(Clearwisdom.net) When I first read the Clearwisdom editors' notice, "'Validating Falun Dafa with Righteous Thoughts and Righteous Actions' -- A Call for Papers," I had a notion that only those actions on a grand and spectacular scale could qualify as righteous thoughts and righteous actions and be worthy of sharing with fellow Falun Gong practitioners. I considered what I had been doing to be insignificant and not worth mentioning.
Then I came across the following passage while studying Teacher's lecture, "Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference." Teacher said on April 20, 2003:
"I hope that every Dafa disciple won't overemphasize the form of things. Your own cultivation, your own improvement, your validating the Fa amidst the evil, saving sentient beings, and steadfastly doing well going down the path that you should take are what's most important."
I realized that I had placed too much emphasis on the appearance of things. It is not a righteous thought to emphasize the magnitude of our truth-clarification actions. After a review of some of my cultivation experiences, I found some valuable insights and experiences worth sharing with fellow practitioners.
Studying the Fa Is the Only Hope for Maintaining Righteous Thoughts
Teacher emphasizes the importance of studying the Fa in each Fa lecture. I now understand how important it is for us to keep up Fa study. Only Fa study truly helps us keep up our righteous thoughts and righteous actions. Living in the big dye vat of society, every day I see and hear a lot of people and behaviors that are not in accordance with the teachings of Falun Dafa, and they used to cause a great deal of interfere with me as a cultivator. At the end of each day at work, I often found that I was tense and fretful. The unsolved issues during the day kept tormenting me at night, and I would try to solve them like a non-cultivator. Only after I have studied one of Teacher's lectures seriously can I restore my inner peace, approach these unsolved issues and tell right from wrong as a Falun Gong cultivator.
Studying the Fa has become a necessary daily action. Besides my duties at work and daily chores at home, I try to spend all of my spare time listening to or studying the Fa. Studying the Fa is no longer just a form or a routine for me. Any time my main consciousness is off guard and compromises my Fa study, I can become susceptible to the interferences of my inner human thoughts. I think that a mind is never empty at any given time, and your mind can either be filled with more Fa or more worldly thoughts. It is your choice. I decided that I should grasp every minute to assimilate my mind to the Fa. The more I fill my head with the Fa and the more frequently I cleanse my mind with the Fa, the more likely my speech and actions will accord with what the Fa requires of me. On the contrary, if I relax my Fa study, all kinds of worldly thoughts can fill my head. If my head is more frequently filled with worldly notions, I will act just like an everyday person and not like a Dafa practitioner.
Righteous actions come from righteous thoughts, while righteous thoughts come from the Fa. Without a stable or solemn practice of daily Fa study, our speech and actions can easily deviate from what the Fa requires of us.
Do Not Miss Any Opportunity to Validate Falun Gong
We need to offer Teacher's salvation to everyone we meet. With that in mind, I make conscientious efforts to befriend and care about everyone I come across, so that I can clarify the truth about Falun Gong to them at opportune moments. The restaurant servers usually wear nametags. The postal workers stamp their names on the receipts. My parents keep a lot of business cards from their colleagues or people they do business with. My colleagues keep their clients' business cards on their desks. Many schools publish their class rosters on their schools' websites. One can easily find many ways to get to know more people, if you put your mind into it.
I require of myself that everything I do now must be meaningful and must have something to do with truth-clarification for Falun Gong. Teacher said,
"Remember: Wherever a problem occurs, that's where you need to clarify the facts." ("Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference")
Then Teacher emphasized this point again,
"Wherever a problem arises, that's where you need to clarify the facts." "Wherever there's a problem, that's where you need to go resolve things and where you need to go clarify the facts." ("Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference")
I have been following Teacher's words in my truth-clarification work. Besides my daily truth-clarification projects, if we have problems moving a new truth-clarification project forward, I try to identify the root cause. I call a meeting with all the practitioners involved, to assure that everyone is clear about the meaning of the project from the Fa's perspective before we resume the distribution of the truth-clarification materials. As for those people to whom we have already clarified the truth but who have not accepted the truth about Falun Gong, I have re-edited the content of certain truth-clarification materials to address their questions or concerns before I give them the a new version of the materials and clarify the truth to them again. Usually when we have sufficiently clarified the facts, we can successfully push forward or complete a new truth-clarification project.
It will definitely create obstacles when one clarifies the truth for the sake of pushing a new truth-clarification method, because the process of clarifying the truth should be more important than its end result. Teacher said,
"When it comes to doing things, I consider the process most important, because during the process you can have people see the truth, during the process you can save the world's people, and during the process you can reveal the truth." ("Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference")
I consider it very important to get to know people better during the process of clarifying the truth to them. I have to share an interesting phenomenon that I experienced while clarifying the truth about Falun Gong at work for the past few years. It appeared that for the past few years I was not able to continue to clarify the truth about Falun Gong to my company's business clients because they disappeared once they heard and understood the truth about Falun Gong. Then along would come another group of new business clients, and I would have the opportunity to clarify the truth about Falun Gong to them. From these miraculous experiences, I truly feel everything Teacher has been saying is absolutely true. Everything is within Teacher's control. As long as we follow Teacher in his Fa-rectification, we will not let Teacher down!
We Should Maintain Righteous Thoughts and Righteous Actions in Every Aspect of Our Daily Lives
For some time I only sent forth righteous thoughts according to the schedule for sending forth righteous thoughts at set times around the world and when I pass by Tiananmen Square. As I continue to study the Fa, I realize that we not only need to send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate all the evil factors from other dimensions, but also to complete everything Teacher requires of us with righteous thoughts in our daily cultivation practice. For example, Teacher said,
"From now on, whatever you do, you should consider others first, so as to attain the righteous Enlightenment of selflessness and altruism." ("Non-Omission in Buddha-Nature" in Essentials for Further Advancement)
Hence, I believe that it is imperative for us to maintain constant righteous thoughts of selflessness and altruism. These are just two of the many righteous thoughts we should carry at all times. Teacher has specified all kinds of righteous thoughts that we need to maintain during our cultivation practice. One of the purposes of studying the Fa on a daily basis is for us to remember Teacher's requirements and these types of righteous thoughts at all times. Eventually, these righteous thoughts naturally start to guide our minds and thus our actions, and we become increasingly closer to what the Fa requires of us. We then more successfully carry out our role as disciples in the Fa-rectification period.
When I handle tangible issues in my daily life, I start by asking myself, "What is my motivation for this solution? Will I be complying with the principles of 'Truth, Compassion and Forbearance?'" When I do so, I can easily discover any attachment I might have. Oftentimes when my attachments surface, I hesitate and think, "Have I let go of these attachments or not?" When I do let go of them, I truly experience what Teacher described in Zhuan Falun:
"After passing the shady willow trees, there will be bright flowers and another village ahead!"
The following is a simple example. Because of my cultivation practice of Falun Gong, I look much younger than my actual age. I often get compliments about how young and beautiful I look, so I became very vain about my appearance. For a period of time, I developed bags under my eyes, and my first reaction was to get more "beauty" sleep. Even though I was getting more sleep, the bags under my eyes returned from time to time.
Because of his work schedule, my husband comes home late every day and usually goes to bed after midnight. I really didn't want to wait up for him because I have to get up early every morning to take the kids to school. I thought I would have puffy eyes and bags under my eyes if I didn't get enough sleep, so I didn't wait up to chat with him when he came home. After a while, we became distant, and he became less receptive when I clarified the truth about Falun Gong to him. It was then that I realized the problem. My attachment to my looks was severely hampering my cultivation practice. It was high time for me to sever my attachment to vanity! I hesitated to sacrifice my beauty sleep at first. When I made up my mind to remove my attachment to vanity and abandon my "beauty sleep," I did not have puffy eyes any more and my husband became more receptive to the facts about Falun Gong.
It may be a trivial issue, but after this experience I finally understood what Teacher meant when he said,
"One thought can determine whether you make it through." ("Teaching the Fa at the Washington, D.C. International Fa Conference" in Guiding the Voyage)
If a cultivator is able to let go of his attachments, he is sure to enter godhood. If not, he is still an ordinary person. Yet everything that a human desires is transient and unstable! It is because of righteous thoughts that a cultivator is able to let go of attachments, and studying the Fa is the only way to maintain righteous thoughts!
Each of our thoughts and ideas every day determines whether we are in the realm of gods or humans. We can either think and act like a Falun Gong practitioner or think and act like an ordinary person. How do we govern our thoughts and actions? When we are able to conduct ourselves according to what the Fa requires of us, we are at least striving forward even though we might make some mistakes along the way.
These are some of my personal thoughts and experiences on my cultivation path, that I wish to share with all fellow practitioners.
Heshi
