Falun Dafa Minghui.org www.minghui.org PRINT

Regretful Tears

Feb. 21, 2004

(Clearwisdom.net) Every time I think of this event, which I will narrate below, I feel like crying. I feel guilty and regretful. Therefore, I didn't want to write this article. But realizing that my experiences can still be of some help to fellow practitioners, especially those who did not pay attention to Clearwisdom editorials and who did not treat cultivation seriously, I made up my mind to write about it. I hope fellow practitioners can treat the issues raised in this article seriously.

We used to know a practitioner from a different area. At that time, he seemed to be a practitioner who had cultivated well. Later the police raided the truth-clarification material site in his area, and arrested his fellow practitioners working at that site. Other local practitioners planned to set up a new site. He was the only one who knew how to operate the equipment to produce the materials, and he was very smart, so naturally, other practitioners had him coordinate the new material site, and asked him to take care of the equipment and funds used to produce materials.

Because he attained the Fa fairly late, (I think it was after the year 2000,) he did not understand that he should focus on cultivation. Instead, he only did Dafa work for the sake of doing things. For a period of time, there were no problems (meaning the material site was not discovered by police), and the new things he came up with to enhance the content, format and readability of the materials all received positive reactions. Gradually, different attachments of his arose. Conflicts between him and other practitioners were getting worse and worse. When other practitioners pointed out to him what his problems were, he dismissed them and sometimes even laughed at and joked about them. His attitude even upset some practitioners and made them cry. On the outside, it seemed as if he was a very tolerant person. Actually he was always trying to cover up his weaknesses, and he never tried to remove his attachments. I remember him saying once "we should leave a little bit of each attachment," meaning, if we got rid of all our attachments now, life would be meaningless.

Many practitioners thought it would be a good idea for another practitioner to coordinate the material site and let him study the Fa more. Master had also on many occasions mercifully hinted to him. For a while, he agreed to have another practitioner take over, but only to send a message to the others: "See if you can find someone better than me at this job." However, he was not actually trying to improve his xinxing. After a while, he resumed working as the coordinator.

But the troubles did not stop. We often went to his area to help coordinate things over there. When fellow practitioners from other areas heard us mention the situation over there, they were eager to go and see for themselves what was going on. All of them wanted him to step down and have someone else take over again. At the time, I did not realize how bad the situation was. I just thought that if everyone looked inside this problem would be solved.

But, not soon after, he had problems. The police arrested him. He could not withstand the torture for long and gave out all the addresses of local practitioners, and all the information on his work. This caused a lot of problems with truth-clarification efforts in his region. Some practitioners even lost their lives. The consequences for his and all of our mistakes were grievous.

He was very good in the beginning, but because he did not take cultivation seriously, he had caused a big problem. How would Master treat this?

Later, in court, when a fellow practitioner saw him, he cried instead of joking and laughing around. These were regretful tears. At that moment, I realized the seriousness of cultivation.

As far as I knew, some coordinators of Dafa work and material sites have not come to realize the seriousness of cultivation, nor have they treated the issue of male/female relationships decently. Recently Clearwisdom published two editorials. One was entitled "Clearwisdom Editor: On the Basis of Fa-Rectification Cultivation, Safeguard the Stable Operation of Materials Sites and Internet Access Points in Mainland China" and the other one entitled "On the Relationship Between Members of the Opposite Sex and the Issue of Marriage." However, some of the practitioners even went to the extent of dismissing these editorials, using the excuse that they were not written by Master. Actually, Master already addressed the issue of male/female relationships at the New York Experience-Sharing Conference. Master was quite likely reminding practitioners of such issues via Clearwisdom. There will not always be chances like that; fellow practitioners, please cultivate seriously, and treat all fellow practitioners seriously.

Another thing I would like to say is that when you see coordinators having trouble, take the time to talk to them and ask them to step down and study the Fa carefully for a while. Think about it, this is for their own good. One coordinator said that if practitioners just stopped following his guidance, then such a big mistake would not have been made.

Even though the old forces have already been eliminated, even though the evil is not as strong in certain areas, there are still many people waiting for salvation, and we cannot let our guard down. Cultivation is a very serious matter. It's like a boat going upriver; if you stop rowing, the boat will stop and go backwards. I hope everyone will think about the regretful experience of the coordinator mentioned above and be a genuine Dafa practitioner.

These are my personal understandings, please point out any shortcomings.