Righteous thoughts to Save Sentient Beings

[PureInsight.org] Hello respected master! Hello fellow practitioners!

In 2012, I started promoting the documentary “Free China”. I also helped promote the 2013 Shen Yun performance show in Vienna. As a new practitioner, I was pleased to have the opportunity to assume this responsibility. On April 25 this year, during the “Free China” screening organized by the Upper Austria Correspondents Club in Linz, my selfishness, my tendency to prove myself right, my showing off and my wanting to fight with others were all exposed. Through the process of removing these attachments, I was able to strengthen my righteous thoughts for saving sentient beings. Amidst ordinary society I learned two very important revelations. I would like to share them here with you.

Two weeks before the screening, a person in charge of the Correspondents Club accused me in writing, of lacking good coordination between the “Free China” screening and the film festival during the week of April 25. I did not understand why I was blamed as I had already communicated with the club coordinator. Having found my attachment of wanting to prove myself and having removed my selfish fear of being unjustly accused, I enlightened to Master’s revelation that I should try my best to work with other practitioners and coordinate well in all the relevant areas. I put this project in the primary place and tried my utmost to do it. However, some of my attachments appeared to grow bigger, and it seemed that I could not get rid of the roots of many human notions. As a result, some karma even appeared on the surface, and I felt more pressure week by week.

The second enlightenment was from a colleague in my university after the screening. In the previous year, I had talked to this person about Falun Gong and the truth of the illegal brutal persecution in China. Sometimes what I said touched his heart, but sometimes he appeared like a completely different person standing in front of me. After the screening, he criticized it. His opinion was very peculiar. It wasn’t scientific from my point of view. It left me perplexed. I mentioned this because he’s the kind of person who emphasizes facts and figures. Although I was able to answer his questions calmly and express my opinions sincerely as we worked together over the next few days, I felt pressure between us in many aspects, accompanied by a variety of emotions.

My tendency to prove myself right and my showing-off mentality was clearly exposed. I grew very angry, and my thoughts were full of this other person’s conceitedness and the look on his face. I thought of fighting with him and wanted to speak to him about how he can be so conceited. Because I insisted in searching outside myself, I was emotional. All kinds of thoughts knotted together and many things rushed into my head, especially the unfair incidents that arose at work when I first started cultivating. These incidents were like waves that ate me up. These tribulations allowed me to see, over the past year what I’ve managed to let go of, and what I still held onto.

Step by step, day by day, I made efforts to realize and remove my attachments. It was only after I had a dream that I broke through in developing compassion to this person. Now I’d like to tell you this dream.

I dreamt that a blood-thirsty bear attacked me. I was lucky to escape. In the dream, I told my husband what had happened, so we built individual small houses to protect us in case the bear attacked us again. My husband already built his house and he was having a nap in front of his house. I was making my door. Suddenly I heard a horrible breathing sound. The bear had tracked me down. In the dream I was dumbstruck with fear. The bear was a few metres in front of me. I was really scared. I whispered my husband’s name to wake him up so he could escape before I ran into my house. But because of fear, I only softly called him once and didn’t check whether he had escaped.

When I awoke from the dream, I knew immediately, this was a message from Master. When facing danger, I only thought of myself. Even the thought of warning my husband to escape from the bear was actually only half-hearted.

This dream also reminded me of a scene in another dream when I first started cultivating. I had read “Zhuan Falun” several times by that time. In the dream, I came to a room with 15 people in it. We wore the same clothes, which were simply made of linen and we were all barefooted. We were having a class there. I can’t remember what the class was about but when I woke up from the dream, a gentle but firm voice echoed in my ears: ‘Don’t forget, everything is for saving sentient beings!’

By looking inward, I realized that the dream about the bear was directly pointing at me – that I lacked righteous thoughts to save sentient beings during cultivation. When I thought of my own safety or of proving myself right, my righteous thought of waking up others became less strong. This made me think deeply including the colleague I mentioned earlier. If I as a cultivator when facing an everyday person who was confused by the old forces, grew angry during truth clarification, what does that mean? With my current understanding, that is wanting to prove myself right, placing work and daily things above Dafa. Then, how should I understand righteous thoughts and saving sentient beings? If I was angry when doing what Master asked us to do and let the old forces take advantage of my loopholes, then aren’t I just like an ordinary person, even less than an ordinary person?

In the following couple of weeks, I was thinking how I, as a new practitioner, should cooperate with other practitioners. Because as I mentioned earlier, although I’m willing to help and work together, I found that in fact I’m overwhelmed. Suddenly I did not want to make phone calls, nor write or do anything. Even when I did, there was always a thought of rejection. I asked myself: ‘What on earth happened to me?’ For me, it never used to be a problem in helping others or do something for Dafa.

My face was swollen. I felt my skin was burning with pain and feeling itchy. I knew I had to look inward deeper so I tried to look back at my cultivation path so far. I found, I haven’t given out leaflets for a long time, haven’t kept a petition sheet with me and haven’t talked to others on the way to work. I just worked for Dafa projects on the surface. No doubt that getting involved with Dafa projects is a good thing, but I forgot to get close to people in my surroundings and to clarify the truth to them. I didn’t realise that I must clearly upkeep and balance the work in Dafa within the environment of everyday people.

Besides, it seems I kept busy being a helpful fellow practitioner, like Master said in Zhuan Falun: “Because of practicing cultivation among everyday people, a lot of our practitioners cannot release many of their attachments. Many attachments have already become second nature, and these people themselves cannot detect them. This mentality of showing off can manifest in any situation; it can also surface when doing a good deed. ”

It was not surprising that the pressure on me was getting more and more, because my mentality of showing off and conceitedness I wasn’t aware of had caused other blockages. Under the guise of doing good deeds, hidden within was an avoidance of conflict which is not righteous.

I now began handing out leaflets again, in moments such as waiting for a train at the station. When people smile at me, greeting me in a friendly manner, I know what I should do. In my job, I meet many people. Since I realized how important the relationship between harmonising the whole body and finding my own path is, I always find opportunity to tell those who are related to my work in society the truth about the persecution of Falun Gong.

I deeply thank Master for his compassionate guidance. I also thank fellow practitioners for reminding me of my task and for your sincere cooperation in the “Free China” project.

If there’s anything inappropriate, please kindly correct me.

(Submission to 2013 European Falun Dafa Experience-Sharing Conference in Copenhagen)