(Clearwisdom.net) Recently practitioner A told me about her home situation: her husband (a practitioner who began his practice before July 1999) became mentally ill and her family members who were not practitioners were adamant about having him treated in a hospital. Practitioner A did not agree. Several practitioners shared their experiences on this. Some suggested not letting her husband go to a hospital based on the Fa principles they had learned. Others believed that he should be treated, because otherwise his family would not understand us and we should assimilate to the form of ordinary people's society.
I began to think, “Why does this happen to us?” As practitioners, we cannot solve problems like non-practitioners, and we cannot just see things for what they are on the surface. We need to calm down and look for our loopholes in our cultivation based on the Fa principles.
Once I had financial problems. I thought to myself that as a practitioner, I should not acknowledge the interference during Fa rectification and should eliminate it with my righteous thoughts. However, if I had serious problems, sending righteous thoughts did not seem right. I should correct myself first. I studied the Fa teachings and sat with my legs crossed. I asked Teacher to help me find my attachments and rectify myself. An hour later, I found my attachments one after another: desire for money, jealousy, vanity, pursuit of comfort, will to fight, to show off, lust, fear, etc. I sent righteous thoughts to fundamentally eliminate these attachments and, after a while, I felt relaxed like never before.
The next day, a friend helped me find a job that paid five times as much as my previous job.
From the above experience, I knew that when something difficult happens, whether it comes from our karma or interference from the old forces, we should calm down and look within because we are practitioners. We should find our attachments and repel them. Only this way will Teacher help us eliminate the attachments. We should take what happens to us as good things. Teacher told us,
“Cultivators look at things in just the opposite way. They see tribulations and suffering as good opportunities for improvement. [To cultivators] these are all good things, and the more there are and the faster they come, the faster the improvement.” (“Teaching the Fa in San Francisco, 2005”)
We need to change our human notions and treat discomfort and being taken advantage of as good things. When tribulations come, I will follow the Fa teachings and improve myself. If the tribulations are interference from the old forces, then I will eliminate the interference and the old forces. Through the tribulations, my cultivating state improved, my xinxing improved, my karma transformed into virtue, my level went up, and my mighty virtue was established. Isn't this what a practitioner needs? Once we have improved ourselves, the tribulation or the old forces' so-called “test” no longer need to exist. No matter who arranged the tribulation, it will not happen if Teacher will not allow it. All we need to do is take the opportunity to cultivate ourselves and reach the high standard required for practitioners during Fa-rectification.
The old forces' interference targets our gaps in cultivation. We often do not look within and tend to think, “This is interference and I won't acknowledge it. I will send righteous thoughts to eliminate the old forces.” How can we eliminate the old forces if we are not righteous ourselves? The old forces look at our personal cultivation as the most important thing and use it as an excuse to give practitioners “tests.” If we do not walk the righteous path, the old forces will exploit our gaps and interfere. This will bring trouble to Fa rectification, and it is all because we overlook the importance of cultivation! We must be a true practitioner to be able to truly validate the Fa and to effectively save the sentient beings. This is what we should do to deserve the title of “Fa rectification period Dafa practitioner.”
I realized that when I did something very well, most of the time it was because Teacher helped me, as he saw that I was serious and my xinxing level conformed to the Fa in the higher level. In the process of doing Dafa work, we must cultivate ourselves. Our attachments will not disappear without us cultivating, and we should not look at every conflict and tribulation as interference and forgo the opportunity to look within. Remember that we are cultivating ourselves while helping Teacher rectify the Fa. Some practitioners do a lot of Dafa work and neglect personal improvement. The old forces hence exploit their gaps, causing friction between practitioners and intensifying the extent of the tribulations. This often causes a great loss in saving people.
As practitioners, we should look within to find our fundamental attachments when things happen. Only when we look within can we eliminate attachments and improve our cultivation state. The process of looking within is the process of cultivating. What we need to do is to curb the human notions and find our attachments. The person who eliminates the attachments is Teacher. "Cultivation depends on one’s own efforts, while the transformation of gong is done by one’s master." (Zhuan Falun) If we do not look within when things happen, then there is no cultivation, and we are just ordinary people doing ordinary things.
If we truly cultivate and prioritize Dafa in everything we do, people will see the beauty of Dafa practitioners and will naturally say, “Falun Dafa is good.”
