(Minghui.org) Since the second half of 2017, I have read many experience-sharing articles on the Minghui website about negating the persecution imposed by the old forces. These articles helped me to understand the Fa teachings in this aspect and walk out of the shadow of persecution.
Whenever I hear the evil Party has a new campaign targeting Falun Dafa practitioners, I will immediately remember that I belong to Master and Dafa and that the old forces have no control over me.
Several days ago, my husband gave me a ride to work as usual. In the car, he was talking about how our family was extorted out of a lot of money to rescue me when I was once arrested and detained for refusing to renounce Falun Dafa. This made me feel confrontational. I told him not to mention it again and that he should consider this an evil deed the Party did to me.
He explained that he just wanted to remind me to be safe; otherwise, it would tear our family apart.
To convince him that I would not be persecuted again, I told him that I learned my lesson from the arrest and that I had had a show-off mentality and didn't follow the Fa. “I know how to cultivate now,” I said.
He dropped me off at work, but I began to sniffle before I walked into my office. It felt bad, and I knew something was wrong with my xinxing, so I thought about what I had said to my husband that morning.
Suddenly, I realized that when I said to my husband that I was persecuted because I had the attachments of showing off and following people instead of the Fa, I was allowing the old forces to persecute me because of my attachments.
My understanding was that the old forces had no excuse to persecute me because of my attachments. I closed the office door and sent forth righteous thoughts for a long time.
After lunch, I sent forth righteous thoughts again. A thought entered my mind: “connecting the tears and sniffling to the old forces is also accepting their persecution.”
The thought helped me enlighten to the fact that Master was using the tears to remind me that I have something to improve upon and that it was not about the old forces. As soon as I realized that I had to improve my xinxing based on the Fa, I stopped crying and sniffling.
The encounter taught me how to cultivate based on the Fa and how to negate the old forces' persecution. The correct attitude is to look inward at our xinxing instead of pointing fingers at the old forces whenever an obstacle appears on our path.
Master said,
“Why do you run into these problems? It’s all caused by your own karmic debts. We’ve already decreased it by countless portions for you, and there’s only a little bit left, which is distributed across different levels so that you can improve your character. The tribulations are set up to temper your mind and get rid of your different attachments. They’re your own tribulations, and we use them to improve your character. You should be able to overcome all of them. As long as you improve your character, you will be able to overcome them—it’s only that you might not want to overcome them. If you want to overcome them you can.” (Lecture Four from Zhuan Falun)
I believe that Master arranged this test to help me improve my xinxing when I run into these kinds of situations in the future. Now that I've changed my attitude, I often feel relaxed and can overcome tribulations more quickly.
The day before yesterday, I suddenly had a toothache. In the past, I would send forth righteous thoughts. This time, I didn't do that. Instead, I began to look inward to find out what I did wrong.
I found out that the problem was not cultivating my speech well.
During lunch, some colleagues were talking about an employee who had retired but refused to transfer her work so she could continue to have lunch at the company cafeteria.
I didn't join the gossip because I knew it was not appropriate for a Falun Dafa practitioner. But I described the event in detail to my husband during the ride home, feeling proud of myself for being noble and not gossiping. Actually, I was not any better than my gossiping colleagues.
When I realized that I didn't speak according to the Fa earlier, my toothache went away.
I have seen many practitioners send forth righteous thoughts when they encounter difficulties. While sending forth righteous thoughts is great, we need to find the issue inside ourselves and truly improve our xinxing based on the Fa.
The above is my personal understanding. Fellow practitioners, please follow Master and the Fa.
Category: Improving Oneself
