(Minghui.org) When I just began practicing Falun Dafa, I always gave cultivation practice the highest priority. I persisted in practicing outdoors and attending group Fa study, rain or shine even if it was a holiday. No matter what conflicts arose, I was able to look inside. Even though I could not always meet the Fa's requirements, I was always trying.
After the persecution began, especially during the seven to eight years I was illegally detained, I refused to cooperate with the Communist authorities, and formed a notion that the police and others were wrong and I was always right. I rarely examined if I was acting within the principles of the Fa, or if I was looking inside as I did when I first began practicing.
After I returned home, the notion that, “others were always wrong, and I'm always right” kept getting stronger and stronger. As a result, I could not agree with my fellow practitioners during our experience sharing. I got into a conflict with a coworker, which turned into an argument.
I calmed down and thought, “I've practiced Falun Dafa for 17 years, so how could I argue with a non-practitioner? What have I been doing all these years?”
I asked myself, “If I reject other people's opinions whether they are positive or negative when conflicts arise, is this cultivation practice? Would I have acted like that when I first started practicing?”
I was deeply touched by the article “What I Saw Behind the Long-term Sickness Karma in My State of Gradual Enlightenment” in Minghui Weekly. The Fa-rectification has come to this stage, so it's alarming to see so many serious problems still existing in our cultivation practice, and we should really take these things seriously.
Realizing my Complacency
I recently realized that I should never be complacent about how many years I have cultivated in Dafa, how many big tests I have passed, or how many people I have . I should regard myself as a new practitioner and forever stay humble in the immense Fa, maintain my state of mind as when I first started practicing, and look within every moment when conflicts surface. Only by cultivating myself well will I be able to help awaken people.
Master reminded us, “Always cultivating as if you were just starting will surely result in achieving your ultimate rank.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2009 Greater New York International Fa Conference”)
Have we done it? In the period of Last Havoc (age of law's end when people can't tell right from wrong), very little in society is righteous. It contaminates you even when you constantly reject it, let alone indulging yourself and seeking it out. Master said,
“No matter what it is, be it on television or on a computer, it enters once you look at it. As more of these bad things are loaded up in your brain and body, they end up dominating your actions. Your speech, your mode of thinking, your perspective on things—all of it will be affected.” (“Fa Teaching Given at the 2010 New York Fa Conference”)
I remember when I first started practicing, I placed high demands on myself and was determined not to watch TV. As the Fa-rectification has now come to the final stage, my cultivation state has, to the contrary, gotten worse than before. I told myself, I must change this situation, and from this moment on, regard myself as a new practitioner and examine all of my behavior according Dafa, and practice real cultivation solidly like I had in the beginning!
Human society is a cultivation environment for Dafa practitioners, but let's not forget it's also full of the elements that the old forces arranged to persecute Dafa. If we cannot act in human society properly, then it could easily become a larger persecution environment. We need to rise above this environment, cultivate ourselves well and awaken sentient beings at the same time. Only by carrying forward the momentum when we just started practicing and measuring every thought of ours with the principles of Dafa, can we walk our path righteously.
The evil has seized every opportunity to persecute Dafa disciples. We all know that putting Dafa disciples into prisons, labor camps, and brainwashing centers is a form of persecution. However, outside of those places, the persecution of Dafa disciples is unabated. They often take advantage of practitioners' attachments and manifest harmful substances that can eat away at the will of a practitioner and interfere with his doing the three things well. It is also a form of persecution.
Why have so many fellow practitioners passed away in the form of sickness karma or unexpected deaths these past years? The persecution of practitioners outside of the prisons and labor camps are equally severe as those within. In my humble opinion, no matter whether you are in prison or not, the Party persecutes practitioners as a whole body, but that the persecution in the prisons is just more obvious: The so-called transformation process, tortures, even torturing practitioners to death; whereas on the outside they use practitioners' remaining human thoughts and attachments, manifest all kinds of illusions, magnify their attachments, and eat away their will.
If practitioners don't improve quickly and see through this type of persecution, the results might be what happened in the article, “What I Saw Behind the Long-term Sickness Karma in My State of Gradual Enlightenment” – passing away in the form of accidents or sickness karma, or suffering long-term sickness karma. We must stay clearheaded in the Fa, be more alert in relatively more loose environments, resist all kinds of temptations with righteous thoughts at every moment, cultivate as if we were just starting, and not allow our will of advancing diligently to wither.
Master said, “Human or divine—the difference lies in one thought.” (“Fa Teaching Given at the 2010 New York Fa Conference”) When one relaxes just a little, one could be pulled back to the human side. Sometimes a slacking off pulls one to the human side only a little bit, but that little bit could be the anthill that causes the dam to burst. Master has told us the story about a disciple of Brahmanism cultivating in solitude in the mountains:
He was quite diligent in the beginning. One day, a hunter wounded a deer and he protected it. Because he was very lonely, he started to take care of the deer, and eventually took the deer as his closest companion and put all his energy into the deer. He slackened his resolve to stride forward and when the deer died, he still couldn't let go. He thought about the deer every moment and when his life came to a close he didn’t think of the Buddha Law; he was still thinking of that deer. So he reincarnated into a deer and his years of cultivation ended up in ruins in that instant. The lesson was profound.
Looking Within the Key
Some human notions that have formed over thousands of years have dissolved into layers upon layers of bodies, and have even become part of us. Master has fortunately told us the magical tool in the Fa that can break all the notions: Looking within. But we tend to look outward when conflicts and tribulations arise.
What I understand is that any human attachment is a substance, and without looking within and improving ourselves, the substance will never be removed. Looking within is heart-wrenching and agonizing, because it is equivalent to cutting off the substance that is part of our body. But only by looking within unconditionally can we improve and have the negative substance removed. Every attachment has to go through this process and only by doing this can our human attachments be removed.
I remember when I just started practicing cultivation, if I missed doing the exercises one day, I would definitely make it up. Am I still able to do that now? When I miss the global sending forth righteous thoughts, do I make it up? When I just started practicing cultivation, I studied the Fa with great attention, but now, even though I can recite the Fa very well, and have memorized it, but it didn't enter my heart. I tend to think about other things while reciting the Fa -- doing two things simultaneously.
When conflicts arise, Master told us, “Regardless of whether the problem is your fault or not, you should look inside yourself, and you will find a problem.” (“Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Europe” 1998)
Are we able to always do this as wholeheartedly as when we first started? I suggest every practitioner think about how diligent we were when we just started practicing cultivation and what we are like now. Have we noticed our will to advance diligently has weakened? We need to regard ourselves as a new practitioner, and practice cultivation solidly from this point on.
Let us all truly pay attention to our cultivation practice and maintain a state of mind of, “Always cultivating as if you were just starting,” and advance diligently in cultivation until the end.
Category: Improving Oneself
