(Clearwisdom.net) Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
Recently through studying the Fa, I made some breakthroughs in understanding, especially about opposing the persecution and interference from the old forces. Today I would like to share my understanding with fellow practitioners.
1. Opposing the Persecution Is Not That Difficult
The brutal persecution of Dafa practitioners has continued since 1999. Although Master had asked us to oppose any arrangements by the old forces, deep inside, I always thought it was not that easy to oppose the evil persecution and interference, thinking that only those who cultivated very well were able to do it. However, I recently gained a deeper understanding based on the Fa, I realized the above thoughts were just my excuses, and in fact, it is not difficult to oppose the interference and persecution.
I was surprised to realize that it is the Dafa disciple who can determine whether to be persecuted or be interfered with. Ages ago, the old forces arranged everything for the Fa-rectification today, including the details of practitioners' thoughts and behaviors. Master said,
"Even each Dafa disciple's every move, every action, every word, and even the questions you ponder, none of it is that simple. In the future you'll see that everything was very carefully arranged. But it's not me who arranged this, it's the old forces who did." ("Fa-Lecture at the Conference in Florida, U.S.A.")
I realized that the notions and thought karma existing in practitioners today were formed due to the old forces' arrangements. Since they are the gods of the old universe, everything arranged by them derives from their inherent nature -- "selfishness". Therefore, the fundamental characteristic of notions and thought karma in today's practitioners is to protect their own interests, which also becomes the old forces' excuse to persecute practitioners. Those notions and thought karma are indeed the true persecution of Dafa practitioners. As long as we do not accept any notions, thought karma, or attachments in our minds, the persecution cannot exist. The old forces would be left alone, waiting to be eliminated. If they dare to fight back, Master and the righteous gods in the universe will eliminate them and their arrangements that are based on the current universe's principles. Therefore, how one should handle the variety of thoughts in our minds depends on our choices. When a bad thought occurs in our minds, we cannot be affected by it, and we should refuse to follow it. This way, we are not acknowledging them, and we are opposing the old forces' persecution; thus the old forces' attempt to persecute us will be dissolved. On the contrary, if we agreed with or accepted the bad thought, the persecution would come along. The same principle applies to interference. Here are two examples.
A fellow practitioner is going out to distribute truth-clarifying materials. The old forces interfere with him by making him think about being reported to the police or being arrested. If the practitioner lacks strong righteous thoughts and has accompanying fear to acknowledge the arrangement, the old forces will arrange for him to be reported and arrested. If the fellow practitioner immediately eliminates the bad thought when it occurs in his/her mind and refuses to follow the bad thought, the old forces will have no excuse to persecute him.
Some practitioners are detained in forced labor camps. When unrighteous thoughts occur, such as fear of being tortured or some other such thought, if one can keep calm and negate the bad thought, such persecution will naturally not occur. In fact, many practitioners accepted the initial bad thought, and then they thought about how to face such a situation. This indeed acknowledged the old forces' arrangements. Then they try to counteract the issue from within the old forces' arrangements. This does not "completely oppose everything arranged by the old forces", which Master has taught us many times in his lectures. As long as we oppose the old forces' arrangements, the persecution and interference will not occur. Although many fellow practitioners have been sharing their experiences of how to oppose the old forces' arrangements, many of them are still not clear on how to do so. It is not sufficient just to talk about it, we need to act against the old forces' thoughts and actions.
Since we realize how important this is, we must learn how to solve this problem. We must focus on how to distinguish which thought is from the old forces' arrangements and which is from one's true self. This is the second topic I will talk about.
2. Understanding Cultivation
Through studying the Fa, I have been gaining a greater understanding of the meaning of cultivation. I realize that cultivation is a process of giving up the non-self and cultivating the true-self. Postnatally acquired notions and thought karma have been constantly forming and have gradually replaced our main consciousness to control our thoughts. For some people, their thoughts are completely controlled by postnatal notions and karma. Their main consciousness, just as Master mentioned about mental patients, gives up control and lets other thoughts take over the brain and the body completely. Master said,
"You know that the distracting thought you have is bad, so try your best to repel it. I'll tell you that when human beings live in this world it's often not the person himself that is pondering -- it's not truly that person who is living. If you look at today's people, regardless of which country the person is from, they are busying about all day. How does he live? I'll tell you that with some persons half of the time it's not really that person who is living, to the point that with some people it's really not the person himself in the least."
"With modern people in particular, do they really know how they are living? In his life, from youth to adulthood, a person accumulates many 'experiences,' and these 'experiences' form notions in the person's mind. People think that when they run into a problem that 'as long as I deal with it this way it will work out.' Then after a while, in this fashion fixed notions come to be formed. You think that you have dealt with many things well, but you yourself don't exist anymore; you have entered a slumber. The 'you' living in everyday society --your flesh body--has been dominated by those postnatally-formed notions. Doing this, doing that, all day you are in a daze, and you pass the days like this. But those notions were all produced so as to protect you from harm. But if you aren't harmed, you cannot repay karma; you will gain in ways that you shouldn't have; and you will harm others, thus constantly creating karma. And that karma is alive, for the postnatal notions and the karma form thought-karma in the brain. Then when you cultivate, you have to eliminate it. That's because when you cultivate, you can't cultivate [those things]. You wouldn't want to cultivate [those things] instead of cultivating yourself, and of course I wouldn't want that, either." ("Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Houston")
I realize that our cultivation is about making sure our main consciousness takes control of our brains and bodies. This is what is called "returning to our true self" and "getting back to the original self" in the community of cultivators. Through cultivation, our characteristics change from those of "selfishness and egotism" to those of "selflessness and altruism"-- the nature of the new universe.
Master also encouraged us,
"As a Dafa disciple, everything of yours is formed by Dafa and is the most righteous..." ("Dafa is Indestructible" from Essentials for Further Advancement II)
Since the well-cultivated part of us has been formed completely by Dafa, which is selfless and has no bad thoughts or thoughts for matters such as fame, personal gain, qing, or other attachments, then anything in our minds that does not conform to Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance will be the "non-self" that was arranged by the old forces. In this way, we can identify the arrangements by the old forces and oppose them. By opposing them, we can end the persecution by the old forces.
Here, I call for the attention of fellow practitioners! We can no longer regard those attachments or other bad things as part of ourselves. If so, we are just acknowledging the old forces' arrangements. So when we send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate them, it will not be that powerful because we regarded them as part of us and brought them in.
The above are just my shallow understandings. Please point out anything that is improper.
