(Minghui.org) I am a young Falun Dafa practitioner currently completing my graduate school studies outside of China. I would like to tell you about my cultivation experiences over the past year of improving in doing the exercises and overcoming my attachment to comfort.
Diligently Doing the Exercises
With the onset of the CCP virus at the beginning of 2020, the district where I live mandated that all schooling must be done online. This gave me more time and made it more convenient for me to study the Fa and do the exercises at home. Even though I began practicing Falun Dafa with my mother when I was around ten years old, I never really prioritized doing the exercises. It was not until recently that I was able to do the exercises every day for an hour or an hour and a half. I always admired those who were able to do all five exercises every day consistently, but I thought it was difficult for a young person to wake up so early. I also believed it was good enough to just find any time during the day to do the exercises—I felt there really was no reason to wake up at 3 or 4 a.m. to participate in morning exercises.
After I switched to taking all my courses online, I felt that this was an opportunity to make a breakthrough. I asked Master to help strengthen me, and Master really did. Since last September, I have been able to do the exercises for two hours every day without fail for four months. At first, I set a goal for myself to persevere for one more month and then another month after that, and as time went on, doing the exercises became routine. Now, I can guarantee that I will do two hours of exercises, study the Fa for at least one hour, and send forth righteous thoughts four times a day. I have maintained this routine for more than six months.
After doing the exercises consistently, I discovered that doing them is the best form of rest. While doing them, particularly the sitting meditation, I felt a peaceful sense of quiet that seemed to originate from the depths of my existence. It seemed that as soon as I began meditating, the mundane matters of the world had nothing to do with me and it was a rare period of relief from the chaotic happenings in the human world.
I was reminded of what Master taught:
“I know a Buddhist monk who understands this facet of cultivation. He is the abbot of a temple and has many tasks, but once he sits down [to meditate] he separates himself from those things. He’s sure not to think of them, and that is an ability. When you are really, truly doing your exercises there is no trace of self or distracting thoughts.” (Chapter V, Falun Gong)
Although I still have not reached the level of having no distracting thoughts at all, I have noticed a lot of improvement after diligently doing the exercises.
I also enlightened to the fact that when we, as disciples, ask Master to help strengthen us, we are walking a righteous path as long as we have the heart to overcome obstacles and persist.
Master said, “...Accomplishing is cultivating.” (“Solid Cultivation,” Hong Yin )
Master also said, “I believe that if you can do that, you will always find that there is light at the end of the tunnel.” (The Ninth Talk, Zhuan Falun)
To be like a veteran disciple and not miss doing the exercises for a single day always seemed impossible for me, but now I have persisted for half a year. It all started with having the heart to do it.
Overcoming My Attachment to Comfort
In February 2021, I started an internship. It was a two-hour round trip to commute to work every day, so I was able to read and memorize the Fa. My commute also allowed me to establish a regular time to study and memorize the Fa. Later, as the time I needed for Fa study, doing the exercises, and balancing a greater workload at my internship all increased, I realized I needed to sleep less and further eliminate the attachment to comfort.
Because my family is well-off to a certain extent, I grew up pampered. In cultivation I had also not really thought too much about issues of enduring hardships or my attachment to comfort. It was only after I participated in Dafa projects and saw the hard work other practitioners, particularly practitioners my own age, were doing that I saw my attachment to comfort. During a media Fa conference I heard a young female practitioner talk about how, after Hong Kong’s Anti-Extradition Bill was passed in 2019, she went to the front lines to report for many months and used the experience as an opportunity to cultivate away her attachment to comfort. Her sharing touched me deeply. I realized that this practitioner was not much older than me, but if I were placed in the same scenario, the thought of accepting the arrangement of going to the front lines to report already did not seem easy, yet this practitioner was able to proactively treat this as a chance to eliminate her attachment to comfort.
One day while memorizing the Fa, I suddenly had a new understanding of something Master said, “The human body is fashioned to suffer.” (The Second Talk, Zhuan Falun)
Human bodies are designed to suffer, and they allow us to suffer and eliminate karma. These are opportunities to cultivate ourselves well so that we can save sentient beings. We are not given bodies to indulge in the material desires and distractions of the human world. I recently read an article on Minghui, “We Should Remove the Attachment to Eating” and realized practitioners need to be strict in their personal cultivation in regard to eating and sleeping.
Afterward, I also understood the true meaning behind ordinary people’s saying: “Heaven rewards the diligent” and what “diligence” means among cultivators. Master said in the article “Buddha-Nature and Demon-Nature” from Essentials for Further Advancement that a person’s demon-nature includes laziness. A parallel is the seven sins in Christianity, which also include laziness.
Master said,
“Actually, if you think about it, the cultivators of the past didn’t dare to slack off for even a second, and that was when it took an entire lifetime to complete the journey. So how can Dafa disciples—who are to achieve the celestial rank of a being who is saved by Dafa and who have the most convenient cultivation way—not be even more diligent when they are given this most glorious honor of Fa-validating cultivation in a brief cultivation period that passes in the blink of an eye?” (“The Closer to the End, the More Diligent You Should Be,” The Essentials of Diligent Progress III)
Today, the responsibilities of Fa-rectification Dafa disciples are enormous and not to be compared to cultivators of the past. Being diligent as Fa-rectification Dafa disciples is in fact cherishing our roles as Master’s disciples, fulfilling our enormous responsibilities and historic missions, and truly understanding the hope that history and countless sentient beings have placed in us. We should cherish ourselves more and take our responsibilities seriously, being able to reach “Aspiring to be pure without evil thoughts and unyieldingly diligent.”
Whenever I had free time before, I watched ordinary people’s television dramas and videos or read novels. Sometimes when I was in a bad mood, I also tended to do these things out of habit even though I knew that indulging in them only made my mood worse. They increased my attachments to fame, self-interest, lust, and pride.
It was like Master said, “Yet you still put that in your body, so aren’t you going in the opposite direction from us?” (Lecture Seven, Zhuan Falun)
After increasing the length of time I did the exercises, I had less leisure time. Aside from completing my studies and internship, I did the three things. Every day was very busy, yet very fulfilling. Occasionally when I had some free time, I did not feel that emptiness that I felt before. I feel that, as Fa-rectification Dafa disciples, other than doing the three things and carrying out our responsibilities in human society, there really is nothing else we must do.
Master said,
“Everything in the human world was arranged purposefully so as to arouse people’s attachments; there are so many things that prevent you from being saved. You do not consider yourself a cultivator and follow along with those things?!” (“Fa Teaching at the 2016 New York Fa Conference”)
I have heard other practitioners say, “Not being busy is not being a Dafa disciple.” We must not be like ordinary people, spending our valuable time being idle, engaging in entertainment, and indulging in food and play. Now when I have spare time, I look at materials related to the media project I am helping with to increase my knowledge. I watch truth-clarification programs made by fellow practitioners or read about traditional Chinese and Western culture to improve my technical skills and cultural knowledge.
There are many places where I need to improve in my cultivation, such as decreasing the amount of time I sleep, increasing the amount of time I do the second exercise, adjusting my habits so I can participate in morning group exercises, and waking up for the morning global sending forth righteous thoughts. I hope that, in the limited time remaining, I will be more diligent and cultivate solidly to save more sentient beings and not disappoint Master’s compassionate, painstaking salvation and earnest hope.
My level is limited. If there is anything not in line with the Fa, please compassionately point it out.
Thank you, Master! Thank you, fellow practitioners!
(Presented at the 2021 Online International Young Practitioners Experience Sharing Conference)
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