(Clearwisdom.net) An overseas practitioner told a story, about some practitioners hearing that Falun Dafa practitioner Mr. Liu Chengjun from Changchun City, Jilin Province, once used divine powers so that he could pass through seven metal gates to escape from a forced labor camp. So the practitioners could not understand why he could be tortured to death later. It was said that it happened because when he tapped into the television broadcasts, he thought, "Doing this will lead to death." This thought gave the old forces an excuse to torture him.
This case fundamentally illustrates that each and every one of a practitioner's thoughts should deny the old forces' arrangements. Let's think about it further. How did Mr. Liu Chengjun acknowledge the old forces' arrangement? He acknowledged the old principle of mutual-generation and mutual-inhibition. He thought that the larger the magnitude of the Fa validation activity he participated in, the more severe would be the persecution that followed. In other words, how much he did would be how much he would have to pay for. As a being from the old cosmos, this notion has become natural. However, during the Fe-rectification period, as Dafa practitioners renewed by the Fa, we must follow the new cosmos's principles, the righteous principles of the Fa-rectification and what Teacher has told us to do.
Teacher said,
"So in the past the law of mutual generation and mutual inhibition was absolute, and when a being wanted to do a certain thing, he absolutely couldn't just do it. Those Gods... you all wonder why Gods have to wait for the right time or opportunity to come along if they're going to save somebody, and why it's said that 'the right time' or 'the right opportunity hasn't come yet,' or that 'the opportunity is not ripe yet.' They couldn't do it because the law of mutual generation and mutual inhibition has been pretty much absolute and was restraining everything." ("Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference")
"...the principle of mutual-generation and mutual-inhibition will change in the future" ("For "Whom do You Practice Cultivation?" from Essentials for Further Advancement)
For myself, I had acknowledged this persecution in the depths of mind before. After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started persecuting Falun Gong in 1999, I was actually excited. Because I had read many cultivation stories before, I felt it would be shameful if I did not go through some huge tribulations or hardships during my cultivation. So when the persecution came, a few practitioners and I said to each other, "This is 'true' cultivation now. This is the real tribulation!" There were two issues in this thought. One was the acknowledgment of using the principle of mutual-generation and mutual-inhibition to deal with practitioners (actually we were staying inside this principle to look at cultivation and Fa rectification) and the other was to treat self-cultivation as primary, without realizing the profound meaning of Fa-rectification for the entire cosmos that far exceeds self-cultivation (so we did not understand the difference between self-cultivation and Fa-rectification).
When we talked about the specialness of Beijing, the evil center, many of us naturally used the principle of mutual-generation and mutual-inhibition to think about it and to acknowledge the severe persecution environment there. We must be clear that when we talk about the evil persecution environment and evil mechanisms, we should not acknowledge a reason for them to exist--it was just evil logic and basic instinct for self-protection. While we should have a clear understanding of the actual situation, deep in our hearts we should never acknowledge them. We should, instead, eliminate everything.
A Chinese folk saying goes, "To kill ten thousand of your enemies, three thousand of your own people will die." Some practitioners continued to have these thoughts unknowingly. For example, some felt that going to the evil's lair to send forth the righteous thoughts would extract a high price. Some thought that to escape from the forced labor camp or prison, we had to pay a high price such as going through a tribulation, holding a hunger strike, or having sickness symptoms. Others thought that there was a high risk in distributing "truth-clarification" materials or doing other things. I once asked a practitioner in the south whether he had found the reason why he had been arrested earlier. He answered, "It's because the work that I did was too big."
Teacher said:
"The old forces don't dare to oppose our clarifying the truth or saving sentient beings. What's key is to not let them take advantage of the gaps in your state of mind when you do things." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Boston")
"Over the past year, students' own karma, inadequate understanding of the Fa, inability to let go of attachments amidst tribulations, inability to deal with things using righteous thoughts amidst painful trials, and so on, are the main reasons behind evil's escalation of the persecution, and are the true fundamental excuses that the evil has used to damage the Fa." ("Eliminating Your Last Attachment(s)" from Essentials for Further Advancement II)
Practitioners may have many kinds of notions when resisting the persecution: "The more we resist the persecution, the more severe and painful the torture we will have to endure." "If we sue the evildoer, we will be revenged." "The more or the longer we clarify the truth to people, the greater the risk will be-- 'One's shoes will get wet when walking along the riverside.'" When some practitioners saw a "key" practitioner get out of detention but that others did not, they would think, "Those who haven't done much did not get out. How did he manage to get out?" These thoughts were "naturally" accepting and acknowledging the old principle of mutual-generation and mutual-inhibition, so they became a major obstacle in the Fa-rectification process. The old forces took advantage of this notion and increased the torture against the practitioners who came out to resist the persecution. They created this kind of persecution environment to strengthen this notion.
In the worries and fears that many practitioners still have not given up, they are acknowledging this evil logic. Wasn't this what the evil did at the forced labor camps? Practitioners from Beijing, didn't you really believe that they only went after the practitioners who did truth-clarification? I think the old forces created an environment of terror to pressure practitioners in Beijing as a whole, but actually, they were afraid of the practitioners. Why were they able to achieve their goal? Weren't we practitioners from Beijing having notions of acknowledging them? If we put down our "selfishness" and "fear," completely rejected the cause-effect illusion created by the evil and the evil logic of "the more we did the more we would be tortured," we would see their fear. We would also find that they were aggressive because we hadn't done much. Think about this: If there were plenty of posters with truth-clarification materials in a tightened environment like now, would the evil still be like this? I don't think so. On a different note, they would keep running around and become totally exhausted. Furthermore, if the more severe the persecution was, the more truth-clarification materials there would be, then the evil's logic would fall apart and the evil would not know what to do.
Teacher said, "If you are not afraid, the factor that would make you afraid will cease to exist." ("Eliminating Your Last Attachment(s)" from Essentials for Further Advancement II). From my own experiences, the more actively that I resist the persecution, the less any forthcoming torture. I believe this is the righteous principle. Teacher said,
"Why should you, a Dafa disciple, fear the evil ones when enduring persecution? The crux of the matter is that you have attachments. If not, do not endure passively, and face the evil people with righteous thoughts at all times. No matter what the situation, do not cooperate with the evil's demands, orders, or what it instigates. If everyone does this the environment won't be this way." ("Dafa Disciples' Righteous Thoughts Are Powerful" from Essentials for Further Advancement II)
Some practitioners say that we should not think about how special Beijing is and should not enforce this notion. This holds true at some level. But as a Dafa practitioner, when our understanding exceeds those levels, our view won't be limited by either side. We can say that Beijing is special, but what it really means is that if Beijing is dealt with properly it will have a positive impact on the whole nation. However, we absolutely should not acknowledge what the old forces took for granted in using its special position to execute the persecution. Of course, the old forces want to do that, but we should never acquiesce in it, nor should we let it become true.
Many practitioners understand this principle. They know that they should not have attachments and gaps in their xinxing for the old forces to take advantage of and that they should completely reject the old forces' arrangement. In other words, practitioners must have strong righteous thoughts and firm belief in Dafa. However, during the evil persecution, many practitioners are not able to have each and every thought be a righteous thought. Some practitioners have also discussed this issue in their experience sharing articles.
For example, a practitioner from another province was arrested in Beijing, and he held a hunger strike. Police force-fed him and caused bleeding inside his ear. The police were worried, and perhaps the old forces in another dimension could not handle it any longer. At night, this practitioner had a dream. Two gods (old forces) came to him, "You can go out. But because your situation is special, you should go out with the symptom of hepatitis." Being eager to get out, he acquiesced. He was diagnosed with hepatitis at the hospital and released. However, when he got home, he had great pain in his liver and stayed in bed for two months. He then understood that it was due to his acknowledging the old forces' arrangement of paying a price to get out.
Another practitioner held a hunger strike at a detention center for more than two months. He was then carried to a forced labor camp. He had felt that this was Teacher's arrangement for him to get out. Other practitioners kept sending forth righteous thoughts for him and some even went right to the forced labor camp to visit him and tried to rescue him. The forced labor camp was about to release him. At the hospital, he decided to take out the I.V. tube. The next few days were hard for him to endure. Suddenly he felt a numbness going up his leg. He then had a thought, "Maybe this is Teacher's arrangement to let me get out via this illness symptom." He acquiesced in this thought. He was released, but he could not walk for six months and was unable to devote much effort to validating Dafa.
These practitioners finally understood what Teacher said in "Teaching the Fa at the 2004 Chicago Conference:"
"We negate even the very emergence of the old forces and everything that they've arranged; we don't even acknowledge their existence. We're fundamentally negating all of their things, and all of, and only, the things you do while negating and getting rid of them is mighty-virtue. It's not that you're cultivating amidst the ordeals they created. Rather, you are to walk your own path well while not acknowledging them, not even acknowledging the elimination of their ordeals' manifestations. (Applause) So looking at it from this angle, what we need to do is completely negate the old forces. Dafa disciples and I don't even acknowledge the manifestations of their last-ditch efforts."
These two practitioners had been rejecting the old forces' arrangements. Actually Teacher had already set up successful paths for them. But the old forces switched to a different angle in their last-ditch struggle, trying to ask practitioners to pay a price under their old principle of mutual-generation and mutual-inhibition. If a Dafa practitioner had righteous thoughts and completely stayed on the Fa, he could have completely rejected this form of torture, walked on the Fa-rectification path that Teacher set up, and been more effective in validating the Fa. But many practitioners had the notions to acknowledge the old principles and the old forces. The old forces were pushing the old principle that was not up to the Fa-rectification standards. Their principles were not acknowledged by Teacher. Their principles are not to exist in the new cosmos. Even though the old forces felt this principle was real, it is not a true principle, but a false principle in the new cosmos. As long as we have righteous thoughts and righteous actions, Teacher will establish the principles of Dafa that we follow.
Teacher said in "For Whom do You Exist?" in Essentials for Further Advancement:
"The most difficult things for people to abandon are their notions. Some people cannot change, even if they have to give up their lives for fake principles. Yet notions are themselves acquired postnatally."
Aren't the old forces and their factors like this? As Falun Dafa practitioners, we should harmonize what Teacher wants and ensure that each and every thought of ours is not interfered with by the old forces. Then we will not be managed by the old forces and evil. We will truly treat the Fa as the guide for our cultivation and believe in Teacher and the Fa.
Teacher said,
"Don't forget that since the start of Fa-rectification, everything has had to be determined by what the future needs, including what process the Fa-rectification itself goes through." ("Teaching the Fa in San Francisco, 2005" (Lecture and Q&A))
"But despite that, all lives came for this Fa, so they should assimilate to and harmonize with the Fa positively, and they can't impose things on the Fa or on the future." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2004 Washington DC Fa Conference")
The old forces, including the old principle of mutual-generation and mutual-inhibition, can only assist the Fa-rectification. The Fa-rectification won't follow them. Dafa is rectifying them at the root, so how could Dafa follow them? Isn't this completely opposite of who's the primary and who's the secondary?
Teacher said: "The Four Great Elements (1) have weathered away, And the old Fa is disintegrating" ("The Fa Rectifies All" from Hong Yin Volume II, English Version A). With our flesh eyes we still see that the human world is operating under the old principles. But following the principles that Teacher taught us, the old principles are no longer true but just false principles. They are showing their last energy before extinction of the materials and factors. When we send forth righteous thoughts and clarify the truth, we should not just focus on the change on the surface and question whether it is effective or not. All the things can be done by us. If it has not happened, that's because it takes some time to resolve our own dimensional fields and destroy the evil materials and factors.
Note:
(1) The Four Great Elements: A Sanskrit, and generally Buddhist, term that refers usually to the elements earth, water, fire, and wind.
