(Minghui.org) I started practicing Falun Dafa in 1994, before the onset of the persecution by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Memorizing the Fa
Although I started practicing Falun Dafa in the early years of the practice being disseminated to the public, I slacked off in my cultivation. Since the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, my attachment to comfort was so severe that I couldn’t do the exercises or study the Fa every day. Sometimes, I even missed the time to send forth righteous thoughts and spent less time clarifying the truth. I knew that I couldn’t continue like this in cultivation.
There are two practitioners in our area who get up early in the morning, and study one lecture of Zhuan Falun and then memorize a paragraph of Zhuan Falun. I tried to memorize the Fa before but gave up after only a few pages because I found it was too difficult.
Inspired by these practitioners, I started to memorize the Fa again. I was very slow in the beginning, only memorizing one paragraph a day. Then one page a day. Starting from the beginning of March, I finished the first lecture, and now I am memorizing the second lecture. Although I only finished one lecture, I have learned a lot.
Master said,
“As long as your level of awareness goes up even just a little bit, those bad things of yours are shed some at the same time. And along with this, you have to experience a little hardship, go through some hard times, and eliminate some of your karma, and then you can raise your level a bit ...” (The First Talk, Zhuan Falun)
Enduring hardship is a good thing and part of our cultivation to help raise our level.
I have read Zhuan Falun many times, and understood that if we want to cultivate, we need to suffer hardship. However, when I was faced with hardship, I was not happy at all. It was because I only understood the sentences superficially. During my time memorizing the Fa, I understood a deeper meaning of what I read, and had a better understanding of “Let joy be found in hardship” (“Tempering the Will,” Hong Yin). I felt that part of me had been transformed from a human being to a cultivator.
Memorizing the Fa made it easier for me to look inward. A few weeks ago, I went to get some copies of The Epoch Times newspaper. On my way back home, I put a few copies at a place a fellow practitioner designated near her home, so that she could collect them and take them to some stores.
The practitioner later texted me to tell me that the newspapers had been blown about by the wind and were scattered on the ground.
She suggested that I put them in a plastic bag in the future. She was very polite, but I felt that I was being criticized. I felt unhappy, and I wanted to defend myself. However, I bit my tongue and texted back politely saying that I would do as she suggested. I was still unhappy though, but I soon realized that I was wrong.
The fellow practitioner wasn’t from mainland China and so hadn't been influenced by the CCP's indoctrination. She was very polite but I was still unhappy. However, if I were her and saw newspapers scattered everywhere, I would be extremely upset and angry. Our fellow practitioners at The Epoch Times have been working tirelessly to save people. Each copy of the newspaper is precious, but I hadn’t put my heart into delivering them safely. I was wrong and should be more careful when leaving the newspapers.
After our group exercises the next day, I apologized to the practitioner and said I would improve.
Memorizing the Fa also helped me break through my struggles with my family that I didn’t deal with very well. I had a notion that I thought home was a place where I could relax. My parents often quarreled when I was a child, so I was much against fighting among family members. Since I started memorizing the Fa, I talked to a relative over the phone and complained that I felt nervous sometimes because of my parents, and I couldn’t relax at home.
I thought about the call and wasn’t sure if what I said was correct. Then Master’s Fa appeared in my mind,
“… there are others who say, “My coming here to the ordinary world is just like staying at a hotel. I’m only going to stay here a few days and then leave in a hurry.”” (The Ninth Talk, Zhuan Falun)
I haven’t started memorizing this lecture of Zhuan Falun yet, but Master pointed out this section. I realized that the limited time of this life as human beings is insignificant compared to our true lives in the vast cosmos. So why should I be attached to my home on earth when I'm only staying here for what seems only a few days?
My heart and body become larger and some problems that I struggled with became minuscule. Previously, these problems seemed larger than me so I was struggling with them, but now they are so small and don’t affect me anymore. I felt very light after I realized this, and it seemed that I could jump to a very high level with ease.
This was a breakthrough. I gradually realized that I had been wrong about my parents, as I always used human notions to judge between right and wrong. I didn’t admit I was wrong, even when I talked to my relative on the phone. I thought I was being tolerant, but actually that was only superficial. I didn’t reach the level, as a cultivator should be able to tolerate. I was still angry. For a long time, I had accumulated resentment and always thought my mother was wrong and I was right. My thought was not based on the Fa.
While I was preparing to write an experience sharing article, Master showed me more. I hadn’t started memorizing the fourth lecture, but this Fa appeared in my mind,
“Maybe as soon as you walk in the door, your spouse blows up right in your face. If you can endure it, today’s exercises weren’t in vain.” (The Fourth Talk, Zhuan Falun)
“That’s because karma was there, and she was helping you eliminate it, but you didn’t let her and you started a fight with her, so that karma wasn’t eliminated.” (The Fourth Talk, Zhuan Falun)
This pointed out my problem. Here it is about my parent, not my spouse. I have read Zhuan Falun many times, and Master has told us so clearly. I now understand that this referred to me. Whenever there is a problem, I always take a stand from the perspective of a human being, instead of advancing as a cultivator. The main cause of the conflict is my karma, not my mother. Even from the perspective of a human being, I didn’t do well. I didn’t care for my mother much and had negative thoughts about her. I didn’t care for and help her, and tried to keep a distance from her.
My mother doesn’t live with me now, so it is a good time for me to calm down and improve my xinxing. Since I started memorizing the Fa, I have been able to let go of resentment, and taken an important step forward, as I am now thinking as a cultivator instead of an everyday person.
I've only been memorizing the Fa for a short period of time, and just finished the first lecture, but Master has shown me much more, including some parts of the Fa I haven’t memorized yet. I didn’t expect that. Maybe it's because Master saw that I wanted to improve and look inward, so I am able to understand more when I'm memorizing the Fa.
Compared to other practitioners, I've only taken a small step in cultivation. Compared to my former self, I've made some progress. I regret that I didn’t start memorizing the Fa earlier. We have a Western practitioner who has memorized Zhuan Falun ten times. And each time, when the new version was published, she memorized that too. She has memorized three versions of Zhuan Falun.
I previously thought that it was too difficult to memorize the Fa. This time, I didn’t set up a goal on how much I should finish but required myself to memorize everything correctly.
After I finished memorizing one paragraph, I checked whether I was correct in what I had just memorized. If I memorized one word wrong, I would start the paragraph over until I memorized every word correctly. Now the speed of my memorizing has become faster. I can finish one page a day, sometimes two pages a day. When my cultivation state wasn't good on a particular day, my memorizing was slow, but I wasn’t too frustrated. I just continue to memorize.
Doing the Exercises Better
Almost at the same time that I started memorizing the Fa, our Western coordinator shared an article from the Zhenjian website, “Do the Exercises Well.” It helped me a lot to realize that I had slacked off. I didn’t pay much attention to the exercises and it was time for me to change that.
When I started memorizing the Fa, I also did better in doing the exercises. Now I spend one and a half hours doing the exercises. For example, half an hour for the first, third, and fourth set of exercises. Then one hour for the second or fifth exercise. Sometimes, if I don’t have enough time, I will find time to do two and a half hours to do all five sets of exercises in a day.
Since I do the exercises better, I feel light and energetic. My mind is clear and I don’t feel tired anymore. My mind is clean and pure when I do the exercises. Now, every day I want to study the Fa and do the exercises, as I see the benefit of doing them. I feel as if I have obtained the Fa and am as happy as the time when I just started. Yet, I still don’t do enough exercises and should spend more time doing them.
My memorizing the Fa and doing more exercises has been inspired by fellow practitioners. I feel the importance of doing group exercises. I am fortunate and thankful that we have a very good group cultivation environment that I have benefited so much from.
My experience sharing is very shallow. I didn’t plan to write and thought I should wait until later when I had memorized and improved more. Thanks to an experience sharing article by a fellow practitioner and encouragement from local practitioners, I finally finished it.
It has been a process for me to cultivate and improve. I understand the Fa better and see many of my attachments, such as attachment to fame, showing off, and fear of being troubled.
I hope that what I have shared will encourage others to share, so that we can improve in our cultivation together, and our cultivation environment can be better. Then, our effect of saving people will be much more powerful.
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Category: Improving Oneself
