Cherish the Precious Opportunity that Occurs Once In Millions of Years

Greetings, Master and Fellow Practitioners,

My name is Zhudan from Toronto. I obtained the Fa on May 20, 1997. On the day after tomorrow, I will have been a Falun Dafa practitioner for a total of five years. Recalling the past five years of cultivation and especially the last three years of Fa-rectification cultivation, I would like to thank Master from the bottom of my heart, "Thank you, Master!" I would also like to say to my fellow practitioners, "How lucky we are! Please cherish the precious opportunity that occurs once in eons."

1. Keep Up With Personal Cultivation While Assisting Master in Fa-Rectification

I obtained the Fa on May 1997. In August of that year, I attended a long-weekend group Fa-study and began to truly understand the meaning of cultivation. So I decided that I would cultivate myself right to the end until reaching Consummation and return home with Master. At that time, my cultivation practice was tranquil and serene. I always felt myself immersed in the state of returning to my true origin. Every practitioner was trying to upgrade him or herself and to get rid of attachments, and every practitioner was considerate of newcomers and tried their best to provide a good cultivation practice environment. Being in such an environment was like being in an expanse of tranquil and clear water, where impurities were easily seen. At that time, many practitioners took part in spreading the Fa, so attachments of each individual were not easily revealed. Even for a long period after Fa-rectification cultivation started, most practitioners were still in such a state.

Along with the progress of Fa-rectification and with truth-clarification gradually touching every level of our society, it also reflected on us practitioners like a mirror. Our various deeply concealed attachments, which were not easy to perceive were revealed. I started to work in the TV group since last April. The reason I joined the group was that I thought it was suitable for me and I like TV work. As I became more skilled, and the workload increased, I seemed to have forgotten the meaning of cultivation in what I was doing. When I came across difficulties or conflicts, I would very often lose myself and try to figure out the reason and the result of a problem itself. Sometimes I was in such a poor state that I was shocked even myself. Many attachments, such as showing-off, jealousy, the fighting mentality and complacency, which I thought I had almost got rid of, all came out. During group discussions, I was always stubborn and opinionatedly assertive. Sometimes I even lost my temper. In the first half a year after I joined the TV work, my behavior often provided opportunities for others to improve their xinxing level. Yet, the superficial reasons (for what I did) were to do better in Dafa work. I was aware myself that the stage I was in was not good. But for a long time, I was only busy with my work and did not calm down to look inward. Master said in Touring North America to Teach the Fa, "Mankind's history is like a play, and you played all the roles—from kings to common folk, from heroes to villains, from intellectuals, to famous people, to heroes." When I read, I felt I totally understood what Master was saying. I especially felt that I had been a villain. Once, while chatting with several practitioners, I told them about how I felt. No one said anything to the contrary. A Western practitioner with shining blue eyes even said with total agreement, "Yes, you must have been a villain!" All practitioners kindly laughed. But I was lost in thought.

Master said in Touring North America to Teach the Fa, "When you are doing things with other Dafa disciples, it's inevitable that you have arguments, and it's inevitable that you have differences of opinion. Why? Your attachments have to somehow be displayed so that you can get rid of them." These words awakened me. Yes, there was no other reason for the differences of opinion between practitioners except for displaying our attachments. I should look within myself. When arguing with fellow practitioners, no matter what the reasons there were on the surface, I must admit that at that time I was acting against "Truthfullness-Compassion-Tolerance," because I was somewhat angry. Master said in Zhuan Falun (Lecture 8, "Stealing Qi"), "That is to say, if one has qi, one still has illnesses. We are practitioners—what do we need qi for in the practice? Our own bodies need to be purified. Why should we need that impure qi? Definitely not. A person who wants qi is still at the level of qi. Being at that level of qi, he cannot distinguish good qi from bad qi, as he does not have that ability." As long as I did not have a pure heart when I spoke, the moment I spoke, I dropped to the level of an everyday person by the attachments, and as such, I could not discern good from bad. Even when I did a good job, it was no more than an everyday person doing Dafa work. To put it more seriously, my stubborn attachments to my own opinions and to the imaginary effect I hoped to reach showed that in essence I did not trust Master and Dafa. "Cultivation depends on one's own efforts, while the transformation of gong is done by one's master. It is good enough if you have this wish. It is the master who actually does this, as you are simply unable to do it." (Zhuan Falun, Lecture One, "Why Doesn't Your Gong Increase with Your Practice") All in all, all these are the basics in cultivation. Teacher said at the beginning of Zhuan Falun, "To tell you the truth, the entire cultivation process for a practitioner is one of constantly giving up human attachments." All these problems should be solved at the beginning of self -cultivation practice. However, today, when we are well into Fa-rectification, I still hide these attachments with various excuses, missing the opportunities to upgrade myself time and time again. I came to the understanding that we should not forget to cultivate ourselves in the process of assisting Master in Fa-rectification.

2. Take the Initiative in Fa-Rectification Cultivation

Master said in Zhuan Falun (Lecture Eight, "Whoever Practices Cultivation Will Attain Gong"), "In our school of practice, it is the Main Consciousness that obtains gong." "Everyone knows that our school of practice does not shun ordinary human society in cultivation practice, and neither does it avoid or run away from conflicts. In this complex environment of everyday people, you should be clear-minded and knowingly lose in terms of interests." I suddenly saw the two characters, "take the initiative" in the sentences. They were so clear. When I went on reading "Heavenly Circuit," "Attachment of Zealotry," and "Cultivation of Speech," till Lecture Nine, and then I read back, the two characters run through the whole book. In Zhuan Falun, ( Lecture Three, "Spirit or Animal Possession") Master said, "Here, we teach everyone to follow the righteous way, and at the same time explain the Fa to you thoroughly to let you become enlightened on your own. It is your own business whether you want to learn it. The master takes you through the entrance, and it is up to you to practice cultivation. Nobody will force you or make you practice cultivation. It is your own business whether you practice cultivation."

Master said in Lecture at the First Conference in North America in New York, "Let me draw a most simple analogy: If a piece of sawdust drops into a furnace of molten steel, it will vanish in a twinkling. It would be effortless for an immense Fa such as ours to assimilate a person like you, to eliminate your karma, to remove your improper thoughts and so forth. Given that the Fa's power is so mighty, why don't we do it this way? We can't do that in the society of everyday people, because cultivating that way wouldn't be considered cultivation. Rather, it would be regarded as re-creation, which would mean discarding you completely and re-creating another person. So you have to genuinely cultivate in order for it to be you, yourself." I enlightened that the analogy clearly explained two completely different processes, taking initiative to jump into molten steel or waiting for molten steel vanishing us, which is cultivating ourselves or "re-creation."

Yes, looking back from the first day of our cultivation to today's Fa-rectification, every step is an initiative choice of being a cultivator or an everyday person. I know most of us have a lot of Fa-rectification work to do, and wish we could have 36 hours a day. When we work till midnight, struggling to keep our eyes open, and really want to drop to bed to sleep, yet we have not done the exercises! Master said, "Practicing cultivation is the best form of rest. You can obtain the kind of rest that can't be obtained through sleeping." (Lecture at the First Conference in North America) Should we go to bed or do the exercises? Facing conflicts, should we calm down and look inward to find the attachments or go along with the side of our demon nature? Under the vicious persecution, practitioners in China face a more direct and cruel choice: to be a human or a god.

Master has taught us the Fa clearly, but how to act will always be the choice of cultivators themselves. The choice-making process is a cultivation history, marking the footprints of every one of Dafa practitioners. It decides our future and reflects the righteousness and dignity of Dafa, at the same time during Master's Fa-rectification and saving sentient beings, our choice also enables people to feel Dafa's righteousness and her boundless mercy. Jiang's regime of gangsters has poisoned countless people with their vicious rumor-mongering media, and the resentment even hatred towards Dafa are forced into many people's mind, and these people are also victims of deception, who are committing crimes in ignorance. The process of clarifying the truth is the opportunity the great Fa has offered to people, which tells them the truth of Dafa and allows them to make their own judgment on righteousness and evil, on truth and false. It is just as what Master said in "Towards Consummation," "Sentient beings, your future positions are chosen by you, yourselves." This is the sacred duty laid upon Dafa disciples, and perhaps this is also where lies the magnificence of Dafa disciples.

3. Strive Forward Together, A bright Future Lies Ahead

In September last year, I participated in a SOS walk, walking from Toronto to Ottawa. The distance was 450 kilometers and we walked for 20 days. Our state of mind was very good at the beginning; news media and governments all responded positively, people we met along the way were also very understanding and supportive. However, as we walked further, tiredness, laziness, the mentality of doing things and other kinds of human factors got in the way and we ignored studying the Fa. As a result, conflicts in xinxing appeared within the group, and the situation was just like what a practitioner said, "Sky changed, so did the land, people also changed and nothing seemed right." A mayor who had scheduled to meet us suddenly declined with the excuse of going to another meeting just as we approached his office door. When we came out from the city hall after being rejected, we found the earlier blue sky suddenly became windy and the sun was covered up by dark clouds. The usual supportive horns, waving of hands from the traditional and friendly Canadians along the way and people stopping for flyers all disappeared; instead we saw people in black clothes on motorbikes whizzing past, shouting abuse. All these woke us up with a start. We understood that whenever there was a conflict among our cultivators, we would give the evil a loophole to exploit and they would make trouble and set obstacles to prevent us from assisting Master in Fa-rectification. Once we identified the problem, we intensified Fa study and experience sharing, adjusted our state of mind, and set demands of ourselves by the standard of a cultivator. Then, everything went back to normal, and similar incidents never happened again.

This incident gave me a lot of inspiration. All of us Dafa disciples are high-level beings from different celestial bodies, which are extremely far away, and our life characteristics also differ significantly from one another, each having a different mission, yet we are all doing the same thing. This is why Master said that Dafa disciples are one body. Dafa practitioners all over the world are one body. At the same time, Dafa practitioners in each country, each region, each city or even in a group are also one body. It is just like a Falun; tens of thousands of Dafa particles form a large Falun, of which the swastikas and taijis are different entities at the same time. Each particle of us has his own position, each with our individual motion obit, at the same time spinning at a high speed within the huge Falun. The role of each particle is equally important. However, within the same entity, harmonious coexistence among the particles and synchronization with the huge Falun bear more extraordinary significance.

I'm very fortunate to be in an environment like Toronto, where I can constantly feel that we cultivate and advance as one body. The advancement of one body is closely related to our consistent group Fa-study and discussion in the past several years. I started my cultivation from a weekend Fa-study five years ago, and this tradition has been kept up to date. It has also become part of our life to study the Fa together intensively whenever there are long weekends or during Christmas holidays. It is this healthy and persistent Fa-study environment that melts us together, and enables us to stand together through thick and thin when facing the evil tests and to be where we are today with steady steps. One thing worth mentioning is about the practitioners in assistant centers and Falun Dafa Associations. They are also practitioners with different personalities, who have different ways of doing things, and their understandings of Fa also vary. However, what I have seen as a normal practitioner is that they are always able to show understanding and tolerance towards each other, able to put the overall situation first and think of Dafa first. This has played an important role in us to advance as one body. Many fellow practitioners share the same feeling as mine and feel extremely fortunate to be in such a cultivation environment. In this community, there is no lingering grievance; people may argue with one another and the arguments can get heated sometimes. But they can always look within themselves afterwards. In this place, each fellow practitioner is like a mirror; anyone who cultivates well will be our example and inspiration; anyone who does not do well will enable us to check if we have the same attachment in ourselves. It is just like what Master wrote in his poem, "In Harmony with the Fa," "The Buddha-light illuminates everywhere, Propriety and justice rectify and harmonize everything, strive forward together, A bright future lies ahead." (Unofficial translation)

The Lord Buddha is merciful and compassionate, and Buddha's benevolence is vast and immense. Our respectful Master has been rectifying the Fa and saving the firmament all the way till today, and sentient beings can never imagine the sufferings he has endured for us all. We can only double our efforts and fulfill our pledges we made ages ago. Let us truly cherish this precious opportunity that does not occur once in millions of years.

By Zhudan, shared at 2002 Toronto Fahui