(Clearwisdom.net) Teacher mentioned searching inward several times in "Fa Teaching Given to the Australian Practitioners." I have some understandings that I'd like to share with everyone. Please kindly point out anything inappropriate.
In the beginning, I only superficially searched inward. I remember a specific incident that illustrated this clearly. One time I was distributing truth-clarifying materials in the middle of the night. I heard dogs barking and saw people walking by. I looked inside myself and suddenly realized that if I am afraid, how would other sentient beings be able endure it? Although I was distributing materials, I was in fact saving sentient beings. If I was afraid, they would also be afraid, so then how could they be saved?
Another understanding that I had about searching inward came when I was on a hunger strike in a forced labor camp. I realized that when I found an attachment in this dimension, I had opened up an iron gate in another dimension until my righteous thoughts eliminated it.
The first few days after I was arrested, I searched inward again. A month before that, a fellow practitioner had criticized me but I didn't listen and instead argued with her. Everything that I had lost due to persecution were things that I had attachments to, such as money, sentimentality, comfort, and other things. Of course, I could not walk the path arranged by the old forces and I could not agree with their persecution of Dafa under the guise of such excuses. I think that if a person pays attention to getting rid of human attachments in his cultivation, then the old forces won't have any excuses to persecute that person.
A week after the materials production site was set up, I heard the old forces in another dimension saying that practitioners in our city have a strong attachment to fear and that local practitioners wanted to protect themselves more than to save sentient beings. They also said practitioners would go into hiding at even the slightest sign of trouble and that these practitioners need to improve. Soon after I heard these things, three things happened. First, the police conducted a city-wide search because a TV broadcast signal was interrupted and utilized to show programs exposing the persecution of Dafa. Secondly, a large materials production site was destroyed. As a result, everyone panicked and some even stopped taking home truth-clarification materials. The third incident involved the spread of rumors among practitioners about how a certain fellow practitioner was a spy and that other practitioners were told not to have any contact with him. All of this reminded me of an evil arrangement that I encountered earlier. The only way to resolve these things is to search inward when encountering difficulties. If our human attachments are exposed, they need to be resolved accordingly. So I shared my understandings with other practitioners. Once everyone understood and saw the issues in themselves, the fear went away and the situation quickly stabilized. This incident really touched me and left me with a stronger impression that I should search inward.
I saw in other dimensions that if someone is surrounded by evil that is attempting to persecute him, he should search inward at that moment. Thus, the evil will be restrained and will not be able to get close to the person.
When we set up the materials production sites in rural areas, I selected one coordinator from each of the three areas for which I am responsible. Every week we meet at my place to discuss and share our understandings. We ask each other, "Do you see any shortcomings in me? Do you see any common attachments among practitioners in this area?" We all search inward to see if we have the same problem as others do and determine how to improve upon it. We look inside ourselves and help each other to search inward as well. The coordinators then talk to other practitioners in their areas and share with them the shortcomings that we saw so that other practitioners can use them as a reference. If there are common attachments that we cannot explain clearly, we add a column after the "Minghui Weekly" for a local experience sharing event. We select articles only from the Minghui/Clearwisdom website to publish. We use them to point out other practitioners' attachments and try to resolve these issues through studying the Fa. If one or two articles are not enough, we put them in small booklet, such as "Illness Karma," "To Practitioners Who Haven't Stepped Out," and "Determination to Cultivate." Every once a while, we analyze the attachments of local practitioners and write about them. This helps everyone to search inward and to form a good environment.
What we found is that wherever practitioners cultivate well, that is where things seem to be good from all perspectives. Sentient beings believe that practitioners can save them, and they come to practitioners in search of the truth and ask to be saved. When people do not treasure their lives, perhaps it is a reflection of practitioners in that area without understandings about the preciousness of these lives. Also, this could be a reflection of practitioners not making the best use of their time to save sentient beings.
Searching inward allows one to cultivate oneself and it can also save others. However, in order to find one's attachments, one must study the Fa well and truly understand the Fa from the perspective of the Fa. One can then reach the state of having no enemies and will always be successful.
