Click on the below-mentioned, numbered subjects:
- Welcome
- What’s Happening?
- Save at Least One Person a Day
- On "Being Steadfast" and "Negating the Old Forces' Arrangements"
- Looking Within and Seeing Things Take a Turn for the Better
- Don't Use Human Notions to Weigh Our Actions
- Searching Inward Is Real Cultivation
- My Understanding of "Taking the Fa as Teacher"
- 1. Welcome
Welcome to the January 2016 Falun Dafa India Newsletter.
Happy New Year and Wish we all do better in our cultivation and live up to the vows that we have made to Master. Let our resolve to do better be firm and we should treasure and cherish what we have got in this lifetime and work towards improving ourselves.
Hope in the New Year we will work harder to gain a better understanding of the Fa and be more steadfast in our cultivation and carry out our assigned responsibilities and be more accommodating and tolerant with fellow practitioners.
In the New Year let us spare a thought for our fellow practitioners in China who are still being persecuted.
There is a special request. Please click on the link below and put your Name, email and click on the Sign in red, to sign the petition. It is important to do it as a practitioner and forward it to all your contacts. Do not stop. Keep it ongoing!
http://chn.ge/1jFWwRV
In this issue, we have a compilation of experience-sharing Articles gleaned from Clearwisdom that always shine through because of their insights and fine quality of sharing. It is important to read the Clearwisdom, Pureinsight and other Dafa sites.
We make an effort to select Articles from the Archives which people don’t go back to and are relevant even today. Contributions are welcome from practitioners.
Heshi! Hope, you like the selection of Articles and gain some new insights!
Note: "All the contents in this newsletter - except for quotations and excerpts of writings of the founder Mr. Li Hongzhi - are only ideas and experiences of practitioners and do not represent Falun Dafa in itself."
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- 2. What’s Happening?
Practitioners from Pune, Nagpur, Mumbai and Delhi participated at the Ambedkar Jayanti at Shivaji Park, Mumbai. Thousands of flyers were distributed and Books were sold. Exercises were demonstrated at vantage points where people gathered to watch. Many people wanted to know where they could learn the exercises.
Practitioners from Mumbai were invited by Somaya College’s Yoga Department Alumni to introduce Falun Dafa and demonstrate the exercises. Some students have started coming to the practice site to learn the exercises.
Pune practitioners participated in ‘Happy Streets’ and distributed flyers and demonstrated the exercises. Many people bought the books and shown keenness to learn the exercise.
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- 3. Save at Least One Person a Day
By a Falun Gong practitioner from Henan Province
(Minghui.org)
The reasons that the persecution is still going on and the disintegration of the evil Chinese Communist Party has yet to happen are because many Falun Gong practitioners have not come forth and many sentient beings have not been saved. Many steadfast practitioners are doing the three things every day. However, only about thirty thousand people are saved daily. Actually, if more non-steadfast practitioners could come forth and save at least one person a day, similar to our daily study and doing the exercises, just two million practitioners could save about 700 million people per year. If we start to do it now, determinedly save a person every day, and keep helping the non-steadfast practitioners, in the near future we would complete our historical mission of helping Master in the Fa-rectification period. Some of the practitioners in our area have already been doing this for about a month. They don't feel it very difficult to achieve the goal. Sometimes, some practitioners can save five people a day. Surely, compared with other steadfast practitioners, this number is very small. However, it indicates considerable progress for the practitioners who have not stepped forward for a long time. The higher the rises, the better the work is accomplished. Therefore, helping fellow practitioners to step forward is the most critical issue. We should help the practitioners who are still in touch, but not steadfast, realize that doing the three things well is the essence of cultivation during the Fa-rectification period. The first step is to form a group Fa-study environment, such that the fundamental attachments which prevent these practitioners from stepping forward can be found and relinquished. Secondly, small groups, comprising two or three practitioners, need to be formed. In this environment, one experienced practitioner can guide a less experienced practitioner to clarify the truth.
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- 4. On "Being Steadfast" and "Negating the Old Forces' Arrangements"
By a Falun Dafa disciple in China
(Minghui.org)
On August 2, Minghui.net (the Chinese version of Clearwisdom) published an article by a practitioner in Gansu Province titled "Continue to Recite the Fa; Flee the Evil Den." The practitioner wrote that when the labor camp guards came to interrogate him, he felt a lot of pressure, so he began reciting Master's article "Expounding on the Fa"(in Essentials for Further Advancement): "When a tribulation arrives, if you, a disciple, can truly maintain an unshakable calm or be determined to meet different requirements at different levels, this should be sufficient for you to pass the test. If it continues endlessly and if there do not exist other problems in your xinxing or conduct, it must be that the evil demons are capitalizing on the weak spots caused by your lack of control. After all, a cultivator is not an ordinary human. So why doesn't the side of you that is your original nature rectify the Fa?"
The practitioner thought that as long as his heart could remain calm, he would be able to pass the tests. He also decided not to recognize or comply with the persecutors' requirements. He was brutally tortured again and again. After six long years of imprisonment, he was sent to a brainwashing camp. On the coldest winter days, he was chained to the bars of an iron door with only thin clothes on. Even then, he was still thinking, "If I can persist for just another day or two, things will be better. The winter is only four months long. In two months, it will be spring." Such thoughts were prevalent. After reading it, I felt regret and sympathy for the practitioner as he did not have a clear understanding of what "negating the persecution" meant. My personal understanding of the article "Expounding on the Fa" is that Master told us that we not only need to be firm in the face of the persecution, but also need to negate it with the righteous thoughts of a god. We must not passively endure it. The practitioner only paid attention to the first line, "When a tribulation arrives, if you, a disciple, can truly maintain an unshakable calm or be determined to meet different requirements at different levels, this should be sufficient for you to pass the test." but neglected the second line, "If it continues endlessly and if there do not exist other problems in your xinxing or conduct, it must be that the evil demons are capitalizing on the weak spots caused by your lack of control. After all, a cultivator is not an ordinary human. So why doesn't the side of you that is your original nature rectify the Fa?" In the other articles the practitioner recited, including "What Are Supernormal Abilities" and "The Effect of Righteous Thoughts", Master told us even more clearly how our divine side can assist in the Fa-rectification by eliminating the evil beings and elements in other dimensions, negating the evil persecution, and denying the old forces' arrangements. I remember an article by another practitioner a few years back that talked about his experience. He was also brutally beaten and tortured with electric shocks. Yet, he did not only think about being firm. Instead, he thought hard about how his knowing side can rectify the . After a month, he came to the right understanding. When the prison guards tried to hit him with an electric baton, the baton short-circuited by itself when it was about 10 feet away from him. The guards replaced it with a new electric baton, but the same thing happened. After the third time, the guards were so scared that they knelt down to beg for his forgiveness. After that, no one dared to torture him anymore. This was the power of righteous thoughts. This persecution is not just by men against men. The author of the original article also realized that the evil elements in other dimensions knew his thoughts. Thus, if Dafa disciples use righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil at every moment, the evil will want the disciples to be released, too, so that they won't be eliminated. Regardless, Dafa disciples must have the righteous thoughts to fully negate the persecution. Master will guide and protect us. At the end of the article, the practitioner described how he held onto the leg of the head guard at the brainwashing camp and shouted, "I want to go home. You have persecuted me for more than six years. You are not letting me go home, so I'm not letting you go, either." Finally, he was negating the persecution. Although he did not have the clear idea to send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil, he did express a will to end the persecution. Therefore, Master was able to help him. A few months later, he was released and returned home. Still, it was regrettable how long the persecution lasted, and how much excessive suffering he went through. Some practitioners around me are also in the same situation. They are cultivating "firmly" amidst interference, yet they do not use strong righteous thoughts to deny the persecution. Once I went to see a veteran practitioner. He was the coordinator of the area. After he experienced serious sickness karma, he told his family members to close their small business, and to do the three things full-time. Actually he was already accepting the persecution. When we met, he said several times, "This hurts so much. No ordinary people could bear it." While validating his endurance, he was accepting the persecution as his cultivation environment. Actually, what the Fa-rectification requires of us is not to improve our endurance but to deny the persecution. Although the practitioners in his area tried to help him, he was unable to reach a clear understanding based on the Fa or negate the old forces' arrangements. Eventually he passed away. Practitioners all have different situations or shortcomings. Some are blocked by their own attachments and are unwilling to let go, some are confused on the Fa principles, some have many tribulations in their families, yet they are still able to do a large amount of work to validate the Fa. The mighty virtue of Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples is demonstrated through our ability to negate the persecution. This is walking the path arranged by Master. Everything of a Dafa disciple's is arranged by Master. The persecution and interferences are not supposed to happen. I suggest that all practitioners being interfered with or persecuted calm their hearts and think seriously whether their shortcomings have been exploited by the evil. They should not be stuck in a state of interference for a long time, or passively accept the persecution. While cultivating ourselves, we should also send forth strong righteous thoughts to negate the evil's arrangements. The above is my personal understanding. Please kindly point out anything inconsistent with the Fa.
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- 5. Looking Within and Seeing Things Take a Turn for the Better
By a practitioner in Heilongjiang Province
(Minghui.org)
I have been practicing cultivation for more than 10 years. It is because Teacher has always lifted me up at critical moments that I am here today. I would like to share my understanding of looking within.
Looking within is a magical tool for cultivating ourselves during the process of cultivation, and is something Teacher has been emphasizing. Every Dafa practitioner should do it. However, when it comes to specific issues, there are different ways of handling them. When encountering a problem, some people unwittingly look outward first before looking within. Looking within to cultivate oneself is unconditional. When the coordination of fellow practitioners is not very good when we validate the Fa, and we cannot let go of our attachments or make a breakthrough, that's the best time to look within. We will then discover that it is attachments that are blocking us from making a breakthrough. When we are free of attachments, our minds will be instantly broadened and brightened. We will really feel as if "after passing the shady willow trees, there will be bright flowers and another village ahead."
In my experience of doing the three things, I have come to realize that looking within can eliminate the gaps among fellow practitioners. Here in our area, two practitioners and I often get together to discuss things. I'm the one who joined the group last, while the other two have been practitioners for a very long time. Usually they get along very well. Sometimes they have differences and handle things differently because they have a different understanding of the or different issues. This is actually normal. Because of my attachments, I often felt awkward. If I agreed with one, I feared the other would be irritated. I therefore did not express my opinions or sacrificed my principles when I mediated their differences. I feared that it would affect our validating the Fa and improving our . However, the more I handled things that way, the more they behaved like that in front of me. My mind was unsettled, and I experienced interference when I studied the Fa.
Through studying the Fa, I reflected on myself and saw that I also had some problems. I was afraid to offend others, and I had a selfish mindset of protecting myself from being hurt. I did not try to harmonize things based on the standpoint of the Fa. I did not check to see who was in accordance with the Fa or was doing whatever was good for validating the Fa. Instead, I was trying to be a peacemaker. When I found my attachment, the phenomenon gradually diminished. It turned out that it was my attachment that was making it happen. Thereafter, we became more steadfast on the path of doing the three things.
I have a son and a daughter, as well as a grandson and granddaughter. When they visit me every Sunday, I cook for them, and I am busy for half the day. I also have to clean up after they leave. I am happy to do this, of course, but one day when guests visited our home, my granddaughter said in front of everyone, "In my family, my grandpa is good. My grandmother is not so good." This statement made me feel very bad. I thought to myself that I had made sacrifices and did a lot of work, yet I was not good in her eyes. I felt that she had made me lose face and I felt uneasy because she had said it in front of others.
Why did it happen? Whatever a cultivator encounters is not accidental or without reason. Was it because I had attachments that I had not relinquished? It turned out that it was, because I was so attached to my children and grandchildren. Plus, I had the vanity of saving face, which is an attachment that I had not gotten rid of.
Teacher said,
"Those who are attached to affection for family will definitely be burned, entangled, and tormented by it. Pulled by the threads of affection and plagued by them throughout their lives, they will find it too late to regret at the end of their lives." ("Cultivators' Avoidance" in Essentials for Further Advancement)
When I thought about it, my mind instantly opened up. I felt happy about finding and eliminating this attachment. Then I heard my son reprimanding my granddaughter because he worried that I would be mad. I smiled and said, "That's okay. My granddaughter is helping me eliminate my attachments." After I said that, everyone laughed and the tension was gone.
The above are my experiences of looking within. I also deeply realize that in order to cultivate ourselves, we must look within. This is not something that we just say. It is something we need to put into action. Otherwise, we will stay at the same level, and if we don't forge ahead, we'll surely fall behind.
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- 6. Don't Use Human Notions to Weigh Our Actions
By a practitioner in China
(Minghui.org)
After several discussions with fellow practitioners, and from my own understanding of the , I have come to understand that some practitioners cultivation state and conduct in society are questionable. Some of their actions have affected and hindered their own improvement in cultivation and affected the salvation of sentient beings. It is difficult to explain my understandings clearly in a simple exchange of words; therefore, I wrote this article in the hope of helping practitioners to understand and quickly upgrade their .
Certain practitioners do not pay enough attention to their conduct and speech. Their thoughts are, "This is my character", which is seen as showing one's individuality, but it often leaves a bad impression on people. Many articles have been posted on the Minghui/Clearwisdom websites that contain righteous thoughts and actions, and they are able to positively influence a person's opinion about a practitioners' image. However, when practitioners' words and actions are not in accordance with the Fa, it could easily create a negative impression of Falun Dafa, preventing sentient beings from learning the truth and being saved. From this perspective, isn't a practitioners idea of "individuality" wrong? Practitioners should shoulder their responsibility to save sentient beings and give-up their bad habits and conduct that hinder their mission.
Some practitioners carry a heavy workload or shoulder a big responsibility towards their family's livelihood, thus hindering their ability to do the well. As practitioners, we all know Teacher words: "To the great enlightened people, living as a human being is not the purpose, and one's life is not meant for being human--it is meant for you to return to your origin." If we, as practitioners, spend a great deal of time and effort trying to maintain a comfortable life and don't take seriously doing the three things well, essentially, aren't we the same as everyday people? Certainly, some practitioners do so unintentionally; possibly, the old forces use our attachments to create this condition for us. This could also be another method of persecution that holds us back from up-grading our levels.
My personal understanding is that we still have many human notions, especially in the way that we do things. Our conduct does not automatically conform to higher level principles and requirements of the Fa. If we don't study the Fa diligently, we will not understand the Fa easily. If we are dependent on our mistakes and bad experiences to help us develop and raise our xinxing, we will be seriously disadvantaged in our cultivation and in the saving of sentient beings. For the sake of practitioners and for the sake of sentient beings, I hope we can take Fa study seriously, and use the Fa to weigh the consequences of our day-to-day conduct and actions. I hope we can choose to walk on the correct cultivation path and not allow ourselves to have any regrets in the future. It is not my intention to suggest that practitioners who are not doing enough to go to the extremes and put aside all everyday activities to do the three-things well, but to hope that human notions can be cast aside, and that they can treat themselves as true cultivators. As a practitioner, if one can balance well between self-cultivation and normal day-to-day activities, there shouldn't be any problems in cultivation and the persecution would also easily end.
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- 7. Searching Inward Is Real Cultivation
By a Falun Gong practitioner from Guangdong Province
(Minghui.org)
My mother and I used to live together. Last year, my mother moved into my younger sister's home to help her take care of her children. Recently they had a lot of conflicts, and it also manifested in both the printer and the CD-ROM maker for preparing materials being out of order. Every time I came to their home, my sister always complained about our mother's shortcomings. I discussed this with her from the viewpoint of the , encouraged her to look inward and to upgrade her . I thought that I was good in cultivation and was not affected by their conflicts. However, after reading an article from a fellow practitioner, I sensed that I also need to improve. Master said, "But that said, I'm also thinking about the people who, when problems arise, give no thought to their own cultivation state and focus solely on how bad this or that person is and who he or she might be. But in those instances, have you considered this: why does someone like that exist among Dafa disciples, and why would such a thing come about? Isn't that person's presence meant to target certain people, or certain human attachments? For sure. Nothing happens in cultivation without a reason. When incorrect states and bad human conduct surface among us, those things have come to target human attachments. We don't acknowledge the old forces' arrangements, but, when we fail to do well they will exploit our gaps. So, perhaps it was that a particular place needed to be targeted in that manner, and that was why an incident happened." ("Fa Teaching at the 2009 Washington DC International Fa Conference") I started to search inward and immediately found my attachments. When my mother lived with me, we also had conflicts. My sister (not a practitioner back then) blamed me for not being respectful of my parent. However, I did not treat her blame of me with a practitioner's righteous thoughts. I understood that I was passing a tribulation, but just behaved the same as Master's words, "To endure with anger, grievance, or tears is the forbearance of an everyday person who is attached to his concerns." ("What is Forbearance (Ren)?" in Essentials for Further Advancement ) I thought at that moment, "You will understand how difficult it is to live with an old person. It's not just a problem of whether I am respectful towards a parent or not." I did not realize that this thought was based on my attachment to selfishness, and I did not take the opportunity to get rid of it right away. Therefore this kind of impure element could still exist in my dimension. The year before last, my sister started to practice Falun Gong. After our mother moved in with her last year, the conflicts gradually emerged. As their fellow practitioner, I deeply understood the situation during the cultivation process. Sometimes we pass tribulations well, but other times we don't. Without conflicts, our attachments cannot be exposed and our cannot be upgraded. Therefore, when they had conflicts, I tried to maintain a peaceful mind, to not blame any one of them, and to not be affected by emotion. However, these behaviors just covered up my attachments. It's not real cultivation without searching inward. I started to looking inward and found that in my subconscious I wished that some conflicts could happen between them, in order to let my sister feel the pain that I had experienced. How terrible a state of mind this was! I was shocked and sat down immediately to send forth righteous thoughts. I would not allow the evil forces to take advantages of our loopholes, separate us, and interfere with our work in validating Dafa and saving sentient beings. I would like to thank Master's arrangements, in order to let me realize my own problems. I also greatly appreciate the fellow practitioner who wrote the article and provided a mirror for me to look at myself.
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- 8. My Understanding of "Taking the Fa as Teacher"
By a practitioner in China
(Minghui.org)
I would like to share my enlightenment with fellow practitioners. I have been through wind and rain in the past years, and truly felt the seriousness and solemnity of what cultivation really is. My past experiences have allowed me to clearly understand the meaning of "Taking the Fa as Teacher," and I am especially moved by Teacher's grand compassion and infinite grace.
Teacher has earnestly told us to "Take the Fa as Teacher," and I have already inscribed the words into my heart. But when our human emotion is impacted by the complexity of modern day reality, we may unconsciously move away from Teacher's teaching and use the reality principle to deal with our thoughts and actions. I nearly destroyed myself by walking the path that the old forces had arranged. The environment I grew up in, from my childhood to adulthood, made me develop a "critical self-esteem" and I paid great attention to what others thought of me. I especially loathed those people with an imprudent behavior in their sexual relationships, and I always paid great attention and restricted my own conduct in that aspect. After I started practicing Falun Gong in 1997, and after learning from the Fa's guidance, I reduced some of my critical self-esteem. However, the fundamental problems that have resided inside of me have covered up my selfishness, which is still not eradicated. Subconsciously, an incident had happened, which almost lead me to an evil path from a tribulation test.
I get along well with the majority of practitioners in our area, and we often study the Fa and do the exercises together. We also coordinated well in Fa validation after the persecution started in 1999. We encouraged and helped each other when practitioners suffered through this persecution. Together, we walked through many dangerous situations in our Fa validation. Using everyday people's words, it was like, "The friends who shared life and death." But an unexpected matter occurred. A practitioner accused me of enticing her husband. That behavior is exactly what I most loath in others, and now I had tasted my own bitter medicine, especially from a practitioner whom with I had shared life and death. At that moment, my human sentimentality got the better of me, and my deep-rooted "critical self-esteem" resurfaced. I felt my anger rising and it surpassed my self-control. The feelings of shame, grievance and resentment, one after the other, all came out. I was very sad and pledged not to have any more communication with that practitioner again.
My enlightenment was that when using my human thinking to deal with matters, it is often controlled by human principles. Thinking back, some of the not so righteous things practitioners had said in the past, they are just like movie scenes being played back in my mind. In the end, these unexpected human principles formed the following crooked theories: "Dafa cultivation can't change a person. No matter how long you practice, you still can't eliminate your selfishness and human mindset. Why do contradictions still exist between practitioners? Looking back, after cultivating for all these years, why do I still have so many shortcomings? Sometimes, I feel that some of my notions are even worse than the good behavior of everyday people." My thoughts had seriously deviated from the Fa principles and had fallen into the crack of evil theories, making me sadder and sadder day by day. Worse yet, I started having some doubts about Teacher and Dafa.
Some practitioners felt extremely worried about my situation. They came to visit and tried to persuade me not to give up the practice. They also cleared up the evil in my surrounding environment and all the unrighteous thoughts that I had. Finally, one day I started studying the Dafa books again and realized what had just happened to me. I had walked into an evil trap, the exact opposite of a righteous path. The basic reason was that on my cultivation path, I didn't take the Fa as the Teacher. Instead, I took human thinking and matters as my Teacher. I was using a everyday people's conduct to measure the Fa and not using the Fa to measure human behavior. What kind of logic was this? It was simply absurd. Recalling this time, I thought my actions were "righteous thinking" but it was actually a laughable and pitiful mindset.
Teacher said:
"This is what the Dafa disciples are facing today, and it is a form of cultivation brought about by interference from the old forces and company. So during your cultivation process, as long as the side of you that has been fully cultivated goes over and is partitioned off, everything that you haven't fully cultivated will still manifest. Human attachments will still show themselves, just as will bad elements." ("Teaching the Fa at the Fa Conference at the U.S Capital")
So it will create a contradiction between practitioners. Once the tension or conflict emerges, it will be displayed to others and they will discover it and make matters even more noticeable. After that, the practitioner who had the conflict will eventually discover their own problem and be able to look inward to find the self-insufficiency and eliminate the attachments.
I felt ashamed for not comprehending Teacher's lecture sooner, for his lecture couldn't have been more clearly stated. It took me so long and I walked many detours to rectify the situation. In group discussions, I still discovered individual practitioners, who instead of looking inward and practicing diligently, examined other practitioners to find some bad conduct, and used that as an excuse for their slacking off in the practice. This perception is very dangerous. Fellow practitioners, please use my prior mistakes as a mirror image and rectify your unrighteous thoughts. And remember to use the "Taking Fa as Teacher" approach in every respect. No matter what the circumstances, please use the Fa to measure all things and use the Fa to reform ourselves and fellow practitioners. Thus, walking our own righteous cultivation paths, raising our and upgrading our levels together.
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