(Clearwisdom.net) Recently, I was often distracted by miscellaneous thoughts when I was sending forth righteous thoughts. Why did these things that had happened in my past come into my mind again? Some of them were related to introducing Dafa, and some were things that happened in everyday life. Why had I become attached to these things and let them affect my sending forth righteous thoughts? I had not thought much about them, so I concluded that they must be outside interference and I must get rid of them! However, the next time when I sent forth righteous thoughts, I was still in such a state. For a long time I had been in this state, which lasted until one day when I suddenly remembered what Master Li has required of us in his poem "In the Dao" in Hongyin [A collection of Master Li's poem]: "See as if see not - Neither confused nor tempted. Hear as if hear not - Mind not disturbed." Only then was I shocked in noticing that my state of mind in my everyday life was not right. I was affected by the affairs in society and my heart was moved.
When people describe someone who pays a lot of attention to something, this person is said to be "very involved with his heart." In cultivation terms, this person is said to have put his heart into his undertaking, and his heart has been affected. Regardless of what I am doing in society, if I can really be in a state of "see as if see not" and "hear as if hear not," the everyday matters will be like transient mist and clouds, and leave no marks after they are finished. I understand this to be the state of wuwei (i.e., no action or without intention), and in this state, the things that happened in my past will not come to my mind when I send forth righteous thoughts. On the contrary, if I paid much attention to what I have seen and heard, my heart would transform with the things I have seen and heard, and these things would come out to disturb my mind when I send forth righteous thoughts. This is the root cause for the appearance of distracting thoughts and it is also a manifestation of a lack of tranquility.
What is difficult to cultivate in society is keeping our minds from being disturbed by everyday matters. Once our hearts are affected, we fall into the state of mind of non-practitioners, we drift and confuse ourselves with non-practitioners. Even though what we are doing is related to the spread of Dafa and Fa-rectification, we still need to maintain a clear and clean mind. When our minds are mixed with non-practitioners' mentalities, we go astray in our cultivation, and our minds are not clean anymore. So when manifested in Fa-rectification, this is "...just by having your heart unaffected you will be able to handle all situations." ("Eliminate Your Last Attachment" in Essential for Further Advancement II)
In "A Clear and Clean Mind" in Lecture Nine of Zhuan Falun, Master Li has repeatedly emphasized that we should maintain clean minds. The purer our minds, the better our enlightened sides play their roles. I realized that this is also an even higher requirement for us during our cultivation. Our minds should become more and more tranquil during cultivation. When our mind natures have improved, our tranquility has also improved and so has our levels of cultivation. Therefore, to improve the quality of sending forth righteous thoughts, we must start with our minds in everyday life.
This is my personal understanding. Please point out anything improper.
November 10, 2002