PureInsight | April 18, 2005
[PureInsight.org] Less than a month ago, Eutelsat, the Paris-based satellite company, cancelled New Tang Dynasty TV's (NTDTV) contract to transmit signals to Asia after a year of pressure from the Beijing government.
To help protect access to NTDTV's programming, the only free, uncensored TV programming in China, U.S. Congressman Christopher Smith and Tom Lantos wrote a letter to ask President Bush to ensure that NTDTV's broadcasting will not be cut. They have asked other members of the Congress to cosign the letter, which was generally known as a "dear-colleague letter." Last week I visited about a dozen Congressmen's office at the House of Representatives on Capitol Hill to ask them to cosign the dear-colleague letter. This afternoon I called these Congressmen's offices to follow up on the dear-colleague letter. After making a few calls, I quickly detected that I had a lot of "human thoughts" when I made these calls and I felt somewhat anxious.
I decided to take a break for a few minutes and searched inward first. The following is what I have discovered. My understanding is limited to my current level of my cultivation practice. Please kindly point out anything inappropriate and please treat the Fa as Teacher.
I decided to go back to our starting point. Teacher asks us to do the Three Things, one of which is clarifying the truth about Falun Gong to offer Teacher's salvation to the world's people. I started to think, "I 'am' calling U.S. congressmen, but am I calling them for the purpose of saving them?"
Not exactly.
Teacher asks us to help save everyone. Aren't we supposed to help save the management of Eutelsat and the U.S. Congressmen as well? When I think and behave like a taxpayer asking my representatives to "uphold justice" on my behalf, I am not helping Teacher save the world's people. Then I am not doing the Three Things Teacher requires of me.
I need to remember I am a cultivator, not a lobbyist asking my representatives to uphold justice! I may use this venue in the everyday people's society to clarify the truth about Falun Gong to members of the Congress, but I have to know "who I really am." I need to keep in mind that fundamentally I am different from everyone people, who call their representatives to support their causes for personal gain.
But that's not all. I felt I still had some human thoughts. What should I do? I immediately remembered that I should ask for Teacher's help when I run into obstacles, so I started to ask Teacher to reinforce my righteous thoughts and to help me understand what my human thoughts were.
Almost immediately I remembered Teacher's Fa lecture in the section of "Your Mind Must Be Right" in Lecture Six of Zhuan Falun. I began to recall that I felt the world was unjust when I called these congressmen. I felt a little anxious and I felt like condemning an assistant of a congressman who was reluctant to make the recommendation to his congressman to cosign the letter. I realized that my mind was not right or righteous because I forgot to treat myself as a cultivator. I was feeling anxious because I was not doing this out of compassion, but because I wanted something from him. How can I complain about anyone? Whom was I trying to condemn? Whom was I trying to condemn for their "unjust" actions, the congressmen, their assistants, the management of Eutelsat or any other everyday people?
I also realized in my mind I thought of "crushing people."
Teacher said, "And it goes even further: whenever a problem needs to be addressed, the first thought is about how to crush others, and the means include rule by force, attacks, launching political campaigns, suppression, denunciations, and the like." (From "We Are Not 'Getting Political'")
When everyday people react unfavorably as I clarify the truth about Falun Gong to them, I often thought of "crushing them." I would think, "I am on the righteous side and that makes you on the evil side." "I will condemn you." "I will subject you to public criticism." Is this what I call "help Teacher save the world's people"? Has Teacher ever taught me to condemn the world's people when they fail to immediately step up to support Falun Gong? Has Teacher ever taught me to feel resentful or indignant because of the injustice against Falun Gong?
When I first heard that Eutelsat would cut NTDTV's signal in Asia, I did not worry for the management of Eutelsat about their future. Instead, I thought about "crushing them." When I said, "crushing them," I meant I wanted to condemn them and use the public criticism to "force" them to recant.
I am a cultivator! I must never treat others as my enemy. I must remove and resist the thought karma of "crushing others," the type of thought that matches and appeals to the Communist evil specter. If I allow myself to be subject to the manipulation of the Communist evil specter, how will I be able to save the world's people from the Communist evil specter? I must be safeguard my righteous thoughts and clarify the truth with a compassionate, peaceful mindset.
While I was making the first few phone calls, I thought to myself, "I must safeguard my righteous thoughts." Now that I thought of it, what type of thoughts did I manage to safeguard? Was I firm and sure-footed on the Fa? I should be firm and sure-footed about Teacher's Fa-rectification. I should be firm and sure-footed in living by the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance at all times. I should be firm and sure-footed about being impervious to everyday people's responses.
If the outcomes of my truth-clarification work are good, that is doubtlessly because I have been firm and sure-footed in following Teacher's teaching. If I simply rely on my human skills, knowledge, strengths or simply my tenacity, the outcome can never truly be good.
I also realized that I should not be attached to the cut-off date of April 15 and, thus, become anxious with each day getting closer to the date. Before the advent of Teacher's Fa-rectification in the human realm, everything we encounter is an opportunity to for us clarify the truth and to cultivate ourselves. I shouldn't feel the urgency to protect NTDTV because the NTDTV's volunteers have invested a huge amount of time, efforts and money to provide programming in the Asia. It still is an everyday person's mentality. I should feel the urgency to protect NTDTV because it is the only TV channel available to the people in China that broadcasts the truth about Falun Gong. I believe it is our heart that will determine the final outcome.
After identifying my attachments and rectifying my mentality, I felt my mind has become more righteous. Then I resumed calling the congressmen's offices. In the next several phone calls in a row, I directly talked to the assistants I was looking for, and I felt they truly listened. For the rest of the phone calls, I either talked to the assistants directly or left a detailed message on their voice mails. Regardless of the approaches I took, I truly felt the improvement of my mentality. I felt I had finally changed myself from an everyday person to a cultivator on this issue although I know I still have lots of human thoughts to remove. After finishing these phone calls, I couldn't help putting my hands together in front of my chest to show Teacher my respect. I repeatedly said in front of Teacher's portrait, "Thank you, Teacher! Thank you for giving an opportunity to assist you in the Fa-rectification. Thank you for teaching me the Buddha Fa. Thank you for reinforcing my righteous thoughts."
I truly feel Teacher has paved a righteous path for each of us. As long as we step on the righteous path, everything will be harmoniously solved. Teacher gives us the credit for the harmonious solutions simply because we step onto the righteous path, but it is Teacher that does everything. Even our very step onto the path is attributed to Teacher's secret hints and his help to reinforce our righteous thoughts to make that decisive step!
In just two hours of time, I have developed a deeper understanding of Teacher's words.
Teacher said, "Now you can see why I've often told you to read the book more, right?!" "It is indeed difficult for those who haven't truly done cultivation to come through this." (From "Drive Out Interference" in Essentials for Further Advancement II.)
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2005/4/14/31922.html
