(Minghui.org) When I first began practicing Falun Dafa, I was able to put cultivation first and foremost. Everything in my life revolved around Dafa, such as going to the morning group exercise site and canceling everything else to join the group Fa-study. Even going shopping was just to buy exercise clothes and a meditation mat. Every time a new lecture or Dafa book came out, I was very excited and would study them before going to bed. Although there were days I felt lazy, my will to be diligent never weakened.

Even when the persecution was at its worst, I was able to put cultivation first and stand up for Dafa. I was ready to lose everything I had in this world to protect Dafa.

But as the persecution started to let up, I started to slack off in my cultivation. I read the Fa teachings less, procrastinated in the Dafa projects I was involved in, and did not send forth righteous thoughts at the four set times. Some days, I wasted too much time and often worried about everyday problems. I made plans, with a human heart, for a “beautiful future,” which undermined my diligence in cultivation.

I become numb reading the reports on the Minghui website about the persecution in China. I didn’t have the feeling that “persecuting fellow practitioners is persecuting me.” I was no longer excited to see Master’s new lectures, and I didn’t put cultivation and saving sentient beings first.

Many fellow practitioners are in a state similar to mine, while only a few do the three things every day and race against time to save people. We have been encouraging people to quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliated organizations for 14 years, and the number has now reached over 330 million.

There are 100 million Dafa practitioners around the world. If we assume that only half of them helped those 330 million people quit the Party, that means that, on average, one practitioner persuaded only six people to quit the CCP over the past 14 years. That low number should be enough to shake us out of our state of numbness. Master wants us to save at least half of the Chinese population, and that number is far from Master Li’s requirements.

Several practitioners have said that the persecution has lasted for 20 years, and we don’t know when it’s going to end, so we should just do things step by step. Many practitioners have become numb gradually. How many practitioners have failed to eliminate this attachment and even lost their lives? The lesson is very clear.

Master said:

“This phenomenon indicates that Fa-rectification and Dafa disciples’ cultivation are in their final stages. And yet a small number of students--veteran students, even--have to differing degrees exhibited a despondent state and slackened in their resolve to be diligent. They haven’t realized that this is an attachment to the duration of Fa-rectification, or is caused by interference from incorrect, acquired notions, which results in their gaps being exploited by interfering factors that the old forces left behind early on in the surface of the human dimension, wicked specters, or rotten demons--things that have magnified and strengthened those attachments and human notions--all of which has brought about this despondent state.” (“The Closer to the End, the More Diligent You Should Be,” The Essentials of Diligent Progress Vol. III)

The old forces will use any opportunity to persecute us, using our attachments to weaken our will. Whether we are detained or not, they want to pull us down and ruin us. Although our environment may have relaxed, the persecution has not lessened in any regard.

It’s just more obvious in the prisons, where practitioners are subjected to brainwashing and torture, and some are persecuted to death. We need to be even more alert in a relaxed environment. We should maintain righteous thoughts to resist all kinds of temptations and cultivate diligently, just like when we first began practicing.

Master said,

“The closer it gets to the end, the more you cannot let up; the closer it gets to the end, the better you must study the Fa; the closer it gets to the end, the stronger your righteous thoughts must be.” (“To the Canada Fa Conference,” The Essentials of Diligent Progress Vol. III)

“I can tell you explicitly that early on I had planned on ending the persecution this year (warm applause), at the twenty-year mark. Although it has turned out that the old forces have changed things a bit, the furnace is running out of coal, and the flame is no longer sufficient. So this affair will soon conclude. That’s all the more reason for you to do well.” (Fa Teaching at the 2019 New York Fa Conference)

There’s not much time left and we cannot remain numb. I hope that every practitioner quickly gets over feeling this way and does well in the last part of the Fa-rectification.