(Clearwisdom.net) (Note: this article about the process of looking inwards was written by a practitioner who joined our materials production site not long ago. It was not written for publication. Several practitioners read it, and felt it might be useful to other practitioners as reference on looking within, so we recommended it to the Minghui/Clearwisdom website.)
1. Introduction
Recently, my state has not been good. I often feel tired. When I see Dafa books, often I do not want to read them. The machine I am responsible for malfunctions often. Two days ago, when practitioner A went out, I also went out, but when I came back at night, I could not open the door with my key, so I had to spend the whole night in the corridor wasting time. The next morning, practitioner A came back and opened the door with my key. A fellow practitioner asked me to look inward, but I always put it off with excuses. I even misrepresented the Fa principles and tried to justify myself, thinking as long as I was not attached to being able to open the door, it wasn't a big deal. I did not think more about my motive for going out in the first place, not to mention my lack of considering the safety of the materials production site. I was attached to not wanting to change this state!
I spent the whole morning today printing, but I wasn't able to print much. The printer jammed continuously, then before sending forth righteous thoughts at noon, the printer completely broke down. After righteous thoughts, I cleaned four printer heads with water. In the afternoon, I installed three heads smoothly, but after I installed the fourth one, the ink light failed to come on. I was scared because I thought I had burnt out another printer head (previously, when washing a printer head, I installed it before it was completely dry, and the printer head burnt out). On learning of my predicament, practitioner A criticized me, and then told me not to feel burdened, but to deeply look inside. He had things to do and left. After he left, I thought about myself, and wondered why things still went wrong although I was so careful. I installed the printer heads again, and the light for the black ink was on. I was happy and thought, "It's all right." Suddenly, the light went out again. This time I realized it must be a warning for me to look inside myself. I put down everything, calmed down and deeply searched within.
2. Consideration
Why are so many problems arising? There must be attachments that I haven't let go of that are being tightly seized apon and utilized by the old forces, however I did not realize them and did not correct myself. After a fellow practitioner pointed things out, I still tried to cover up my attachments and notions.
When did this state begin, why are things this way? I was seduced to do wrong things once in the past and fell down in cultivation (I'll write about it later). The problem occurred because I did not rectify my shortcomings from the Fa, and I only thought about correcting things with human methods. As a result, I turned a mistake into another negative state, went from bad to worse, and emerged a mess.
What was the root of the negative state? Being so attached to myself, no matter who pointed out my shortcomings, I did not want to change and persisted in my old ways. Sometimes, only after several fellow practitioners pointed something out did I change, but only superficially. In my innermost being, the attachments were still there like a granite mountain!
Again, I deeply dug into the reason: what hindered me from assimilating into Dafa? Was it ego? Yes! It is because this attachment was from my innermost being, and did not want to change.
The purity of our original being has gradually deviated over the long course of the universe's history, causing us to behave very similarly to the old forces: we want to change others, but not ourselves. From a personal cultivation perspective, I had the problem of refusing to change myself, but, when considered from the perspective of Fa-rectification, I was not only protecting the things that I regard as good, I was unknowingly trying my best to preserve everything in the old cosmos! I was unwilling to touch essential things deep down in my heart, and attempted to use the superficial changes to escape the cosmos' restructuring and enter into the new cosmos. Why not assimilate to Dafa? We all know Dafa is good, why not assimilate to Dafa? Why not unconditionally 100% assimilate to Dafa and enter into the new cosmos? What held me up? On the matter of Fa-rectification, I was measuring everything from a selfish perspective (this is determined by the selfish nature of the lives in the old cosmos), and not considering things according to the standards of Dafa and the needs of the future cosmos. Was this a small issue? No, this was the root of my problem; the key shortcoming related to all issues!
We all know that Dafa is good, but only wanting to use Dafa and not assimilating to Dafa is a huge mistake! If we take action only after distinguishing what we regard as good, we are actually mimicking the way things are done in the old cosmos, and we are based on selfishness. In order to assimilate to the new cosmos created by the Fa, we must change this way of thinking!
Teacher taught, "Life is precious, and the process of going through life is precious..." ("Eliminating the Evil") Falun Dafa practitioners, lives borne in the old cosmos, cherish this lucky chance! If we do not change our notions fundamentally, once this period of time passes, once everything is decided at the time of the Fa rectification of the human world, everything will be set and there will not be any more chances. There is no second chance; there won't be another chance. We must cherish this opportunity! We must get rid of the twisted thoughts of using Dafa for selfish means. We must purely and completely assimilate to Dafa, do well in what one should do and cherish this time!
I finally dug out the root. My problems are fixed. I can be diligent now!
3. Postscript
After digging out the root, my thoughts became clear and my heart was tranquil like water. When I sent forth righteous thoughts that night, I added one thought: I must let the printer head work, it comes for the Fa! The impact of sending forth righteous thoughts went very well, I felt many bad things were eliminated.
The next morning, after Fa study, I turned on the printers and the indicator light for ink on the fourth printer was on. The printer heads worked again! I looked at practitioner A and he suddenly smiled like a child. I also smiled.
Due to my limited understanding, if there is any mistake, please correct me with compassion!