PureInsight | January 17, 2002
Master said, "Under any circumstance, in any period, and no matter how busy you are with your work, you can't stray from your Fa-study, as this is what fundamentally ensures that you'll continue to improve and reach Consummation. You can't do Dafa work without studying the Fa, or it would be an everyday person doing Dafa work. It has to be Dafa disciples who do Dafa work--this is something required of all of you. If everyday people help with Dafa work, of course it's a good thing, but what I'm talking about is Dafa disciples. You must be a Dafa disciple doing Dafa work, because your Consummation is of primary importance. Right now, your Consummation is first and foremost." (from "Lecture on the Fa at the Washington D.C. International Conference")
How can we handle well the relationship between studying the Fa and doing Dafa work? This is an important and critical issue for Dafa practitioners during the process of Fa-rectification, especially for those in Mainland China.
As early as July 2000, Master mentioned in the article "Towards Consummation," "Even now some people still can't concentrate on reading the books. Those of you who do work for Dafa, especially, shouldn't use any pretexts to conceal the fact that you don't read the books or study the Fa. Even if you do work for me, your Master, you still need to study the Fa every day with a calm mind and cultivate yourself solidly. … Some volunteers go long periods of time without reading or studying the Fa. How can they do a good job for Dafa? You have unwittingly incurred many losses that are very hard to recover. Past lessons should make you more mature. The only way to prevent the old, evil forces from taking advantage of the gaps in your mind is to make good use of your time to study the Fa.'
Yet when it comes to Fa-rectification work, many practitioners unknowingly place "the work" in first place and treat Fa-study and exercise as secondary. Some practitioners think the work is for validating the Fa; therefore, they assume that it must be the foremost task during the Fa-rectification. They seem to think that Fa-study and exercises are just matters of individual cultivation. They have not appropriately handled the relationship between Fa-rectification and individual cultivation.
Other practitioners have even developed an attachment to the accomplishments from the Dafa work they've done. They do the Fa-validation work in the way ordinary people do things, assessing the amount of work done and looking for other superficial results. In order to complete more work, they sacrifice Fa-study time. There are still other practitioners who have acquired the show-off mentality and attachment to zealotry, after having done something to assist the Fa-rectification. This was exploited by the evil forces and led to damages to Dafa. Undertaking Dafa work without learning enough Fa will cause many negative outcomes, such as, work being disrupted by a xinxing problem, or the evil forces, without our awareness, being able to inflict damages on Dafa, or being unable to endure the evil's persecution because one's xinxing level isn't sufficiently upgraded.
I have become enlightened to the fact that Fa-study should be placed as the first priority at all times. Master has said, "This is what fundamentally assures your moving towards Consummation and doing Dafa work well." (from "To All Students at the Nordic Fa Conference") We should set aside a certain period of time everyday solely for studying the Fa, and conducting the study with a calm heart. No matter how many things that have to be done or how busy we are, we need to set the work aside and concentrate on Fa-study. We should make our own contribution to Dafa work according to our own ability and condition, based on xinxing level. At the same time, please don't forget to improve your xinxing while doing Dafa work. "Factors that are to improve your xinxing appear everywhere in your work." (from "Clearheadedness" in Essentials for Further Advancement)
While doing any kind of Dafa work, we should keep the heart of a Dafa particle, be responsible for Dafa and be benevolent to all sentient beings. Only in this way can we achieve the best results. We should not pursue superficial results using an ordinary person's criteria while doing Dafa work, such as, for instance, how many flyers I posted today; how many truth-clarifying materials I handed out; and how many people I have clarified the truth to. Keep doing without pursuing. It is enough to meet the standard as long as we have tried our best. This way we will not be dismayed when encountering hardship; nor will we be too happy after reaching a good result. What Master cares for is our heart and not the visible results. "Whether you're in China or outside of China, how you perform is the same; there's just the same difference in whether you step forward or aren't able to step forward, and how much effort you give to this matter of Fa-rectification." (from "Master Li Hongzhi's Lecture at the Great Lakes Conference in North America")
I remember a practitioner in Canada who spent a whole year just to make an appointment with one congressman, and I recall practitioners in Mainland China who picked up pieces of chalk wherever they went in order to write "Falun Dafa is Good" at the time when they were penniless. These things seem trivial but in other dimensions they can shake the heavens and earth. When encountering problems or conflicts in our work, we should pause for a moment, calm our hearts down and study the Fa. We should reflect on whether there are any problems with our xinxing or evil interferences. If we can come to a clear conclusion, the problem may be automatically resolved right there. If we can maintain the mindfulness of cultivators, then we will not have any xinxing problems and the evil will have no way to slip through. Master is looking after everything. He will not allow any unnecessary interference to happen to us.
At this time of eliminating the evil, we should do well to assist the Fa-rectification and use our righteous thoughts constantly to eliminate the evil forces that are deceiving ordinary people and damaging Fa-rectification. Studying the Fa and sending forth righteous thoughts help us break through the old, evil force's persecution and fundamentally ensure that the Fa-rectification work will go well.
Translated from:
http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2002/1/1/11747.html
