Cultivation during the Fa-rectification

Greetings, venerable Teacher. Greetings, my fellow practitioners:

I'm from Chicago. I obtained the Fa in 1999, so it's been almost three years now. I attended Teacher's Fa-lectures when Teacher just started to introduce Falun Gong to the public. However, I was so attached to the ordinary people's lifestyle that I missed the opportunity to truly understand what Falun Dafa really is. It's so benevolent of Teacher to give me another chance to obtain the Fa. I was lost in the human world, but Teacher helped me to find my way back to my true self. I'm so lucky to have Teacher with me during this rare Fa-rectification period in the cosmos. Here I want to tell my fellow practitioners, "Let's cherish this rare opportunity. Let's do well in Fa-rectification cultivation." In almost every Fa-lecture, Teacher has reminded us of the importance of studying the Fa. I'm very well aware of the point that "it's very important to study the Fa." During the first year after I obtained the Fa, I didn't know much about Fa-rectification cultivation since I didn't pay special attention to Teacher's new articles. So I was stuck in personal cultivation. I even took Teacher's articles as references to analyze the whole situation of the Fa. I hoped I could calmly and comfortably practice Falun Dafa, "after the situation becomes better," I thought. When sharing experiences with other practitioners, sometimes I felt it seemed I was wrong somehow and that it seemed I lagged behind the Fa progress as a whole. However, I didn't figure out the reason until one day a fellow practitioner directly said to me, "You are not striving forward." I wasn't convinced at all. I thought that I had been very strict with myself in reading the books, practicing the exercises, and improving my xinxing. How could he say I was not diligent enough? Then at a group study, a practitioner mentioned he had read Teacher's new articles twenty times. I was deeply touched. Maybe I "wasn't diligent" with regard to this issue? Some other practitioners made me a complete copy of all Teacher's new articles. I read them several times and then I came to realize my problem—I had almost missed another opportunity: to be a Fa-rectification disciple during the Fa-rectification period. Teacher said in the Fa-lecture at the 2002 Fa Conference in Boston, "Every realm has its own state of being. If you're stagnant, you definitely won't be able to keep up with the Fa-rectification." Studying the Fa is the key to improving our levels.

I wondered what I should do after I realized this problem. At that time, a 2001 Fa-conference was held in Chicago. At the conference, Teacher's article, "To All Students at the Nordic Fa Conference" was read. Teacher said in the article, "So in clarifying the truth, don't wait, don't rely on others, and don't just hope for changes in external factors." I felt each word was written for me. Wasn't that a state of mind of mine? At that conference, I heard Boston practitioners were calling upon practitioners to do an SOS Walk to Washington DC to clarify the truth. A thought came to my mind, "I must join it." I called them after the conference. After some twists and turns, I finally got the chance to attend this very sacred activity. Later I heard over two hundred practitioners from Taiwan would join in. So some practitioners in New York who had packed their luggage were unable to attend the activity because there was a limit on the number to participate. A practitioner joked with me, "Is there somebody secretly helping you get in?" I know who was "secretly helping me get in." Teacher knows every thought of ours and Teacher arranged our Fa-rectification cultivation path for us according to our levels in order to help us get rid of those attachments that we need to let go of.

As Fa-rectification progress continues, we need to clarify the truth to people from all walks of life. Besides attending various truth-clarification activities, I have been clarifying the truth through online chat rooms. In the chat rooms, I have not only clarified the truth to people, but also realized many things that I need to improve in my cultivation and uncovered some hidden attachments.

When I first started to do this, I could barely handle all the questions raised by the people in the chat rooms since my typing speed is slow. I was very worried and I felt I didn't do much when I saw I missed so many chances to clarify the truth and when I saw so many people were misled by those slanders. It was an unbearable feeling. I almost wanted to give up. Sometimes when I read articles on the Clearwisdom.net, I would think how wonderful it would be if people in Mainland China could have access to those articles. Inspired by this thought, I tried to paste some articles from Clearwisdom.net to those online chat rooms. The results were pretty good, yet still there were many questions on the so-called "self-immolation incident," suicide incidents, the question of medicine being forbidden, the 1400 cases of deaths, and so forth. So I rephrased some relevant truth-clarification articles to make them more suitable for a chatting style. The truth-clarification results were very good. During a period of time, many people got to know the truth through chatting with me and I made many short truth-clarification sentences to answer different questions. At present, I have accumulated over one thousand short sentences and dozens of hyperlinks. They covered various kinds of questions. I can almost answer all questions in the chat rooms without even typing a word.

Truth-clarification through online chat rooms is also a process for me to improve myself in Fa-rectification cultivation. During a period of time, I achieved a very good result. Through my very logical and tightly weaved short sentences, many people came to have good thoughts of Falun Dafa. I started to have the attachment of zealotry without realizing it. I put more efforts on persuading people instead of paying attention to the importance and the seriousness of clarifying the truth and rectifying the Fa. The results immediately turned bad. Many people couldn't understand practitioners' truth-clarification acts no matter how hard I tried to explain to them. The situation kept like this for several days. One day I talked to a person who used to have bad thoughts about Falun Dafa. I said, "Many practitioners had terminal diseases before they practiced Falun Dafa. They became healthy through practicing Falun Dafa. We all know that people should recognize the benefits that they have received and try to pay them back. Shouldn't practitioners' go to Tiananmen Square to appeal to higher authorities? Shouldn't they clarify the truth through as many different ways as possible? This is what people should do. Yet many people can't understand this. Can those kinds of people still be considered 'humans?'" That person very calmly said a few sentences that shocked me, "You guys are not wrong with clarifying the truth. However, you need to move people with your compassionate deeds and heart. You need to help people understand you. You shouldn't say those people who can't understand you are not good enough to be 'humans.'" Once I met a Catholic in an online chat room. He opened a window to chat with me privately. He said, "I saw in your words your anger and your complaint instead of your tolerance." I realized that Teacher was giving me hints using that person's words in order to help me do a better job. As Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples, we don't have any personal issues with ordinary people. Rather, it is a rare cultivation opportunity that Teacher arranged for us. I adjusted my attitude right away. After an in-depth and more refined discussion based on the Fa, that person came to have good thoughts of the Fa and he wanted to be a friend.

I talked to people from all walks of life in the online chat rooms, including students, internet security guards, people with different religious backgrounds, and even some practitioners who got "enlightened" along an evil path. Each of them became my audience that I needed to clarify the truth to. Teacher said in the book, "Touring North America to Teach the Fa", "Don't underestimate your sending even one flyer or one booklet to China, making one phone call there, or sending one fax there or sending all sorts of information—the effect is quite significant, and its effect in frightening and eliminating the evil is huge, truly huge. It's because of the evil's slanderous propaganda that people have bad thoughts in their minds. When people become clearheaded, that's when those evil things are eliminated and disintegrate." Whenever I have time, I will go to some online chat rooms. I go every morning and every night. I pass on the Clearwisdom.net news about practitioners' activities around the world and the latest persecution facts to the chat rooms. Sometimes, nobody talks to me after I have pasted a lot of news. At first, I thought nobody was in those chat rooms, so I stopped. However, frequently, after a while, somebody would reply, "Is what you said real?" or "Please continue. I'm reading them." Once, after I stopped for a long while, a person talked to me, "Hello, hero." At those times, I couldn't help thinking how many people that have been poisoned are waiting for us to save them. I really need to make a good use of every minute to clarify the truth to the precious Chinese people. Teacher said in the Fa-lecture at the conference in Florida, "…next to your own cultivation, currently the most important thing is clarifying the truth ..." That's the requirement of the Fa on us. That is Fa-rectification. That is cultivation. Teacher has explained the Fa to us very clearly. We will get more and more clear-headed as long as we act according to the requirements of the Fa. Practitioners have been cultivating during the Fa-rectification period from some time. We know what we should do with the Fa and with what Teacher told us. During this process, we need to well position ourselves and the relationships between our personal understandings of the Fa and the Fa itself. We need to combine the Fa-rectification work with studying the Fa and strengthening our righteous thoughts in order to continuously improve ourselves.

Teacher told us that we must try our best and we must do well because we need to consummate everything. We have responsibilities. We came down here with a mission and responsibilities to save sentient beings. The lives of practitioners are magnificent because of the mission and the responsibilities that the Fa bestowed upon us. The current Fa-rectification process requires us to further get rid of the attachment of self, to melt into the Fa-rectification, and to carry out our missions as Falun Dafa practitioners. Let the lives of Falun Dafa practitioners truly radiate in rectifying the Fa.

I would like to end my paper with a poem that I wrote:

With the great Fa of the cosmos being introduced to people in this lifetime,

Some vicious men slandered the Fa and endangered sentient beings.

Through Fa-rectification disciples' truth-clarification efforts,

The pure current washed the dirty heaven clean.