the evil stop it from destroying the sentient beings so that they would have a chance to be saved? The essential goal of all the things that we do during the Fa-rectification is to save the sentient beings! Sometimes we forgot that. We were confused and felt helpless. We might even have had some incorrect thoughts like, "Please end this sooner. What if the Premier did this? What if the Sixteenth Party Congress did that?" Those thoughts are of no use, but the evil kept taking advantage of those thoughts to create new, evil arrangements. Have we learned the lesson? Are we joining the Fa-rectification with a pure heart and taking saving the sentient beings as the starting point and ultimate goal of everything that we do?
When we clarified the truth of the persecution to different governments and organizations and called for their help, we used words such as "Jiang's regime is violating human rights." In our hearts, however, we should be clearly aware that we said it that way because we wanted them to understand us more easily. The essential goal was to help them see the viciousness of Jiang's regime so that they wouldn't be deceived by the evil's lies. Then they would be saved when we explained the facts to them.
"On the surface, we're seeking support for Dafa from the world's people. This is the thinking of the worldly human side, manifest in this human place. Yet it's reversed on the other side. Whoever supports Dafa or advocates for Dafa is establishing for himself his being's existence in the future and is laying a foundation for obtaining the Fa in the future."
( "Teaching the Fa at the Western U.S. Fa Conference")
When we called for help to rescue our fellow practitioners, did we try to get them out simply to avoid the persecution? Did our calling for support just get them released sooner? Although we do need to reduce losses and persecution, that's not all we want. The deeper reasons for our actions are to eliminate the poisons planted in people's hearts by the evil lies, to help them correctly learn what Dafa really is, and to awaken their kind nature so that they can position themselves well. Instead of asking people for something, we are saving them.
When we truly understand the above relationships, everyday people's notions wouldn't restrain us. Instead, we would be able to use them at will. We wouldn't worry about losses and gains. We would be calm under any circumstances. We wouldn't hesitate or change our positions. We would be determined, firm, and persistent. Anxiety, disappointment, feeling helpless, and other bad emotions wouldn't have any influence on us. We would always be peaceful, rational, and confident. We wouldn't feel relieved when we successfully rescued our fellow practitioners. Instead, we would keep working on other Fa-rectification projects.
After Our Wishes Are Fulfilled, We Will Thank Teacher When We Return To Heaven.
"...
Who is really the gallant lead in this gigantic play?
I made this trip just for the sake of sentient beings."
(Descending to the Earthly World)
"He comes with the Truth, which gives him full control
And travels the four seas with a free and easy spirit
Spreading the Fa's principles throughout the secular world
Loaded full with sentient beings, his Fa Boat sets sail"
("Tathagata")
Struggling through and braving the heavy wind and rains, we have come far following the Fa-rectification process. Now when we look back, our understandings, attitudes, and actions might have accorded with the requirements of the Fa as we understood them at that time. But higher levels have higher Fa. If we stay with one understanding of a certain level, we might not be able to keep up with the progress of Fa-rectification. Today, when the Fa is about to begin rectifying the human world, each and every Falun Dafa practitioner needs to handle everything truly from the standpoint of Fa-rectification. We need to constantly and firmly keep in mind our mission and responsibility as Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples. We should take saving the sentient beings as the starting point and the ultimate goal for all our thoughts and actions.
Only in this way can we keep the purest heart when doing the most sacred thing, only in this way can "righteous thoughts display the might of Gods." (From "New Year's Greetings from Master")
"If every one of you can understand the Fa from the depths of your mind, that will truly be the manifestation of the Fa whose power knows no boundary--the reappearance of the mighty Buddha Fa in the human world!"
( "Cautionary Advice")
And only in this way can we be qualified to bear the title of "Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples" and correctly position ourselves as Falun Dafa practitioners in Fa-rectification.
