(Clearwisdom.net) From the Chinese New Year's period when I first watched the Chinese Spectacular on the Internet when NTDTV made a direct transmission of the show to now, when DVD copies of the performance are widely available in mainland China, I have watched the show again and again, with full concentration. Each time I watched it, I could feel many bad elements in my thoughts being eliminated and my righteous thoughts being strengthened. Each time I watched it, I enlightened to more Fa principles and my understanding deepened. Because Master is personally guiding disciples in this project, and as Master said, "The strength of the impact on people, as with the changes it caused in them, were very similar to what happened back when I personally taught the Fa early on. So it has effected tremendous changes in people."(Fa Teaching at the 2007 New York Fa Conference) I paid special attention to every performance, especially those dances and songs that clearly displayed "Dafa." I often clearly felt what Master was telling us through these performances, to guide us in our cultivation. I would like to share with fellow practitioners some of the Fa principles that I have enlightened to from watching the Chinese Spectacular.
1. Sentient beings' "every life is for this life" and Dafa disciples need to "ignore superficial formalities and only look at one's heart" in saving people.
The first time I watched the performance, "The Fruits of Goodness," was from Holiday Wonders. I was really surprised to see two strangely dressed up young men appear on stage in a Dafa performance. At the beginning, I thought it was because we had enriched the content in our performance and were using more stage techniques. However, as the story unfolded, eight words that Master had said earlier came to my mind "I ignore superficial formalities and only look at one's heart" (from "Seeking Discipleship with Teacher" in Essentials for Further Advancement), and tears came straight down my face.
Although I had long realized that on our path to validate the Fa and save sentient beings, we must not judge if a being can be saved or not by what we see with our naked eyes. I have come across young people like those two in the performance more than once and they accepted the facts straight away without any obstacles; they quit the CCP and its associated organizations and had very strong righteous thoughts about Dafa. In the process of saving sentient beings, I am still holding onto various notions, and intentionally or unintentionally, I still tend to choose those that I think will be easy to talk to first, and talk more to those whom I like. As for those whom I didn't like, it would take me a long time to think it over before I went to talk to them. When I heard someone was a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) member, I would feel resentful and would not want to talk to him or her. When I knew someone was a government official or worked in the military, I would be blocked by my own notions and find it very difficult to approach them. In daily life, I would feel disgusted with people who have bad habits. While walking on street, I always send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil elements in the field I happen to pass and in the beings I come across. However, when I go out I always run into people who smoke, spit or grab seats for themselves on a bus, and I feel disgusted with them. When I send forth righteous thoughts, my mind goes astray, not to mention having compassion to save these people. In fact, all these show that I still held onto strong human notions in doing Dafa work. I did not have strong righteous thoughts and failed to allow the energy field that I have cultivated in Dafa to have the maximum impact.
In fact, just as what we are told in the lyrics "But a Moment's Chance," "Every Life is for This Life" and "Every life is for this wish," beings have played various roles in their reincarnations, but they have all come for the Fa. Last July, when Master's "Fa Teaching at the U.S. Capital" was published on Clearwisdom.net, that night, Master showed me the scenes in my previous lives in a dream: I don't know how long in the past this was; some other people and I were on our way to a far away place, where we would realize our aspirations upon reaching our destination. Soon however, some people did not want to go any further because it was too hard. While I was hesitating, a person said to me, 'We want to continue as a group, and we will get there. Would you like to come with us?' I said yes and went on with them. But very soon, these people all disappeared. I thought that they might have taken a different route, so I continued on my own; what followed next was the cultivation path I experienced in lifetime after lifetime. I suffered a lot of hardships, but I always remembered what Master told us, and many times, dangers ended safely, until this life time. When I woke up, I was clearly aware that Master wanted to help me open my heart and to go and save people with compassion, without any notions, because they had all been my "fellow travelers" in the past. As for the people in my dream, two who had encouraged me to continue the journey are my friends in this life time; some have not yet started to cultivate, but have a very clear understanding about Dafa; and some of those who did not continue the journey were my primary school classmates, and they still don't know the facts about Falun Gong.
In fact, every sentient being that has reincarnated into a human being now is our "fellow traveler." They may smoke, grab seats for themselves on a bus, or have joined the CCP, but these are not their true natures. Master told us, "...yet your eyes cannot see the truth. This pair of eyes can give one a false impression like that." ( Lecture Two, Zhuan Falun, 2000 Translation Version) If we use our naked eyes to see things on the surface, then we will not be able to take steps to save people.
More importantly, we must change the human reasoning and human notions that we have formed over thousands of years. If we use a human mentality to save people, it would be no different from everyday people doing Dafa things and it would not have the impact that a Dafa disciple's actions generate. Master told us a long time ago,
"If you do not want to change your human state and rationally rise to a true understanding of Dafa, you will miss the opportunity. If you do not change the human logic that you, as an ordinary human, have formed deep in your bones over thousands of years, you will be unable to break away from this superficial human shell and reach Consummation." ("Cautionary Advice" in Essentials for Further Advancement)
My understanding of this paragraph of Master's teaching whenever I read it in the past, was only from the angle of personal cultivation, but now I realize we are Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples and our mission is to maximumly validate Dafa and to save sentient beings. If we do not change our human understanding and human reasoning that we have so deeply formed, then we will not only lose the opportunity ourselves, but will cause many more sentient beings who have been waiting for us to save them to lose their opportunity as well. When gods and Buddhas save people, they only look at people's hearts, and if we want to be able to "ignore superficial formalities and only look at one's heart" in our efforts to save sentient beings, we must first of all relinquish our own human notions, and truly make a fundamental change in ourselves; only then can it be Dafa disciples validating the Fa and harmonizing the Fa, and only then can the sentient beings experience "that will truly be the manifestation of the Fa whose power knows no boundary--the reappearance of the mighty Buddha Fa in the human world!" ("Cautionary Advice" in Essentials for Further Advancement)
2. Validating the Fa and saving sentient beings in mainland China
When I first watched the performance, "Lady of the Moon" I thought it had nothing to do with our cultivation and I only enjoyed it as a legendary story. However, when I watched the DVD this time, I saw the characters "Dafa" at the back of the choreography, I felt a shock in my heart: What does Master want to tell us through this performance? So, I tried to understand each time I watched it, paying attention to every detail. At the beginning, I thought maybe it told us to let go of sentiments (my husband and I are fellow practitioners), but then I felt it was not the whole point, and some of the details I still could not understand. For example, why is it that a catastrophe happened in the human world soon after Bodhisattva gave them the magic potion? Why didn't Chang E first think of saving people instead of drinking the potion when she saw people suffering under the nine scorching suns? When her husband Hou Yi saw the potion poured on the ground, and he could not fly to the moon and he would forever be parted from Chang E, he felt sad, but only for a short while. Then he decided to save people straight away. Suddenly I understood that we must have a heart to save sentient beings and be prepared to give up all that we have.
For the last few years, I have been pondering whether I should go overseas to validate the Fa or stay in China to validate the Fa, because I feel that with the skills I have I can do more overseas. But at the same time, I feel there are still many people in mainland China whose minds are poisoned by the evil CCP and they need to be saved. In the past, like Hou Yi, I already had the "magic potion to enable me to fly to heaven," but I lost it again, and I did not immediately put my act together to save people as Hou Yi did; instead, I wasted much precious time lingering back and forth. A fellow practitioner asked Master in "Fa Teaching at the 2007 New York Fa Conference," "What kind of attitude should we who are overseas Dafa practitioners have toward practitioners in China who wish to come overseas? Should we encourage them to stay in China?" Master said,
"I don't want to state anything in absolute terms when it comes to these things. Otherwise, upon my saying something today, many people would go to an extreme. Dafa disciples are to fulfill the things that they are supposed to do! This holds true no matter where they are. The vows that you once made must be fulfilled, and the beings that you need to save must be saved!"
Although I did not know what vow I had made so long ago, I can see that in mainland China there are indeed many people who still don't know the facts and are waiting for us to tell them. This is the place most deeply poisoned by the evil CCP, and where Dafa disciples are needed, because "Dafa disciples are the sole hope of salvation for the beings in each region and each nation."
(from "My Thanks to Sentient Beings Who Have Sent Greetings") I thought I must let go of all my attachments to myself and walk the path Master has arranged for me and steadily validate the Fa and save sentient beings in my current environment.
3. The beautiful and the ugly
All people who have watched the Chinese Spectacular have experienced what Master said, "the moment the curtain rises, a most beautiful scene should meet the eye." (Fa Teaching at the 2007 New York Fa Conference)
In the past, I thought that in our clarifying the facts and validating the Fa, most of the time we need to talk to people and distribute materials. But it does not have to be the case. The Fa is enormous and has very deep connotations. The beauty shown in the Chinese Spectacular enabled me to realize that every single Dafa disciple is a most beautiful scene, in terms of their thoughts, their actions and their image and disposition. Every single thought of Dafa disciples reflects their realm and we must demonstrate to the universe the most beautiful and purest thoughts and actions so as to display the demeanor of Dafa disciples. This is a very important aspect of our validating the Fa and saving sentient beings. I will not go into detail about this as many fellow practitioners have already talked about this before. However, I would like to share my new understanding about the image and demeanor of Dafa disciples, and that is: the beauty Dafa disciples demonstrate should be measured by the universal principles of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance" and only such beauty can have an impact on validating the Fa and saving sentient beings.
All along, I have paid attention to my image, because I know the requirements of our cultivation school. However, all this time, my paying attention to my image did not play any positive role in validating Dafa, and two fellow practitioners even said to me, " How come you dress up like a rich lady?" When I heard this I was really shocked. How can my appearance run counter to my wish? I did not understand what was wrong, until I watched the performance "The Power of Awareness" [in the Chinese Spectacular]. The leading dancer was wearing a bright yellow top and pure and simple blue pants, and the colors look so beautiful. I thought I would wear such colors too! It was then that I realized that for so many years, I was influenced by the degenerated fashion concepts of everyday people and that most of my clothes are dark-colored. I even thought I had very good taste. I also saw that in the dance, the young girls' dresses are very simple and natural, so clean and so pure. They are the very style that I used to like in the past. How come my taste changed? The reason is that I used everyday people's fashion standards to judge the beautiful and the ugly; I read fashion magazines often and used "conform to everyday people" as an excuse; I did not measure it with the standards of the Fa.
Everything in ordinary people's society has become degenerated and the old forces are still corrupting everything in the human world. How can Dafa disciples take these evil and ugly things as our standards? All of a sudden I understood and knew what I should do in the future. Every time I go out, I think calmly that if I were in the pure paradise, which clothes would match to harmonize the environment? The answer would pop up straight away. I comb my hair nice and neat, and keep a pure heart before I step out the door, and I require myself to keep righteous thoughts and righteous action at all times. The environment at home is the same. Everything is neat and clean and when one opens the door, it looks like a beautiful scene. This way, clarifying the facts is not only done through our mouths, but it is done from the macro to the microscopic, and all the cells in my body are clarifying the facts. As a result, the "effect" is obvious; whether they are my fellow practitioners or ordinary people, people have all felt the beauty that Dafa has brought to me and they were all touched in their hearts.
The above are some of the Fa principles that I have enlightened to from watching the Chinese Spectacular. Perhaps other practitioners would have more to share, as I know that many practitioners may have gained a greater understanding as I have. My understanding is limited by my own level of cultivation, so please kindly point out anything improper.
I'm deeply grateful to Master for leading practitioners to produce such a marvelous Chinese Spectacular, which not only saves sentient beings, but also gives wisdom and confidence to all Dafa disciples around the world. Thank you Master. Heshi.
