missionunderstanding

Understanding: Mission Definition

From reading Teacher’s lecture, “Touring North America to Teach the Fa, March, 2002”, I have the following understanding of my mission and responsibilities as a practitioner of Falun Dafa: I am to clarify the truth to people, cultivate well and eliminate evil with righteous thoughts:

“So amidst this persecution of sentient beings we need to clarify the truth to people, and at the same time cultivate ourselves well and eliminate the evil with righteous thoughts. Although we don’t acknowledge anything of theirs, their malicious slander during this persecution has poisoned the minds of countless sentient beings.” (3rd page)

In this lecture Teacher provides extremely clear directions to Dafa disciples regarding what we are to do and He even prioritizes these issues for us. He tells us why our responsibilities are so important:

“The beings that you’re saving, think about it, are they just ordinary human beings? If they really correspond to gigantic cosmic bodies, then when you clarify the truth to one of them you’re rescuing a gigantic cosmic body, a gigantic group of beings, and you are rescuing a Lord, or a King.” (3rd page)

He also tells us that this is a very urgent matter. When Teacher says that a situation is urgent, to me that means it requires my immediate attention. It is not something to be put off until I have completed some other task:

“So isn’t our saving sentient beings something truly remarkable, something truly magnificent? Actually, it’s also very urgent.” (4th page)

Teacher makes it clear that studying the Fa is an activity that cannot be neglected, no matter what. He also reiterates how important clarifying the truth is:

“But if you study the Fa well, you’ll find many things a lot easier to do, and at the same time, problems will be less apt to occur. That’s why I’ve said that no matter how busy you are, you must study the Fa.
What I just talked about was the first thing. The second thing is that we need to make a priority of clarifying the truth. You need to know that clarifying the truth is extremely important for Dafa disciples.” (5th page)

Again, Teacher gives us clear directions as to the people who are most in need of truth clarification. The people of China are the primary target audience for our truth clarifying efforts:

“Today, China’s area is vast, and the number of sentient beings who’ve been victimized is very large—in China alone more than a billion people have been directly victimized.” (6th page)

Then, on the 12th and 13th pages of the lecture, Teacher gives us 3 paragraphs that, to me, show us an area where Dafa disciples tend to fall short in our understanding and responsibilities. It is an area that has also been noticed by the old forces as one of weakness and one that has been exploited by them and will probably continue to be exploited. It seems that the old forces can throw Dafa disciples off course by creating diversionary tactics. These tactics cause disciples to try to get ordinary people to help us accomplish our mission, to do our job for us. We want to get politicians and other ordinary people involved in doing our job. We even get so involved in these other activities that we stray from our first responsibility of saving sentient beings in China by means of clarifying the truth directly to them. The 3 paragraphs that outline our weakness and also reiterate our urgent responsibilities follow:

“If one person thinks this way, or two people think this way, or maybe three people think this way, it’s not a big deal. But if Dafa disciples as a whole or if more people are thinking this way, then isn’t that a strong attachment, a strong obstacle? Instead of truly using this period of time well, you’re hoping that it will end soon. Think about it, if we ended it today, how many people in China would die? A lot of people correspond to numerous beings in even larger cosmic bodies, so if this ended immediately, how many beings would be weeded out? If due to our inability to clear out the evil thoughts in their heads that are hostile to the Great Fa of the cosmos, and yet many of them represent gigantic cosmic bodies, then how many beings in the universes that correspond to them would die as a result of these people being weeded out? Have you thought about this? You are Dafa disciples; history has bestowed upon you magnificent responsibilities. We should make good use of this time. Since this hasn’t ended it’s a chance to save sentient beings. There’s only a short while left; once the Fa-rectification of the human world begins, the positioning of people will be set.” (12th page)

“When Dafa is persecuted, the first thing Dafa disciples should think of is saving sentient beings and how to validate Dafa. Isn’t that magnificent? We don’t acknowledge this arrangement by the evil one bit, but after all, the persecution has taken place, and after all, the evil has persecuted so many sentient beings. Shouldn’t our first thought be how to make good use of time to save them? To treat it as an ordinary human persecution against other human beings, to think with an ordinary human mind, ‘When will they restore our name? When will it end?’—think about it, are these the thoughts a Dafa disciple should have?” (12th page)

“Didn’t it cross your mind: this is the Fa of the cosmos, so if humans want to attack it, you think they can just attack it? And if humans want to restore our name, you think they can just restore our name? Humans aren’t worthy of that! How could you pin your hopes on an ordinary person? You are Dafa disciples! Each of you Dafa disciples represents a large, gigantic dimension. What does mankind amount to? It’s only that the old forces are using it and have sealed off your greater abilities. How could you think that way about things? If all of you think that way, the old forces will see it and think: ‘How can they all have those thoughts? Those thoughts have to be removed, so let’s make that premier turn bad.’” (13th page)
Also, on the 13th page of the lecture, Teacher tells us again that the primary objective is to clarify the truth to the people of China and he again tells us the reason:

“I know how many people in China will be eliminated, and it’s terrifying—the number is just enormous.” (13th page)

“The reason I have come here is to save all sentient beings amidst the Fa-rectification at a time when the colossal firmament of the cosmos is disintegrating.” (13th page)

Teacher then, in absolutely clear terms, tells us exactly what our mission and responsibilities are:

“I’m explaining this in hopes that from this point on you’ll do even better in Fa-rectification. You’ve got to try hard, and you’ve got to do well, because what you want is to consummate everything, and you have responsibilities—you have come with the mission and responsibility of saving sentient beings….Make sure you don’t lose this opportunity!” (22nd page)

On the 32nd page Teacher explains exactly what we can do to accomplish our mission. For western practitioners the methods are more or less limited to (1) sending faxes and (2) utilizing English speaking chat rooms on the internet. How can we possibly not do as Teacher has told us? Teacher is depending on us to fulfill our mission and responsibility. We must not fail!

“Don’t underestimate your sending even one flyer or one booklet to China, making one phone call there, or sending one fax there or sending all sorts of information—the effect is quite significant, and its effect in frightening and eliminating the evil is huge, truly huge. It’s because of the evil’s slanderous propaganda that people have bad thoughts in their minds. When people become clearheaded, that’s when those evil things are eliminated and disintegrate. If a person really represents a gigantic cosmic body, his turning-around means that numerous sentient beings are saved—the impact is enormous!” (32nd page)