(Clearwisdom.net) My heart became heavy watching Master's video lecture, "Teaching the Fa to Australian Practitioners." Seeing Master's compassionate yet anxious face, I was moved to tears. Having cultivated for so long, Master still worries about us. We still selfishly hold tight to many attachments; our egos are strong; our compassion is weak; we lag far behind what Dafa demands of us.
Our compassionate Master doesn't want to leave a single one of us behind, but because of my indifference I didn't care and help fellow practitioners - the ones who embraced the evildoers' logic; the ones who lagged behind the Fa-rectification process; the ones who no longer studied the Fa because of the persecution. I couldn't understand them and even found fault with those who gave up cultivation under high pressure, blaming them rather than taking any responsibility to look inside myself. I was filled with regret when I listened to Master addressing the issue of CCP spies.
During the past few years, Party officials constantly brainwashed our fellow practitioners, and coerced those who had abandoned their cultivation to spread evil lies. This resulted in the persecution of group after group of practitioners. This has many things to do with our inability to improve as a whole body. We didn't do enough to help the CCP's so-called "reformed" practitioners with our compassion.
Master's lecture reminded me of two stories.
Firstly, a fellow practitioner saw someone, a former practitioner we knew well. The gentleman had been very diligent in his cultivation, but stopped after the persecution began. The other practitioner saw him walking in the street. The man encountered some Falun Gong material posted on a wall, and observed that it was about to fall down. He stopped, took a look at the material and re-affixed it to the wall, careful to check it again before he left. I felt very bad when I heard this. I felt pity for a life that came for the practice, but left Dafa because of the persecution. I felt anxious, yet I didn't do anything to help him.
The second is about a woman who had been active as a practitioner, but was "transformed" while enduring brutal torture in a labor camp. We heard that since her release, officials from the local brainwashing center often sought her help in their efforts to "reform" others. This had a huge impact, and many practitioners were hoodwinked, tricked and deceived into giving up the practice of Falun Gong. Learning this, practitioners alerted each other about her. Some even came to hate her. One practitioner wrote her a compassionate letter deep from the heart. It is said that the woman kept the letter in her pocket, and reread it time and again whenever she got a chance, acknowledging the compassion behind it. If we all help each and every practitioner who has fallen behind with our compassion, improve together, and send righteous thoughts to help clean out the evil elements that have led so many astray, isn't it possible that they would resume their cultivation?
After watching Master's Australia lecture, many of us here locally realized the urgent need to help those who might otherwise be left behind; those who have embarked on the wrong path - to help them step back on the right path; to work diligently together and improve as a whole. Master doesn't want to leave a single disciple behind. We have to accomplish what Master wants. Helping a Fa-rectification period practitioner to get back on track means recapturing a universe with countless sentient beings. I feel the unseen eyes of various immense lives in the universe upon us; the eyes of those who put all of their hopes in us. Suddenly I felt I no longer have the right to indifference, to indulge in my ego and negligence, because my life belongs to sentient beings.
A group of us then started to seek out such practitioners and take them copies of Master's recent lecture to Australian practitioners. Some of them were very excited and expressed their desire to catch up, while certain others experienced strong interference from their families and society. Others were wishy-washy and would not commit themselves one way or another. They are the ones who really need us to display the broad tolerance and compassion that our cultivation has bestowed us with, and who demand our consistent effort to do better. At the same time, we must not go to extremes. We have to do all of the three things well.
Here we express our hope that every one of us seeks to genuinely welcome back our "lost" former practitioners, to fulfill the vows we made. We hope every practitioner will return home with Master, with a multitude of sentient beings to follow.