(Clearwisdom.net) Some practitioners think that they have benefited from reading a certain novel, and some practitioners even say they became diligent in cultivation as a result. How should we view this? In Master's lecture, "Fa Teaching at the 2007 New York Fa Conference" Master said (in reply to a practitioner's question about talismans with images of Buddha), "Those talismans by themselves have no effect--it is Master making them work." I understand that some practitioners might have benefited from reading a certain novel, but what is really effective is the Fa behind it and Master's Law Body. This means that we should not take this or other novels as a form of sharing cultivation experiences. What's more, if one has an even higher regard for a novel than for cultivation experience sharing, then he/she has not correctly positioned themselves in terms of their relationship with Dafa.
Since the early stages of teaching the Fa in mainland China, Master has encouraged practitioners to write experience sharing articles. Those articles also serve as an important form of sharing at Fa conferences. Under today's special circumstance of practitioners in mainland China being severely persecuted, experience sharing articles published through the Minghui/Clearwisdom website serve an irreplaceable role in Dafa practitioners' cultivation. Experience sharing articles have become an important form of practitioners' communication in cultivation, and Master has approved this form.
After the publication of the novel, The Cosmos's Calamity, I heard some practitioners inside and outside of China basically say that the author's righteous enlightenment to Fa principles permeates the novel, so we can take this novel as cultivation experience. Some have said that after reading the novel, they have a better understanding of how the old forces made arrangements and that they have new understandings about saving sentient beings. Moreover, the author said in his article on the Zhengjian (Pureinsight) website that when practitioners read this novel, "...it's like reading a fellow practitioner's experience sharing, but actually some pages or chapters in The Cosmos's Calamity have gone beyond the meanings of "experience sharing." ("Looking at a Dafa Disciple's Literary Creation Properly," Zhengjian.net)
It's true that Dafa disciples' articles and works reflect their cultivation enlightenment. However, the form of a novel permits fiction. So can we regard that as cultivation experience? In my understanding, it is not righteous to read or write this kind of literary work as cultivation experience. To put it more seriously, this is altering the cultivation form that Master gave us.
Likewise, I recall that in the past few years some practitioners said they enlightened to certain understanding from certain everyday people's movies and TV series, and they encouraged other practitioners to watch them. In my opinion, everything in this world possesses the fundamental characteristics of the universe and is the manifestation of the fundamental characteristics at different levels, so cultivators can see in them what they have learned from the Fa. Nevertheless, at the current, urgent time of validating Dafa and saving sentient beings, wouldn't we gain and benefit a lot more if we used the precious time to directly study the fundamental Dafa of the universe? Otherwise, isn't this attending to trifles and neglecting the essentials by spending time on everyday people's literary works? Of course, it is a different situation for practitioners writing articles and working in media to refer to everyday people's works in order to better clarify the facts.
The above is my personal understanding. Please kindly point out anything improper.
May 11, 2007
