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Experience-Sharing Should Not Become Interpretation of the Fa

May 7, 2015 |   By a Falun Dafa practitioner in China

(Minghui.org) Many practitioners in my area were arrested during the past two years. At first individuals were arrested, then groups. This eventually evolved to arrests of all practitioners in Fa study groups. These practitioners had been considered quite diligent.

On the surface, some were located by the police via mobile phones. Others were arrested after being reported to police while clarifying the truth or followed. However, I don't see these as the sole causes.

I used to unknowingly interpret the Fa or offer definitions on part of the Fa. I see that these arrested practitioners have made the same mistake, which is a very serious cultivation issue.

Many of them have advanced degrees; some had resumed the practice after major detours in their cultivation. They had not given up their human notions and could not let go of the habit of conducting “academic research” on Dafa.

As soon as Master's new lecture was published, they would organize a group of practitioners to analyze and interpret the inner meanings of the lecture, including Master's state of mind when giving the lecture, the time, the location, the people and events involved.

They would even give speeches in different cities and share their findings, which eventually evolved into “speech conferences” that disrupted the Fa. It is just as Minghui editorials warned against.

Since such “academic research” was conducted in the name of studying the Fa, many practitioners participated. Many of those who followed blindly were later arrested. Those who were not arrested suffered greatly from severe sickness karma. This has caused losses to the salvation of sentient beings.

There were practitioners, who when asked about Dafa lectures, offered their understanding. Everything they shared seemed to be based on the Fa. But in fact they were interpreting the Fa within the limits of their own cultivation levels.

For example, a practitioner asked who is the “Lord” mentioned in “Who is the lord of heaven?” (“No Confusion,” Version B from Hong Yin II) Some said that the “Lord” refers to Master, and others said the “Lord” refers to practitioners. The question was even discussed in the group Fa study, which misguided some practitioners.

Another practitioner started a discussion of the word “drifted” in the “Level after level of beings have drifted from the Fa” (“No Confusion,” Version A from Hong Yin II), and gave his interpretation of the word. This practitioner was later arrested and is still detained.

I recall that a practitioner who was forced to renounce Falun Dafa shared with me at a forced labor camp 13 years ago. He told me to stop trying to talk to those enlightened to the evil path if I found the communications to be difficult.

I now understand what he meant. Those with crooked understandings of the Fa twisted the meaning of Master's lectures. So when we tried to correct their fallacies, we could easily fall into the trap of defining the Fa based on our understandings. The result would be the same as disrupting the Fa. The only difference is that they did it with intention while we did it unknowingly.

Master said,

“...Many things in the scriptures were mistranslated in the translation process. In addition, many interpretations of the scriptures were also made from perspectives at different levels, and the definitions were casually made. That is plundering the Dharma. Those people who casually interpreted the scriptures were too far away from the realm of Buddhas; they did not understand the scriptures’ actual content. Therefore, they would also have different understandings of the issues.” (Zhuan Falun)

We have overcome many obstacles and hardships and blazed a new path during the past two decades. During the final leg of our journey, we should be careful about not turning our experience sharing into interpreting the Fa.