PureInsight | March 4, 2002
Hello, dear fellow practitioners. My name is Sandra. I am a practitioner from France. I am happy to be here with you today. Due to my English, I haven’t had many occasions to exchange experiences with practitioners from other countries. However, it doesn’t matter if I do not understand your language very well. I am here with you as one more particle. I will tell you about two experiences that helped me improve my understanding. The first helped me become aware that our behavior in ordinary society is very important. The second relates to demonic interference of Fa-rectification due to a very strong attachment.
Our behavior is very important when clarifying the truth.
One day I was in a subway train reading Zhuan Falun. All of a sudden, many people came in. Among them was a woman who looked very tired. My first thought was to give her my seat, but I hesitated. I rectified my thought at once. It was clear she was hoping for a seat. Her belly was a bit round, and I wondered if she was pregnant. It did not matter. I gave her my seat and she was very happy.
Thus, I found myself standing among many people and still reading. I noticed a man right beside me, looking over my shoulder to see what I was reading. I turn my head, and as our eyes met, he said, “Excuse me, but I always want to know what people are reading.” He smiled and said, “Those books by Mao have red covers.” (The cover of the book Zhuan Falun in France is bright yellow.) I showed him my book and told him that this was Zhuan Falun. “Have you heard about it?” He smiled and shook his head. I then asked him if he knew about Falun Gong, the qigong practice that is persecuted in China. He said, “Yes, I do read newspapers.” At that time, the articles in newspapers referred to us as a [Chinese government’s slanderous term], so I took out a Dafa booklet from my bag to explain the truth to him. I made it clear that sometimes newspapers that do not know the true story of Falun Gong just report it in a negative way. He said this was not always the case. We began an interesting discussion, during which I explained to him how Chinese propaganda works. He listened very attentively. I also told him about the principles of Falun Gong and the importance of being a good person in society with high moral standards. This was why I could give my seat to the pregnant woman. He told me, “You know, I was willing to talk with you because people who do this kind of thing are very rare.” I replied, “This is what being a Falun Gong practitioner is all about. Whether it is a small thing or big issue, a practitioner always tries to think of others before thinking of himself. He was astonished by my explanation. He was not aware Falun Gong practitioners were like this. Subsequently, I learned that he was a journalist.
He was very friendly. I arrived at my stop, so we smiled and said goodbye.
My heart was filled with joy because of this experience. I became aware of the importance of our measuring up to the xinxing standard of a practitioner. Master told us, “Since you're doing Dafa cultivation, everything should be the most magnificent and the purest. None of the things we do are just about your personal cultivation. We have to also consider the Fa, and we have to consider the new beings of the future, and, at the same time, we have to consider the form of beings in the future. Because you're laying a foundation for them, the path we take has to be righteous. Whatever you do today, the future people will remark, ‘That's how Dafa disciples did it back then,’ so we can see that many things are major.” (From “2001 Fa Lecture at the Conference in Florida”.) So, while we clarify the truth in different ways, we should be careful of our behavior, even in the smallest details. They can sometimes be as significant as the larger tasks we undertake. This appeared to be a minor experience among many that practitioners are faced with daily. Because of a righteous mind, someone learned the truth. In addition, he will be able to mention this to others.
Very strong attachments gave demons created by my own mind the opportunity to interfere with my interaction with other practitioners and to slow down our hongfa work.
A practitioner joined our group at the beginning of 2001. I could not stand her at first sight. During group study the same evening, I had to leave because she was present. Once, I went home, cried and thought how stupid and dirty my impure thoughts and behavior were. Until recently, I had continuous xinxing trials with this practitioner. It was hard for me to see this attachment appearing. As a practitioner, I always thought that I was not subject to it. This enormous attachment was jealousy, the jealousy that has to be completely removed during cultivation.
Master said, “The issue of jealousy is very serious as it directly involves the matter of whether you can complete cultivation practice. If jealousy is not abolished, everything that you have cultivated will become fragile. There is this rule: If in the course of cultivation practice jealousy is not given up, one will not attain Right Fruit—absolutely not. Perhaps you have heard before that Buddha Amitabha spoke of going to a paradise with karma. But that is not going to happen without giving up jealousy. It may be possible that one falls short in some other minor regards and goes to the paradise with karma for further cultivation. But it is absolutely impossible if jealousy is not abandoned. Today I am telling practitioners that you should not keep yourselves in the dark without being enlightened to it. The goal that you intend to achieve is to practice cultivation toward high levels. The attachment of jealousy must be relinquished, so I have singled out the issue in this lecture.” (From Zhuan Falun, Lecture 7)
The reason I mention this experience today is that this attachment sometimes interfered with hongfa work. During experience sharing, I never talked to this practitioner. I could not even clearly express myself when she was present. I sometimes hoped that she would not come to meetings. This was really disrupting the harmony of our group. It is important for us to do hongfa work together. Other practitioners also noticed my problem.
Continually searching inward is really fundamental to seeing the roots of problems. Master told us “Also, you need to pay attention to one issue: you are Dafa disciples, so you should always look within whenever you run into problems--it's guaranteed that many of the problems are your problems, whether you want to look at yourself or not, or whether you think of them or not. In the future, when you see the truth, you'll realize that everything had a reason.” (From “2001 Fa Lecture at the Conference in Florida”.) Master said many times during conferences that we should continually search inward. In fact, this attachment was hiding many others. Sometimes, when I thought it was removed, it would re-appear. My spirits were a bit low because of this, but I understood that, eventually, it would be removed by my efforts.
One day, I decided to completely eliminate this attachment. It was a barrier for my personal cultivation, hongfa activities and Fa-rectification work. It was very serious. I decided to spend some time with this practitioner, and we agreed to have dinner together. Having the firm wish to eliminate the root of this interference in our cultivation during the Fa-rectification period was sufficient for it to be destroyed. Today, I can work much better with this practitioner. With a light heart, I really understood that we are all linked together. I took a great step to do this. I resolved that, henceforth, evil would not be allowed to take advantage of our loopholes and interfere with our cultivation environment. Making our groups more harmonious is very important. In the Fa-rectification period, all of us have this responsibility.
Thank you, Master, for giving me these trials. Without them I could not have raised my xinxing, nor moved closer to the universe’s nature of Zhen-Shan-Ren.
Thank you all.
