(Clearwisdom.net) When hurricane Taili attacked, because we did not have time to send out a cancellation notice of the Fa-study in the evening, I had to go to the meeting place to open the door. I went with a bit of reluctance. I thought that if nobody showed up, I would immediately go back home. I went against the wind and rain and finally reached the entrance. To my surprise, there were already practitioners waiting outside the door with umbrellas. Seeing that these practitioners were fearless in the face of the hurricane and they were so diligent, I felt very ashamed of myself.
After I opened the door, practitioners gradually came in one after another. About one third of the usual crowd came. There was a practitioner whose home was quite far away and yet he still managed to come. Two other practitioners, who rarely came before, surprisingly appeared that night. The loud reading indicated that everyone cherished the opportunity and studied the Fa with full attention. The room was enveloped in a quiet and peaceful atmosphere where everyone seemed to be melting into the Fa.
After we finished our Fa study, we started to share our experience and understandings. In the past when we had a big crowd, people would hold such an attitude that there are always people who would share their experience, and so it does not matter if I keep quiet. Some people didn't feel comfortable to talk about their shortcomings in front of many others. Consequently, many opportunities that could help us improve together were lost. By and by, our Fa-study turned into something like work report meetings or meetings to assign tasks. As a result, some practitioners gradually stopped attending the Fa-study.
As the number of people who came that night was low, everyone had to speak. At the beginning, everyone was feeling a bit uncomfortable and kept quiet, waiting for others to talk first. Soon, a practitioner started to talk about how she saw her attachment of fear and the attachment to pursuit, as well as the pain of being unable to free her from sentimentality recently when her child was hospitalized. Then another practitioner went on to share that her father was also sick lately and her family encountered huge conflicts, which put her under enormous stress.
Just then, a practitioner read a line from Zhuan Falun,
"Since you practice a righteous way, your practice will benefit others." (English version in March 2000) (quote confirmed)
The practitioner reminded us to examine ourselves and to see if we had omissions. He said that if the interference had affected Fa-rectification work, it would be best to send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate it.
When it was another practitioner's turn to speak, she talked about an attachment she found a few days earlier while preparing materials for a research and discussion meeting. She said that because of the mentality she had that her ideas were the best, she almost missed the important research and discussion meeting. Another practitioner said that because she always had a low self-esteem and worried that she would not do things well, it turned out that she indeed could not do anything well. Through Fa study, she realized that every thought and notion of a cultivator is important. She vowed to strengthen her righteous thoughts from that point on.
One man talked about a test he faced in a dream. He found out that not only was he unable to let go of life and death, he was actually very much afraid of death. He also mentioned the Xinxing tests his newly-married wife had given him. Practitioners also talked about how one should not impose one's own thoughts onto other practitioners, and shared their own experience in enlarging their capacity of tolerance and so on so forth.
With the happiness of melting into the Fa, everyone felt that the meeting was worthy of attending, and we promised to each other that we would start from ourselves and do well so that our Fa-study would truly form an environment where we can share experience based on the Fa, learn from each other, encourage one another and ultimately improve ourselves together.
