(Clearwisdom.net) Master said in "Fa Teaching at the U.S. Capital,"
"Aside from what you as individuals need to go through and establish on your final road to Consummation, what is most important for you and most significant right now is to save people. If not for that, let me tell you, your cultivation would have concluded long ago."
From that passage I enlightened to the following: No matter how much longer we cultivate, we shouldn't get attached to a conclusion. Instead, if we should follow Master's requirement as He mentioned in the Fa teaching, and then this 8-year-long vicious persecution will soon end.
"The focus for you right now is simply to find ways to do better, to be more efficient, to have a greater impact, and to save more people," ("Fa Teaching at the U.S. Capital")
I remember reading a fellow practitioner's article on the Minghui website (Chinese version of Clearwisdom.net) dated July 27, 2007, in which he said that because of the interference from illness karma he had difficulty crossing his legs while meditating. Later, in order to rescue a local fellow practitioner, he went outside to post truth-clarifying pamphlets despite the icy cold weather and the pain in his legs. When he was through, the illness karma vanished. Why was it? What I enlightened to was that at that moment his heart was fully focused on saving sentient beings and rescuing the fellow practitioner, a pure and selfless act. He did not hang onto the thought of whether he had put aside his illness or how he could improve his own level by getting rid of his illness karma. Thus, his body and mind improved and transcended together, and a miracle occurred.
It could be understood this way: If this persecution had not taken place, there would have been no need for Dafa practitioners to save people through truth clarification. The world's people would have come to know Dafa in a peaceful setting and thus been saved, and Dafa disciples would have had a different cultivation state. But the reality is that the persecution did happen. So how could the future selfless beings stand idly by while sentient beings are eliminated due to being fooled by the lies, and thus oppose the Dafa of the cosmos that created their lives? Moreover, many of the world's people who have not obtained the Fa, like us in the beginning, came down here with faith and courage to validate the Fa.
Although there are so many fellow practitioners who are still being persecuted, we should base our thoughts on the overall Fa-rectification. Master has come down to this world with the grand wish to save all sentient beings in all of the firmaments. We, as Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples, should accomplish what Master wants. Solid as rock and pure as diamond, we should do our very best to save more beings who have a precious past and who are worthy of saving. This is the choice and need of the future cosmos. Dafa disciples are following our esteemed Master in establishing the future, and their honor and glory will shine as long as heaven and earth exist.
As a matter of fact, our personal cultivation and efforts to remove attachments are different from those of past and future cultivators. If we do well in cultivating ourselves and eliminate all of our attachments and human notions, the sentient beings in the cosmic bodies corresponding to ours will also cultivate well and be saved. Conversely, if we have not cultivated well, numerous beings will be weeded out when the overwhelming force of Fa-rectification comes along. In other words, in this last phase of the extended cultivation period, we are fine-tuning and rectifying the high-level cosmic bodies corresponding to ourselves, and saving the vast number of sentient beings there. Didn't Master tell us in "Touring North America to Teach the Fa," when speaking of those who have not cultivated well,
"...meanwhile, when they return, the gigantic cosmic bodies they represent will be empty and will no longer have all the beings that used to be there. Since they didn't cultivate well, everything will have turned bad and been weeded out, and it can only be re-created."
It's alright to re-create, but in that case wouldn't we have breached our grand vows made before we came down to this world to obtain the Fa? Wouldn't we have failed the expectations of countless sentient beings in various cosmic bodies? Besides, the beings re-created will not have all the precious elements accumulated over the long years of cosmic history. I think this is one of the reasons that Master wanted to do everything possible to keep all the original beings.
So, when we feel pain while removing attachments and when we are trapped in agony because of our worldly interests, it's better that we view our personal cultivation from a higher level. Our cultivation is not a simple matter of how one individual should improve or reach Consummation. Our Consummation includes saving innumerable sentient beings in the vast firmament. It includes us as well as others--it's the grandest Consummation! A broad mind and selflessness are required to shoulder this tremendous task. By contrast, what do those insignificant personal attachments and interests really count for? In this light, shouldn't they be easy to eliminate?
Fa-rectification has brought magnificence to Dafa disciples, and the magnificence of Dafa disciples is reflected in the fact that they are able to selflessly follow their Master in Fa-rectification, and accomplish what Master wants by saving sentient beings and creating the future of the vast cosmos, all in a situation where sentient beings are unaware of the well-being of the firmament. Regardless of how much longer it takes, and of how the situation changes, we should keep in mind Master's teachings, do the three things well, and hurry up to save more sentient beings. Let our lives shine ever more brightly in the cosmos that's to come.
The above is what I have come to understand through studying the Fa. Fellow practitioners are welcome to point out anything inappropriate.