(Clearwisdom.net) For quite a long period of time, I treated Fa study as a task and could not truly take the Fa into my heart. Group Fa study was more like a formality to me and my mind always drifted away while listening to other practitioners reading the Fa. When the Fa study had finished, I did not feel that I had learned anything from it. I became anxious. A few days ago, an older practitioner who is not quite literate studied the Fa with us. I found that I have many attachments that I had not even realized were present before. That practitioner read a lot. Honestly speaking, it was hard for her to read and she basically uttered one character after another with obvious difficulty. However, I did not know why I really put everything in my heart while listening to her. Although other practitioners read quite fluently, I did not feel as comfortable as listening to that older practitioner. Why was that?

That practitioner devoted her whole heart towards reading the Fa and she had met the requirement of respecting Master and the Fa. After I let go of my human mentalities and concentrated on reading for two paragraphs, I immediately felt energized and did not feel sleepy anymore. Later, I continued to look inward and found that I had the attachment to feeling concerned about the time while studying the Fa and felt restless. I always wanted to accomplish the task within a planned time frame. I had the show-off mentality, as I considered myself well-educated. I studied the Fa well, I read well, and I wanted to validate myself. I treated Dafa as only theories of everyday people. I thought, "I have learned it well" and I regarded myself as "better" than others. I was also attached to working in regular society and when I studied the Fa, my mind was not clear as I constantly thought about petty things in everyday life and all kinds of thoughts came and went in my head. It was hard for me to become tranquil. After I gave up those mentalities and studied the Fa in the state of "Join the Mind and Body Together," I started to feel the wonder of Fa study.

In addition, some practitioners are very attached to "saving face." They think that they cannot read well and are always afraid of reading the words wrong. They just pay attention to reading fluently but fail to absorb what they are reading, due to their nervousness. In fact, this is also a manifestation of egotism. During cultivation, we need to become selfless, just as Master told us in Zhuan Falun,

"When one chants the Buddha's name, one must do it single-mindedly with nothing else in mind until other portions of the brain become numb and one becomes unaware of anything, with one thought replacing thousands of others, or until each word of "Buddha Amitabha" shows up before one's eyes."

I hope my experiences can be of help to fellow practitioners who have the same problem.

Written January 12, 2010