Falun Dafa Minghui.org www.minghui.org PRINT

Looking Inward to Eliminate the Barriers That Separate Dafa Practitioners

July 2, 2009 |   By a practitioner in China

(Clearwisdom.net) Barriers between Dafa practitioners can cause us to fail to form one body, and can constitute loopholes that the old forces exploit. These loopholes exist in a place within Dafa practitioners' dimensional fields where human mentalities, and other various post-natal human notions, can survive. Therefore, from the perspective of Dafa practitioners' original nature, no practitioners want the barriers that separate us to exist. To eliminate these barriers, some practitioners have busied themselves in talking to other Dafa practitioners about them. Unfortunately, I still notice that the barriers exist in a large number of our cultivation environments. I have also experienced the existence of my own barriers, which have separated me from fellow practitioners and the local coordinator. Through the elimination of my own human notions, I have to a great degree eliminated these barriers. Although I have not completely eliminated them, I still would like to share the process of how I have broken through this separation, and I hope that my experience can be a reference to other practitioners who deal with this issue.

My relationship with the local coordinator has not been very good for quite a long time. From a broader perspective of the Fa, I know that Dafa practitioners are one body. With this understanding, I have held the view that as long as the coordinator asks me to get involved in some bigger projects, I am certainly cooperative. But I usually don't have much contact with the coordinator. In fact, my not having much contact with the coordinator should not matter much, because each practitioner has his or her own things to do. But I found a problem that had existed in me. That is, in my mind a barrier between myself and the coordinator had grown over time. I had developed a thought of being repulsed by the coordinator. For a very long time, I had not thought about what caused the formation of this thick layer of substance that separated us. What was even worse, it had gotten to the point that I didn't even want to see other practitioners who were close to the coordinator. When someone mentioned the coordinator or the several practitioners close to him, I experienced mistrust in my mind. I was not the only one who had this mindset of not wanting to see them. There were also some other practitioners in our region who felt the same way. So a big gap among the Dafa practitioners in our region started to form.

Master has told us, "One's gong level is as high as one's xinxing level" ("Lecture One" in Zhuan Falun). Though I had clearly developed so many human attachments, I still failed to examine myself, and instead I believed that I had done very well in studying the Fa and clarifying the facts of the persecution to people. Later, after several fellow practitioners pointed out the gap between myself and the coordinator, I started carefully searching within myself, and examining the barrier that separated me from the coordinator. I started looking inward to see what human notions formed the root of this problem. After I calmed down and looked at myself, I was startled. I noticed so many attachments of mine, that had grown to high numbers without my realizing it, because I had failed to look inward in time.

First of all, I found a grudge and the mentality of wanting to validate myself. The cause of this attachment is as follows. I am a veteran practitioner in our region. I not only personally attended some Fa lectures that Master gave, but I was also a veteran assistant at our practice site, so I have some influence among Dafa practitioners in my area. After the persecution started, I suffered a great deal from the evil's persecution because I refused to give up my cultivation. Amidst the huge tribulations, I have not only been steadfast in cultivating Dafa, but have also utilized my good conditions and my knowledge to validate Dafa. So I held the belief that I was an important member of the local community of Dafa practitioners. On the other hand, the current coordinator is a practitioner who seems not to have an extraordinary background in Fa-rectification. From the perspective of cooperation among Dafa practitioners, I tried to let go of my selfish thoughts and cooperate with all Dafa projects, but I found that the coordinator often didn't want me to get involved when some important things happened in our region. Instead he let the several practitioners close to him carry out the projects. Of course, it ultimately doesn't matter who gets the work done. If I was asked to do the work, I felt that it was my responsibility to do it. If I was not asked to get involved, it would be fine to continue doing the work I was doing. So my doing or not doing the work was not a big deal in itself. But unfortunately, in my mind I had developed a grudge because I felt that the coordinator intentionally had looked down upon me. And I believed that was why he didn't want me to get more involved in the Fa-validation work in our region. So I felt wronged, and that I was not able to effectively use my capabilities. I had attached too much importance to myself, and this was essentially out of my selfishness; it was impure. After these bad notions were found, I took them seriously, and tried to repress and remove them. When the bad substances like this are eliminated, we become purer while doing Dafa work, being in the proper state for Dafa practitioners.

Another attachment of mine is jealousy. I was an associate head at our practice site in the past. During those several years, whenever Master's new Fa lectures or articles came out, the assistants from the practice sites throughout the region would gather and study the Fa together. While we did Dafa work, whenever something important happened, I was always the key person who would give-out the assignments. Furthermore, I had held a position at my regular workplace that would appear very attractive to ordinary people. I was also very active in promoting the Fa to the government and the high-level circles in the society, and the effect was rather good. I gradually became a well-known person among the practitioners in our region. A majority of local practitioners know me, as do many people in ordinary society. After the persecution started in 1999, I was persecuted because of my cultivation in Dafa, and I was removed from my post in my workplace. I faced the enticement that I would be able to regain my post if I agreed to write a guarantee statement, promising to no longer practice Falun Gong. But I did not cooperate with the evil. I remained determined in my faith in Dafa while under huge pressure from my family, society, and my personal living requirements. I have clarified the facts of the persecution to several thousand people, face to face. I have also published dozens of cultivation experience-sharing and truth-clarification articles on the Minghui and Zhengjian websites [