(Clearwisdom.net) The following is my current understanding from the Fa.
It is understandable that during this period of Fa Rectification, the promotion of Shen Yun is underway and we all appear busy. But compared to Chinese practitioners in our area, the Western practitioners have not managed to also keep group Fa study as a priority.
Group Fa study for Westerners has been discussed on several occasions over the past several years here in our city, in addition to supporting the large group Fa study once a week. This is something we should each look inside about, instead of always focusing on external issues that appear to be surrounding us, such as family, friends, work, Dafa projects, and so forth.
Why have we not been able to consistently get together as one body for Fa study?
When I first came to learn the Fa back in 2000, the local contact person in my city taught me the exercises at the university where they held a group practice every week at the same time and location.
Returning to my city some eleven years later, the same local contact person is listed on the falundafa.org website, and the group practice is on the same day and time at the university. The only things that have changed are that there are new practitioners and the group meets in a different room.
Consistency is something I've been running away from for a long time, as if I'm unable to plant my two feet solidly in any one location for a long period of time. It appears that when things become routine, my mind resists the illusion of the mundane.
Let’s pause and think about this. It's only because they have a solid foothold in this world that family units and social relations can be established. Regarding a practice group here in the West, this solid foothold should get stronger and stronger, as we're not facing persecution like our fellow practitioners in China (where practitioners may need to move from place to place to avoid being persecuted).
Our practice environments are sacred places for cultivation. They are where veteran practitioners and newcomers alike can grow and learn together, exchange experiences, and increase xinxing as a whole. They are environments that Master has left for us to cherish.
Master says at the beginning of “Explaining the Content of Falun Dafa,”
“Study the Fa, obtain the Fa,
Compare how you study, compare how you cultivate;
Measure yourself against the Fa in everything,
Putting into action, that is cultivation.”
As a body of Western practitioners, why have we not been able to come together to make our Fa study environment stable and supportive? Why have we not supported group Fa study and sharing with all the practitioners in our city?
Cultivating with Chinese practitioners has not always been easy for me. I’ve formed notions and hidden resentment over years of not being fully understood and of them not supporting me emotionally. I’ve often resorted to blaming this on cultural differences, being that we’re opposite in many ways, yet we are here cultivating Dafa together. By holding this inside, I’ve built a wall of my own rather than working with them to bring it down. I’ve made an unhealthy habit of hiding my notions and attachment of looking outward rather than looking inside and resolving them in a healthy way through sharing.
Because of instability at my core and my notions surrounding commitment, I have made excuses and abandoned those who are closest to me (family, friends, and other fellow cultivators who appear difficult to be around, yet are still around), rather than abandoning the selfishness coating the attachment. I've thought of how it is easier to casually do as I please, to come and go at my leisure, rather than how these acquired habits of poor communication and lack of commitment have been affecting those around me—such as our very own local group practice.
I could not see this problem until another practitioner thankfully brought it up. I had a sense of it, but it has come out more clearly now that I’ve taken the time to sit down, sit still, let go of the busyness surrounding me, open up, and begin to write. That’s how subtle this attachment was. Only through sharing this with all of you could it come to the surface.
Looking inside, I can see that being flighty has kept me free at heart in a manner of speaking, but it did not come without a price when I have uprooted other lives and left this loophole of unfinished business behind.
I can now see, looking back at all the beings that I've come across, that they’ve been waiting for me to become stable and solid as diamond. Master is waiting for our return. Let’s cherish this predestined time we have together and do even better. I’ve come to understand in this process that putting the Fa first is also supporting our local group Fa study environment.
Heshi.