PureInsight | September 19, 2026
[PureInsight.org] Today I would like to share some personal understandings regarding the recent occurrences of fellow practitioners experiencing the illusion of sickness karma and the passing away of some practitioners.
Master said in Fa Teaching Given at the New York Fa Conference Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Dafa’s Spreading during the Q&A session: “Disciple: We are supposed to be more diligent toward the end, but some practitioners are still experiencing a lot of interference, including sickness karma of varying degrees, which has made it harder for them to do the three things. How can we help these practitioners?”
“Master: Indeed, the old forces will not let the cultivation environment that Dafa disciples have be calm and uneventful, from start to finish. When they see that the Dafa disciples in some areas have a certain attachment, they will make something happen for everyone to see, and it’s meant to make you cultivate. So take a look at your reaction: are your thoughts righteous or human? All along the old forces have been doing such things. Some practitioners have had attachments for a long time and not realized it. They haven’t even done sincere self-reflection or scrutinized themselves, perhaps because they’re busy raising awareness or with other Dafa things. And then problems come about when the issue becomes serious and the old forces won’t let it go. So you really have to pay attention. However wild the evil may be, it won’t dare to touch you if you have no faults.”
As we study Master's lecture and observe fellow practitioners who are experiencing sickness karma, do we view these situations with the righteous thoughts of cultivators, or do we look at them with ordinary human notions? Whether a practitioner improves quickly or slowly, and whether they pass the sickness karma test well or not, is truly not just that practitioner's own matter. It is related to every Dafa disciple around them.
We Dafa disciples are one body. At no time should we act the way the old forces do. Sometimes our actions or the way we speak may not be truly kind. In reality, it is Dafa and our Master that can change people. We are all cultivators ourselves. Toward fellow practitioners, we should only offer kind reminders. When practitioners are going through tribulations, if we fail to help them or fail to consider their feelings from their perspective, then we should not speak to them in a harsh or overly critical manner. No matter how poorly a fellow practitioner may appear to be doing, they are simply being influenced by attachments that have not yet been eliminated. It does not mean that the practitioner themselves is bad, nor does it mean that their life is bad. We should only say that the attachment is not good and that karma has caused the situation. We should distinguish between the person and the attachment. When we notice shortcomings in fellow practitioners, we should promptly send forth righteous thoughts to strengthen them—silently and unconditionally supporting them with righteous thoughts, refusing to allow the old forces to exploit the opportunity to persecute them. Even if a practitioner has attachments or loopholes, these should be corrected within the Fa. The old forces have no right to interfere. We should continue accompanying them with righteous thoughts, spend more time studying the Fa together with those going through tribulations, help them rectify themselves within the Fa, and engage in sharing and discussions based on the Fa. This is the best way.
We should not gossip about fellow practitioners, criticize them, or add negative substances to their dimensional field. Nor should we allow the old forces to take advantage of the situation. Our cultivation has nothing whatsoever to do with the old forces. We are under Master's guidance. Sometimes our unrighteous thoughts, whether intentional or not, can unknowingly become aligned with the old forces. We should treat everything with righteous thoughts. We should kindly remind fellow practitioners, patiently help them, and rationally look for shortcomings. If we express our views gently and compassionately, fellow practitioners will feel that we truly understand them and are worthy of their trust. The more we remain in a genuine state of cultivation and the more closely we conform to the Fa, the less room there is for the old forces to operate.
In fact, while we are helping fellow practitioners, we are also improving ourselves. It is also a test of our own cultivation, allowing us to see whether our understanding of the Fa is clear. If we ourselves encountered the same situation as a fellow practitioner, how would we handle it? How strong are our righteous thoughts, our compassion, and our kindness? We should examine our tone, our compassion, and our reasoning. Can our tone, compassion and theory move a fellow practitioner who is undergoing tribulation to tears?
It is not only practitioners experiencing sickness karma who have areas that need improvement. On the contrary, every practitioner around us has aspects that need to be elevated; the focus is simply different for each person, yet all are equally important. Shouldn't our very first thought be to completely negate the old forces' persecution of our fellow practitioners? Only then should we help them rectify themselves according to the Fa. If practitioners in our area could truly form one body, then whenever someone encountered a tribulation, if we could immediately do what practitioners in mainland China often do—come together at once to send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil factors behind the persecution and help reduce the interference—then our area would not experience situations that none of us wishes to see.
Master said in Fa Teaching Given at the New York Fa Conference Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Dafa’s Spreading, "Indeed, the old forces will not let the cultivation environment that Dafa disciples have been calm and uneventful, from start to finish." From this, I have come to understand that cultivation is a very serious matter. Through the lessons we have experienced, we should all carefully examine our own cultivation. From this point forward, how can we meet the Fa requirements for us? Personally, I believe it means first correcting our attitude toward cultivation. We should not study the Fa merely as a formality. We should truly obtain the Fa through our study, let the Fa enter our hearts, and then use the Fa to measure every thought, word, and action. Only then can we genuinely cultivate ourselves and cultivate in a solid and practical way.
Master said in Fa Teaching given at the 2010 New York Fa Conference, “Precisely so that you can handle such things well, I have never stopped telling you to sincerely study the Fa and do real cultivation, for once the righteous thoughts are strong, you will truly have the god-like might to split a mountain in half—split it with but one thought. Just see if the old forces dare to meddle then. When your righteous thoughts arise, nothing can block your path. It is thus primarily students who haven’t been very diligent, who don’t study the Fa frequently, or whose minds are elsewhere while studying the Fa who have been interfered with the most and persecuted the worst. That’s always the case. The Dafa disciples who have cultivated well, however, truly cannot be interfered with—not even in the least. Moreover, their righteous thoughts are strong, and they are helping others at the same time. They are truly helping Master rectify the Fa.”
Those practitioners who remain in sickness karma for a long period or eventually pass away often go through a prolonged process of eliminating karma—one year, two years, or even longer. Little by little, the old forces drag them downward. Throughout this process, they may fail to discover where they allowed the evil to exploit a loophole. They have not deeply studied the Fa, do not know how to face the situation, lack sufficient righteous thoughts, and passively endure the tribulation, appearing helpless. In the end, the old forces succeed in taking away their physical bodies, leaving us to witness the outcome we most wish to avoid.
Master said Teaching the Fa given at the 2004 Western U.S. Fa Conference, "And also, what direction a being himself takes, these are things that are basically unstable. But, through what a being does, people can see what will happen with him in the cosmos next, and then next, and then next. In other words, away from the time setting of this dimension of ours, in another time setting you can see what he'll be doing later on, a continuation of his current state. If his present state suddenly changes, then his state in the next stage will change as well, so these things are unstable. But the overall formation-stasis-degeneration destiny for the cosmos is stable. "
From studying this passage of Master's Fa, I have come to understand that every single thought of a practitioner undergoing the tribulation of sickness karma is crucial. The direction a practitioner ultimately takes is determined by his or her present state.
Yet throughout this process, as members of one body, what have we done for those practitioners who are enduring tribulations? How can we simply leave fellow practitioners to be persecuted by evil without doing anything? We Dafa disciples are one family. We are each other's closest family members.
Master's Fa teaches us that the power of kindness is immense. I have come to understand that the old forces' persecution of fellow practitioners is also persecution of ourselves and persecution of the Fa. Every Dafa disciple is a particle within Dafa. We came to assist Master in Fa-rectification and save sentient beings—not to submit to the persecution of the old forces.
When tribulations arise, as long as we have the Fa in our hearts, no matter what test or hardship we encounter, including any so-called illusion of sickness karma, once righteous thoughts emerge, they possess the power to split mountains. The evil's persecution will disappear without a trace. Only when the Fa is truly in our hearts do we have unwavering confidence. The sickness karma test is, in reality, a test of life and death.
A fellow practitioner in mainland China once went through a sickness karma tribulation. Several practitioners went to visit him. One of them said, "The pain is not yours, so don't identify with it. It isn't you who is in pain—it is the karma that is suffering. Face it with righteous thoughts. Don't follow along with it in your mind, and don't experience it through ordinary human thinking." This practitioner's righteous thoughts were very strong. He clearly distinguished between his true self, the false self, and karma.
I told the practitioner, "We are assimilating ourselves to the Fa of the universe. Any being that tries to prevent us from assimilating to Dafa is committing a grave sin. Whoever dares to obstruct our assimilation to Dafa will be destroyed by the Fa along with the old forces. Those beings that are still participating in the persecution have a choice to make: Do you want me to take you with me as I assimilate to Dafa and return home with Master, or do you want to stand with the old forces, continue down the path of no return, and be eliminated during Fa-rectification? The choice is yours."
Practitioners going through sickness karma tribulations may display many different outward manifestations, but despite the countless variations, the underlying principle remains the same. Everything that happens is directed at our cultivation. It is aimed at our hearts. At critical moments, if the Fa is not in our hearts, we cannot generate righteous thoughts. We cannot shake the evil deeds carried out by the old forces or expose and break through their schemes and malicious intentions. I believe this ultimately indicates a problem with Fa study.
I myself once went through a life-and-death test while I was in China. One day I suddenly could not eat anything. Whatever I ate, I immediately vomited. I could not lie down. What I vomited was black liquid. I did not have diarrhea; but simply kept vomiting. I could not sleep because lying down was unbearable. At the same time, I had a high fever and absolutely no strength. I continued vomiting nonstop. It felt as though a rope had been tightly tied around the lower part of my stomach, cutting it off. I simply kept enduring it. I kept telling myself, "Maybe tomorrow it will be better." But day and night I could not sleep. Before I knew it, seven days had passed. I had become noticeably thinner, and I truly felt that I could no longer endure it. Interestingly, it never occurred to me to go to the hospital for an examination. My family also never suggested that I go to the hospital. They acted as though nothing unusual had happened. But I felt certain that this was an attempt to take my life.
I thought to myself, "I have studied so many of Master's lectures. I am a Dafa disciple. I cannot simply grit my teeth and endure this. What attachment is this targeting? What could have allowed the old forces to attack me so ruthlessly? Have I seriously deviated from the Fa somewhere?" I wondered whether my stomach problem had something to do with something I had eaten. Yet I couldn't remember eating anything spoiled.
Then, all of a sudden, I remembered an incident. My family sold fried skewers on the street. Some pork cutlets had become less fresh, but I couldn't bear to throw them away. I thought that if we couldn't sell them, I would just eat them myself. I figured that with enough seasoning, no one would notice any strange taste. While we were selling them, a customer came back and told me that the meat wasn't fresh and had started to spoil. I said, "Let me take a look." I never admitted that the food was spoiled, nor did I apologize. Instead, I ate the spoiled meat myself. Although I refunded the customer's money, my heart was still far from the standard required by the Fa. My attachment to personal gain was filthy. Even an ordinary person might not have done something like that, yet I did. I had seriously fallen short of the standards required of a Dafa disciple, giving the old forces an excuse to persecute me. They tried to destroy me completely—to teach me a lesson through an enormous setback that I would never forget for the rest of my life. In my heart I admitted my mistake to Master. I said, "Master, I know I was wrong. Please give your disciple one more opportunity to do better. Master, please save me." At that moment, a passage of Master's lecture came to mind.
Master said in Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference, “Why don't you stop and think about it: Why is someone interfering with you? Why is it able to interfere with you? Is it because you have an attachment, or because you have something you can't let go of? Why don't you look at yourself? The true reason lies with you yourself, and that's the only reason it can exploit your gap! Don't you have Master watching over you? Even when an ordinary person shouts out "Falun Dafa is good" today, Master will protect him, since he's shouted those words I can't not protect him amidst the evil. And how much more so am I protecting you cultivators! In some isolated cases some students really did come down with an incurable disease. But think about it, so many people who had severe health problems or incurable diseases before they learned the Fa became well after learning Dafa, so why is it that some students on the other hand can't make things work? Is it that Dafa makes distinctions among sentient beings? Is it that I, your Master, treat students differently? I really have to ask you: Are you truly cultivating? Have you truly followed Dafa's requirements?”
The words, "Are you truly cultivating? Have you truly followed Dafa's requirements?" struck me like a thunderbolt. In that instant, everything became clear. I was stunned. My thinking had become seriously distorted. I had strayed far from the Fa. I had not acted according to the Fa. I was not truly cultivating. A degenerated life does not consider other people's feelings. For the sake of a little money, I had disregarded what was right.
At that moment, I again said silently to Master: "Master, I know I was wrong. Please give your disciple another chance to do better."
Then I said in my heart: "Master, today I am just like a new practitioner. Let it be as though I have never studied Dafa before—not even for a single day. Today I want to sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, proclaim Falun Dafa is good.” The moment that thought arose, it felt as though whatever had been tightly binding my stomach instantly loosened. Immediately I felt relieved. Everything became open and unobstructed. My tears poured down like pearls from a broken string. My heart overflowed with gratitude toward our compassionate and great Master. No words could express how I felt. It was Master who gave this disciple another chance to do well. It was Master who saved me during that life-and-death test and rescued me from the hands of the old forces.
I came to understand that when facing enormous trials and tribulations, only by looking inward unconditionally and believing in Master and the Fa one hundred percent can one pass the test of life and death.
Master said in Expounding on the Fa, "When a tribulation arrives, if you, a disciple, can truly maintain an unshakable calm or be determined to meet different requirements at different levels, this should be sufficient for you to pass the test. If it continues endlessly and if there do not exist other problems in your xinxing or conduct, it must be that the evil demons are capitalizing on the weak spots caused by your lack of control."
After studying Master's lecture, I reflected on myself that both my xinxing and my behavior had problems. At the very beginning, I did not look inward. Instead, I treated the tribulation with ordinary human thinking, human notions, and a human mentality. I simply tried to endure it with human willpower. Only when I felt that I truly might lose my life did I finally think of looking inward and recall Master's teachings. My xinxing and enlightenment quality were truly poor. I feel deeply ashamed. If, while facing that tribulation and persecution, I had truly studied the Fa with my heart, thoroughly understood it, measured everything against the Fa, and instinctively looked inward at the critical moment, I would not have had to endure seven days of suffering before being brought back from the brink of death. I should have woken up to the problem immediately. Perhaps such a thing would never have happened in the first place.
There is another point I would like to mention: we must not mistake doing things for cultivation. No matter what Dafa project we participate in to save people, it can never replace our own cultivation. It is only one of the three things that Master has asked us to do. It cannot replace the other two, nor can it replace our personal cultivation. I think we must not confuse these things. If we mistake doing work for cultivation, then over time it may also invite persecution.
Master said in What is a Dafa Disciple (Fa Teaching Given at the 2011 New York Fa Conference), “Dafa disciples go about their lives alongside ordinary people as part of the illusory ordinary society, and are really susceptible to drifting along with the tide in their way of thinking, at least in some regards. If you can’t manage to conduct yourselves according to Dafa when you do things, can’t manage to think things over with righteous thoughts, or are not on the Fa in dealing with problems, then you are an ordinary person. There isn’t any difference, then. Your appearance is ordinary, the setting in which you lead your life is ordinary, and your job is ordinary. Even if you are involved in Dafa disciples’ projects, in the heavens above there are no such things as television stations, nor do gods have newspapers. Those are forms in ordinary human society. If you don’t use righteous thoughts to guide yourself, and if you cannot manage to conduct yourself and look at the world and others according to the standard of a cultivator, like a Dafa disciple does, then you are the same as an ordinary person."
When I was in China, I did a great deal of work to save people. But whenever I became busy, I neglected my own Fa study and failed to value my personal cultivation. I treated doing things as cultivation itself. Over time, the old forces exploited this loophole, and I was persecuted for three years.
Sometimes, after doing many things over a long period of time, it becomes easy to drift away from the Fa. Without realizing it, one's thoughts and actions gradually deviate from the Fa and slowly become no different from those of ordinary people. One starts watching videos on a cellphone, studies the Fa irregularly, studies without the Fa entering one's heart, becomes lazy about doing the exercises, practices while half asleep, develops stronger lustful desires, and even becomes drowsy while sending forth righteous thoughts, allowing one's hand positions to collapse.
I remember that before I was persecuted, there was one time while sending forth righteous thoughts that I actually fell off my stool. I was extremely drowsy. My hand position had collapsed, and the upright lotus-hand gesture had drooped into something like a flower bud. My dimensional field had already become filled with all kinds of human attachments and desires that the old forces had taken advantage of. Although I studied the Fa, it never truly entered my heart. I merely skimmed through it, treating Fa study as a formality, going through the motions, fooling around, and deceiving myself. It was truly a lesson paid for in blood.
During that period, Master also gave me several hints. The electric blanket in my home burned a deep hole through the mattress and nearly caused a fire. That indicated there was a major loophole in my cultivation. The tires on my car were punctured three times in a single day. All these signs were warning me that something serious was about to happen. One night my wife suddenly woke up from a nightmare, crying. She told me that she had dreamed many of us had been arrested by the police. Even after waking up, she continued crying and said the dream had felt unbelievably real. In fact, before Dafa disciples are persecuted by the evil, Master compassionately gives us warnings. It is only that we ourselves fail to awaken.
Outside China, although there is no direct persecution by the evil Communist regime and we are not likely to be arrested by the police, if we truly deviate from the Fa and become lax in our cultivation, if our thoughts and behavior become aligned with those of the old forces, then the evil will still strike. It will persecute our physical bodies. Recently, I have repeatedly heard of fellow practitioners passing away because of persecution, as well as others who remain under severe persecution by the old forces or are experiencing the tribulation of sickness karma.
In reality, studying Dafa well is the fundamental guarantee for everything. As the saying goes, "Sharpening the axe won’t delay your woodcutting." Only by studying the Fa well, can we accomplish our work with far greater effectiveness. At no time should we become lax in Fa study. Throughout his lectures, Master has repeatedly emphasized its importance, as well as the importance of the proper attitude toward Fa study and the urgency of studying Dafa with genuine dedication.
Master said in Fa-Lecture at the Conference in Florida, U.S.A., “You all know what state of mind a person must be in to see the Fa's principles. You know it without my having to say much. When your eyes read the Fa and yet your mind isn't on the Fa, think about it, aren't you reading in vain? Who are you reading for? You yourself aren't really studying the Fa, then. Haven't I told you to make sure that you yourself truly obtain gong? Then if your mind isn't on the Fa when you're studying the Fa, who are you studying it for? This isn't to criticize you--I'm just telling you that this is a really critical situation.”
My understanding of this passage is that Master is personally teaching today's Dafa disciples what kind of attitude we should have toward Fa study in order to meet Dafa's standards and truly obtain the Fa. Master is teaching us step by step. He worries that we may not grasp these principles properly or understand them deeply enough, so he explains them with exceptional clarity. If we do not study the Fa well, we will handle conflicts between practitioners with ordinary human thinking, increasing the distance and barriers between us. No matter what project we participate in to save people, we should maintain the state of a cultivator. Otherwise, not only will we be unable to save people effectively, but over time we will also lose the proper perspective when dealing with conflicts, and we ourselves will become subject to interference. When conflicts arise between cultivators, if we all safeguard our xinxing and look within ourselves, conflicts can be resolved very quickly. In that case, the old forces have no opportunity whatsoever to interfere. Otherwise, one practitioner looks down on another, and everyone ends up hurting one another with ordinary human attachments while the old forces stir up even more trouble behind the scenes. Under those circumstances, it becomes very difficult for us to truly function as one body.
If a cultivator cannot correctly handle conflicts, refuses to cultivate himself or herself, and allows jealousy, resentment, and demonic nature to remain, lingering at the same level for a long time, this too may invite persecution by the evil. The old forces are watching us like tigers stalking their prey. Their persecution follows like a shadow. If we wish to save more sentient beings and fundamentally negate the persecution arranged by the old forces, there is only one way: cultivate ourselves well. There is no shortcut.
Recently, the Minghui Editorial Department published a notice that referred to Master's lecture Towards Consummation, which was given more than twenty years ago. At the end of the notice, practitioners were encouraged to memorize this article. Toward Consummation is quite long, so I will not quote it here. Those who have time can read it for themselves.
I feel that Fa-rectification has reached its final stage. The fact that Master's teaching from more than twenty years ago is being emphasized again is no ordinary matter. Could it be that we still have not identified our most fundamental attachments? Could it be that our ordinary human hearts simply recognize that the Fa is good and do not want to leave it, while it is still this human heart that keeps us within Dafa—not a genuine desire to cultivate ourselves? Could it be that we are merely going through the motions within Dafa?
When I look at my own cultivation state, it is frightening. After being shocked by this realization, I immediately reminded myself to wake up and quickly correct my mindset. Otherwise, the consequences would be unimaginable. While I was in China, I once had a dream.
In the dream, there was one group labeled “Dafa Enthusiasts”. In the end, they all entered a huge white grave and died.
The other group was labeled “Dafa Cultivators”. They were walking along a magnificent road shining with golden light. Then I woke up. I asked myself: Am I a Dafa cultivator, or merely a Dafa enthusiast? What does a Dafa enthusiast look like? Someone who simply wants to live a comfortable life among ordinary people; whose human heart recognizes that the Fa is good, yet who does not actively cultivate himself; who cannot wholeheartedly assimilate himself to the Fa; who cannot truly place the Fa above everything else. If it is merely my human heart that keeps me within Dafa, then my outcome would be tragic. I must remind myself to stay vigilant at all times.
The main reason I wanted to share these thoughts today is to help avoid unnecessary losses and to encourage us to quickly form one body so that we leave no loopholes for the old forces to exploit. I also hope that fellow practitioners who are going through the tribulation of sickness karma can overcome their tests with righteous thoughts. Every Dafa disciple who has made it to this day is extraordinary and deserves to be treasured.
Chinese version: https://www.zhengjian.org/node/303367
