PureInsight | June 17, 2002
Are we still not clear on what the old forces are? Do we still allow them to take advantage of us during our cultivation? Teacher has reminded us about three things regarding Fa-rectification: studying the Fa well, sending forth righteous thoughts, and clarifying the truth (not original wording). Every genuine practitioner is trying to do these three things well. How come we aren't perfect? How come arguments still exist among us? Is it because we refuse to look inside and give the old forces an opportunity to take advantage of us? Teacher said in the recent scripture, Fa-Lecture at the Conference in Florida, U.S.A.: "Many specific questions and problems can be resolved as long as you study the Fa. 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."
So I calmed myself and looked within to see what could be affecting practitioners from advancing further, and what could be preventing us from elevating together during the Fa-rectification and in helping Teacher in the human world. What I found was that the old forces always agitate practitioners' ordinary human emotions in order to drag them down. For example, they create a lot of negative sentiments: self-blaming, self-saddening, feeling full of pity for oneself, self-criticizing, selfishness, arrogance, contemptuousness, and so on. When these states are aroused, we fall down to the level of an everyday person. If we look deeper, isn't "selfishness" creating the disturbance? Selfishness exists in many levels and happens to be the manifestation of the old forces' impurity. As Fa-rectification practitioners, it is our task to eliminate all those states that aren't pure. How can they disturb us in return?
After recognizing these microscopic impurities through righteous thoughts inspired by Dafa, I should have no self-blame, hate, selfishness, and no "I". No one can destroy me and I can accomplish everything. If we compare the two, one is being guided by selfishness and the other is guided by unselfishness after assimilating into the Fa. There is a principle in the universe: no loss, no gain. "What we lose is actually something bad. What is it? It is karma, and it goes hand in hand with different human attachments." (From "Loss and Gain" in Lecture Four of Zhuan Falun) Therefore, when various mentalities are aroused, we should be cautious, eliminate them immediately and create a pure cultivation field for ourselves. This will then be beneficial to all people and things around us as well as to the sentient beings we need to save. There should be no excuse for covering up our inadequacies during the Fa-rectification. Don't try to take advantage of rationalizing from the Fa to forgive yourself, because if you do, the one who is really being harmed is yourself.
Translated from:
http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2002/5/19/16113.html
