(Clearwisdom.net) One day I was sharing my experiences with my wife. During the conversation she mentioned a few scenes at the beginning of the TV series Journey to the West.
Monk Xuan Zang was sitting on a mountain. In front of him there was a deep canyon. A person told him that Bodhisattva Guanyin was waiting for him on the neighboring mountain and asked him to go over there. There was no road to the mountain. The only path was through the deep canyon. Without thinking and while chanting the Buddha's name, Monk Xuan Zang walked towards the other mountain. Half-way there he found that he was walking on top of the clouds. After arriving at the mountain, Monk Xuan Zang sat there to wait for Bodhisattva Guanyin. A group of beautiful women appeared, and they began to touch Monk Xuan Zang. But he was not moved, and turned them away.
A while later, a bunch of demons appeared with a huge frying pan, with one person fried inside the pan. They believed that Monk Xuan Zang was in their way and asked him to get up and get out of their way. Xuan Zang told them that Bodhisattva Guanyin asked him to wait there and he could not move. The demons threatened to fry Monk Xuan Zang too and spilled boiling oil onto his body. Xuan Zang ignored them and chanted the Buddha's name. The demons disappeared and Bodhisattva Guanyin came, and asked him to go to the West to obtain the Scriptures. This is how the story of Journey to the West started.
A cultivator who reads Journey to the West understands that the stories in the entire book were cultivation processes. The story of Monk Xuan Zang is an example. Without true belief in the Truth of Buddha Fa, an average person could not do what Monk Xuan Zang did. He walked forward without any hesitation even when there was a 10,000 foot canyon in front him. The path of our cultivation in this dimension may not manifest in the same format, but it is also bumpy and winding. Sometimes it is just like there is a deep canyon in front of you to test your heart and your belief in Master and the Fa. There are also a lot of other tests, including the tests of lust and fear. Humans have many attachments. In the cultivation process, there will be corresponding tests to reveal them so that you can get rid of them. This procedure is called cultivation. "To cultivate is to get rid of all your human attachments, in fact cultivation is to cultivate your heart." (Explaining the Contents of Zhuan Falun, the Speech in the Ceremony of the Publication of Zhuan Falun in Beijing, un-official translation)
I realized that Xuan Zang's belief is one free of human notions. It is pure belief. He went to that mountain without thinking that there was a canyon right in front of him, without thinking about what would happen. He went, without any impure thought, therefore he was all right. Thinking about our Dafa disciples, some of them went to Tiananmen Square to rectify the Fa and came back the same day, and nothing happened to them. Some of them were arrested, tortured and jailed. This has something to do with the level of cultivation, and it's related to practitioners' human notions, fears and their impure hearts.
After arriving on the mountain, Xuan Zang waited because Bodhisattva Guanyin asked him to wait. The temptation of lust and the threat of demons could not obstruct him. Dafa disciples must listen to Master, without any wavering. Some practitioners, including myself, will waver when the situation is slightly grave, due to the lack of in-depth understanding of Fa. Some practitioners doubted what Master said, that when in a difficult situation; some went to the opposite direction when under pressure and could not give up the attachment to fear and self-interest, and eventually began to attack Master and Dafa. To analyze it carefully, it is not difficult to find that some of us do not have a completely righteous belief and have too many human notions, which surface during critical situations. Therefore we must spend more time in studying the Fa, and to remove the human mentality that dilutes our pure belief.
In fact Monk Xuan Zang achieved the grand goal of going to the West to obtain the Scriptures based on his pure heart of pursuing the Buddha Fa. No one had told him what would happen to him after he obtained the Scriptures. Our Master, on the other hand, has told us the magnificence of being Dafa disciples in the Fa-rectification period. Why do we still hesitate with our undetermined minds?
Now is the final period of Fa-rectification, and Master has explained the Fa in more and more detail. We should cultivate and move forward, get rid of our human notions, resolutely believe in Master and the Fa, and do what we should do as the Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples. Amidst any difficult circumstance we should remember, "Dafa disciples' futures are certainly bright--they'll absolutely be bright." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A")
Note: Xuan Zang (602 ~ 664 AD) was a monk in the Tang Dynasty. In August 627, he began his 4 year journey to the West and arrived in ancient India in 631. He then went to the best Buddhism School in India to study. After that, he toured various locations of India, and spread Buddhism. He started his journey back to China in 643. Journey to the West is a novel based on Xuan Zang's journey to the West to obtain the Scriptures, and it's one of the classic Chinese novels.
