(Minghui.org)
“One’s Buddha-nature is Shan, and it manifests itself as compassion, thinking of others before acting, and the ability to endure suffering. One’s demon-nature is viciousness, and it manifests as killing, stealing and robbing, selfishness, wicked thoughts, sowing discord, stirring up troubles by spreading rumors, jealousy, wickedness, anger, laziness, incest and so on.” (“Buddha-Nature and Demon-Nature,” Essentials for Further Advancement)
Though I have known from the Fa teachings that laziness is a manifestation of one’s demon-nature, but I have not really made any serious efforts to address it. At first, I did not think being carefree was an issue for me until I noticed I became lazy over time. I wanted to expend minimum efforts to get the maximum results, take shortcuts, and do whatever is convenient. I obsessed over food and snacked frequently, and spent a lot of time thinking about what delicious food I could cook for my family. I became lax with my time and wanted to rest or lie down a bit here and there, watching a bit of overseas news which often led to addictive cooking programs. I was gradually slipping in my cultivation. I did not do well the three things I must do. Fa study became like a chore and I only did the exercises sporadically. I grew chubby and the desire for comfort and laziness was taking an ever stronger hold of me.
Recently, I visited a practitioner couple and when they asked me about putting on weight and being lazy, the husband asked if I have been slack in doing the one-hour wheel-holding exercise. He insisted if I had been consistently doing the five exercises, spending one hour on doing the second exercise, I wouldn't have put on any weight and wouldn’t have developed a potbelly. He said he was rather overweight before.
Since the new hour-long music for the wheel-holding exercise came out, he has stuck to it every day and it did not take long for him to slim down and lose his gut. He said I looked a little overweight and he guessed the very likely cause was my lack of effort in doing the exercises. The couple said when they had time, they did two hours of meditation as well as two hours of the wheel-holding exercise, persisting even though they were drenched in sweat. They put me to shame!
It was time for me to take to the issue of laziness seriously and eliminate the strong hold this demon-nature had on me. The first thing was to stop making excuses for myself. I decided to walk everywhere that was within walking distance instead of riding my electric motorbike, which also gave me the opportunity to distribute truth-clarification pamphlets or put up posters on the way. The second thing was to stop eating so much. I decided to eat at most two meals a day, skipping dinner most of the time and instead supplement with some fruits and the likes of cucumbers or tomatoes if I was really hungry. I ended up losing around four or five pounds in three days and felt fantastic.
On the second night after I started this new healthy regime, I had a very vivid dream. I saw two big arms turned outward from which two small long and thin worms in black were extracted by a pair tweezers. I realized it was compassionate Master who removed these filthy things from my body. My eyes filled with tears when I woke up from my dream. Master was quick to come to my aid given I only just begun to correct my mistakes.
Master said:
“The old forces wouldn’t venture to directly persecute Dafa disciples at present—none of the larger beings that assume a form would venture to do that. Then what sorts of things are doing that now? Things like worms, bugs, bacteria, and all kinds of foul things like that. Sending righteous thoughts is extremely effective in these cases! They are annihilated in large batches. But there are a lot of them, given how big this cosmos is; and the cosmos consists of many layers. So after you have wiped these things out, shortly after, before long, they might infiltrate again, and you need to eliminate them again. So you need to keep sending righteous thoughts like this, and persist with it for some time, before you will see obvious results. Don’t lose confidence just because, after feeling good following a while of sending righteous thoughts, things don’t seem to go well again. I can tell you that they are using this approach to wear you down—to whittle away at your strong sense of conviction. So you need to be alert to these things.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2015 West Coast Fa Conference”)
Not surrendering myself to any more excuses, I persevered with the hour-long wheel-holding exercise. I remember an experience I had when I was in the first wheel-holding position. While counting in my head, I could feel the Falun spinning very strongly clockwise and then counter-clockwise around my body. I was filled with tears of gratitude.
Master said:
“Dafa disciples are Gods who have descended to the human world with the responsibility to assist Master in saving sentient beings, shouldering the responsibility of saving sentient beings in the lower realms. You may think it does not matter if you personally do not cultivate well, as if it were like the forms of cultivation in the past. So some people are not too diligent, cultivating but not really cultivating. But have you thought about it? You once signed a contract with me when you came to this world, vowing to save those sentient beings. You could then become a Dafa disciple, and you could then do this thing. But you did not fulfill it. You did not completely fulfill your vow, and you cannot even save those beings allotted to you, those you undertook to save, behind whom are countless sentient beings and gigantic groups of beings. What is that?! Is that simply just a matter of not cultivating diligently? That is an extremely serious crime! An unparalleled crime! You say that you will just call out to Master when the time comes and say, “Master, I did not cultivate well.” Is that the end of this? Who can let you pass? Will those old forces let you pass? How serious a matter is this?!” (“Fa Teaching at the 2016 New York Fa Conference,” Team Blue Translation)
I always had the good intention of being diligent in my cultivation but never really managed to maintain a high level of diligence over time. Master knew about my desire and has reached out to me via my fellow practitioners’ timely sharing. I have been reminded about the solemn nature of cultivation and the importance of not succumbing to comfort and laziness, as well as our responsibility as Dafa disciples to do the three things well.
Category: Improving Oneself
