(Clearwisdom.net)

A year ago practitioners in our area used TV to present the facts of Falun Dafa and shook the evil with great power. Falun Dafa practitioners tapped into a satellite TV system in our area and neighboring areas and played truth-clarification programs such as "Witness", "Falun Dafa is Good", and so on. This effort has benefited and saved many. This magnificent act scared the evil people responsible for the persecution greatly. For a while these people overwhelmed our area with their activities and tried their best to interfere with and damage our Fa-rectification efforts. Consequently, our Fa-rectification work was seriously hindered. Finally the twenty Falun Dafa practitioners who participated in the TV-program broadcast were arrested and detained in detention centers one after another. Because of this several dozen Faun Dafa practitioners were implicated, arrested, and had their homes ransacked. Some were forced to leave their homes to avoid being persecuted. Among them, twenty practitioners who were the main contacts and coordinators, or had been making truth-clarification materials, were arrested. As a result, the truth-clarification efforts in our area were seriously impacted.

As we witnessed and experienced all of this, we realized more fully the pressure and difficulty the persecution has brought upon our efforts to validate the Fa. We also saw more clearly the evil's nature. Meanwhile, we seriously analyzed the problems existing in the Fa-rectification work initiated in our area and the loopholes that existed in Falun Dafa practitioners' truth-clarification efforts using TV. Here, I would like to share my experience with fellow practitioners so we can encourage and inspire each other.

The mentality of "completing some tasks" is a most deviated mentality, which uses the pretense of the Fa-rectification and becomes undetectable as it blends into the Fa-rectification. Some practitioners think that as long as we do Fa-rectification work our minds are on the Fa and that as long as we participate in the Fa-rectification work we are stepping forward. Some even measure the level of a practitioner's character based on how much he has accomplished or how great an effort he has put forth. Some understand the three things Teacher has requested us to do in a mechanical manner and do the three things like they are following a routine formula. They think that it should be good enough as long as they study the Fa, send righteous thoughts and clarify the truth from time to time. This shows that these practitioners do not really understand the inner meaning of Fa-rectification cultivation.

Members of the group that came together to clarify the truth using TV also had this problem to varying degrees. In the beginning the state of the team as a whole was quite good. They were all able to handle themselves well and coordinate with each other harmoniously. They studied the Fa every day with a calm mind. Their mentality was stable. They paid great attention to sending righteous thoughts. Their righteous thoughts were strong when they worked to tap into a satellite TV system. Their work went smoothly for quite a while.

As the area they covered expanded, the effect of their work also got better as more and more sentient beings knew about the truth, and they also received more positive feedback. As the team members began to attribute more importance to the work and gained more confidence in this project, their attachments to doing this work and having some success quietly developed.

As soon as they had these thoughts, the evil took advantage of their gaps. As their workload increased, they gradually spent less time studying the Fa and their ordinary thoughts surfaced. They kept thinking that they needed to seize this time to hurry up and tell people the true situation. They understood the Fa Teacher taught in a superficial manner. When they studied the Fa they had difficulty calming their minds. Eventually they couldn't even read through one chapter of Zhuan Falun on a daily basis. As their thoughts focused more on doing these things and their anxiety developed, their sense of security and their strict and serious working principles diminished. Usually after they tapped into the TV system of an area, they were supposed to move on to a distant area for their next tapping. However, motivated by human affection and attachments, they interrupted the TV system of the same area two times in a row. As a result they were spotted by the evil, which led to one person and one machine disappearing.

When something like this happened, they should have calmed their minds to study the Fa, searched within themselves for causes, corrected themselves and found out where the problem was. Although they stopped their work for a while and found some causes on the surface, they didn't find the root causes and they didn't take this process very seriously.

Since the state of the team as a whole was not good, and they were anxious to broadcast their programs, they had a hard time listening to suggestions given by the practitioners around them. Their sense of safety lessened and their workload continued to increase. They went from broadcasting once every few days to once per day. They also gradually neglected sending righteous thoughts. They broadcasted in two adjacent counties and were discovered, followed, monitored and persecuted by the evil. During this period, Teacher kept giving them hints: their cars failed to start, car batteries went bad, and so on. They failed to realize it in time, thinking that it was the evil's interference. They were anxious to get results and this eventually led to losses.

As Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples, we cannot turn away from doing Fa-validation work. The key is on what basis and at what realm we do this work. We do not do things just for the sake of doing them. Don't forget our key point: we are beings who come here for the sake of the Fa.

"He's a being created by the most magnificent Fa, and he's rock-solid and as indestructible as diamond."

("Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Washington DC Fa Conference")

Therefore our assimilating with the Fa is extremely important.

"The third thing is studying the Fa well. If you don't study this Great Law well your own Consummation won't be secured. What's more, all the important Dafa things you should do will be like ordinary people going about their business, with ordinary-person thoughts and with an ordinary person's basis, and then that's just ordinary people, at best that's just ordinary people doing good deeds for Dafa. Since you're Dafa disciples you can't dissociate yourselves from the Fa when you do things. You're still continually changing this most surface part that hasn't changed. That's why you can't go without studying the Fa. You must study the Fa well. In the process of studying the Fa you'll be able to keep clearing away bad elements in yourself, changing the last bit of stuff you have that hasn't yet been changed. Why did I always use to tell you so emphatically to study the Fa, study the Fa, and study the Fa well? Because it's of utmost importance."

("Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference, 2003")

"What I'm saying is, during your cultivation you have to seize the day and cultivate yourselves well. No matter how busy you are or how many things you have to do, you can't neglect your own Fa study and cultivation. It's the fundamental guarantee that you'll do well in validating the Fa, and it's also a guarantee that you'll be able to make it to the last step."

("Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference, 2003")

In validating the Fa and saving sentient beings, we should base our foundation on improving our character; we shouldn't be attached to just doing things on the surface. We must study the Fa well, assimilate with the Fa and rectify ourselves.

"It's clear what our starting point is. The essence of what you are doing as a cultivator is improving yourself and cultivating yourself, and, during this persecution, exposing the evil, bringing the persecution to an end, and rejecting the old forces' arrangements."

("Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Vancouver, Canada, in 2003")

Therefore, in validating the Fa it is very important to continue to pay attention to our own cultivation, studying the Fa well and searching within ourselves. In doing so, we can then meet the standards the Fa requires us at different levels. We can basically remain in the state that is required of a Fa-rectification Falun Dafa practitioner and a God's state under any circumstance. Then there is nothing we cannot do in validating the Fa. Our actions will be the manifestation of the Fa. The path we leave for future people will be one that shines like gold and which they can refer to. This is validating the Fa and this is saving sentient beings.

Actually, the mentality of doing things is a notion that is formed post-natally. People do things to fill their void. They have to keep themselves busy everyday in order to feel fulfilled. When a Falun Dafa practitioner does Fa-validation work, if he develops a mentality of doing things, he will gradually neglect his Fa study. The more work he does in this state, especially if the work goes smoothly and is successful, the more he will then develop ordinary thoughts. He will feel fulfilled, feel that he has put his strengths to good use or feel that he is such and such. He will all unknowingly inflate his ego.

When others affirm and praise him, his attachment is strengthened. He gradually forgets that it is the specific arrangements made by Teacher's law bodies that determine whether things are successful or not, and that it is wisdom given by the Fa. If he continues in this way, he will neglect those things that are required of him. He thinks that he is great and won't listen to other people's ideas. This itself is the manifestation of the old forces' behavior. Because he is in conformance with it, it will then manipulate him and continue to expand his attachments, which makes it more difficult for him to calm his mind. It will get him involved with many specific or trivial issues, making him feel that he is very busy, as if every little thing cannot be done without him. It makes him sink into things so he doesn't have time to study the Fa. He will gradually dissociate himself from the Fa.

We discovered that for some practitioners, especially those who make truth-clarification materials, the less they study the Fa, the more difficult it is for them to calm their minds to study the Fa. The more their minds are not on the Fa, the more likely they will be looking for something to do. In doing so they find balance and comfort in their minds, thinking, "I'm stilling doing Fa-rectification work and I'm still clarifying the truth."

In fact, the practitioner is seeking outside of himself for validation, disguising it as Fa-rectification work. This mentality of seeking outside oneself for validation uses the excuse of the Fa-rectification and saving sentient beings to let one gradually deviate from the Fa. This is the biggest puzzle Falun Dafa practitioners have in validating the Fa. This is also the main reason why things went wrong at many truth-clarification-material sites.

It may look the same when we do things as when others do things, but when we do Fa-rectification work, we are not trying to explain something, prove something, or deal with something. Instead, it is a natural display of Falun Dafa practitioners' xinxing [moral character] at different realms of the Fa. We have come here for sentient beings, so we must save beings. However, it is only when our minds are completely on the Fa and our energy field is pure and righteous that we can play the role of saving sentient beings, salvaging beings and shaking the evil. This is the manifestation of Falun Dafa disciples' true realm. This is also Fa's display at our level. (To be continued)