(Clearwisdom.net) Falun Gong practitioners are trying hard to maintain or catch up with the progress of the Fa-rectification. This is the responsibility and mission of all practitioners in the Fa-rectification period, and we should do it well.
We also must not ignore our personal cultivation and improvement of our xinxing, for they are also very important. If we don't cultivate ourselves well, our Dafa work will be affected. After all, cultivating ourselves is the first of the three things. There have been many cultivation insights addressing doing the three things published on the Minghui/Clearwisdom website. Here, I would like to share my humble insights on personal cultivation. I often share cultivation insights with fellow practitioners who are in the phase of gradual enlightenment. For some time, we have realized that some individual practitioners do not do well in cultivating their speech, eliminating partiality to food, and removing the attachment to pets, which have prevented them from upgrading their cultivation levels. Prompted by several practitioners, I have written my humble insights in this regard to share with more practitioners.
Cultivation of Speech
Cultivating one's speech encompasses all aspects of speech. A cultivator should not gossip or interfere with everyday people's business, as this has been clearly expounded in the Fa. However, we sometimes fail to cultivate our speech while living in everyday people's society. When we say things we shouldn't say or do things that fail to meet the standard of our respective cultivation levels, our gong and cultivation levels may be reduced. Teacher says,
"One's gong level is as high as one's xinxing level." ("Lecture One" from Zhuan Falun)
There is an elderly fellow practitioner whom we often share cultivation insights with. A few years ago, his younger brother called on him and complained that his colleagues had bullied him. He made suggestions to his younger brother as to how to retaliate for this. Later, a fellow practitioner with an open celestial eye asked him, "Have you done anything wrong during the past few days?" He replied, "I have been studying the Fa at home. I didn't go anywhere." The practitioner asked him to search inward. Then he remembered that he shouldn't have made those suggestions to his brother. We may not feel any consequences in the human realm when we make such a mistake, but there could be consequences in other dimensions.
One day, a female practitioner failed to guard her xinxing and reproached her husband, who is also a practitioner. He guarded his xinxing well and did not talk back. A few days later, the same practitioner with an open celestial eye asked her, "Have you done anything wrong? I see your gong has made a huge dive." She replied, "I threw a fit and reproached my husband when I lost control of myself." Later she learned that it took her three months to restore her gong. She has been very diligent in doing the three things, but her gong dropped when she lost her temper just once. Teacher speaks the absolute truth when he says,
"One's gong level is as high as one's xinxing level." ("Lecture One" from Zhuan Falun)
One day the practitioner with an open celestial eye went to a train station where he saw a passenger throwing a fit at a ticket agent. He saw cloud after cloud of white substances (virtue) from other dimensions falling on the ticket agent. There is a young practitioner whose celestial eye is open and he attends junior high school in our area. This practitioner has been very diligent in her cultivation practice, and one day her schoolteacher started to pick on her and criticize her repeatedly. Many of her peers also started to criticize her and speak ill of her. When she closed her eyes and pressed her hands on her ears in the classroom, she saw cloud after cloud of white substance, which looked like cotton balls, falling on her head. She immediately thought, "They are giving me good stuff! I will not push it away by losing my temper." That evening she saw a giant Falun rotating in front of her for over ten minutes. She knew it was Teacher trying to encourage her.
As our cultivation levels grow higher, we carry more and more energy. Hence, we must be more careful about cultivating our speech. Our kind thoughts will generate kind matter, but our bad thoughts will generate vicious matter in other dimensions, and we shouldn't rush to judge anything or anyone. Think about it, when we send forth righteous thoughts, one thought of ours will eliminate evil beings in other dimensions. This shows the tremendous power of our thoughts.
Stop Food Partiality
I have met a number of fellow practitioners from different areas who have not eliminated their partiality to foods. They justify this by claiming that by following the course of nature they will stop being partial to certain foods when their gong no longer allows them to eat it. But I believe we should strive to eliminate food partiality once we realize the attachment, instead of passively waiting for our gong to force us to abandon the partiality. Teacher has told us that we may eat fully cooked onions, ginger and garlic. In the earlier Fa lectures, Teacher had a very high expectation for us and we accepted His expectation. Now, the Fa has an even higher expectation of us. There is a different standard at each level. A practitioner was puzzled one day when she suddenly had a stomachache after eating Chinese pancakes with garlic-chive stuffing, her favorite food in the world. Another practitioner was equally puzzled when she had diarrhea after eating garlic-chive dumplings, her favorite food. I, too, was puzzled why they had not realized that it was high time for them to relinquish their food partiality. Sometimes the smell of garlic and chives was so offensively strong at their homes that I found it difficult to enter the room!
Teacher has expounded the Fa in the lectures, but we will only be truly cultivating when our behavior complies with the Fa! I have learned that some practitioners still smoke, drink, and play mahjong, poker and other types of board games. Even if they don't play for money, it is a waste of time and keeps them from doing the three things! These practitioners should have relinquished the grip of these personal vices. After years of cultivation, these practitioners are acting like ordinary people. How can we upgrade our cultivation if we don't conduct ourselves according to the Fa? We are anxious for these individual practitioners. The closer to the end, the more diligent we should be. There are already gaps in our cultivation levels! There are also some fellow practitioners have been doing the three things well, except they are still attached to their hobbies, which have hampered them from upgrading their cultivation levels. How can we not pay attention to upgrading our personal cultivation levels? One day a fellow practitioner who was attached to garlic-chives saw with her celestial eye that the space in her dimension suddenly turned gray and gloomy and she became susceptible to external interference. A fellow practitioner who smokes carries a dark and gloomy space in her dimension, which seriously affects fellow practitioners around her. In other words, smoking has even compromised their bodies in other dimensions. How could those practitioners who smoke not realize this? Those with serious attachments have meandered at the same level and are very slow to upgrade. Onions, ginger and garlic are also not good things in other dimensions. They hamper our bodies from being purified, and the smell will affect fellow practitioners. Teacher has said one shouldn't even form any attachment to tofu, let alone onions, ginger and garlic, which carry a strong smell. Teacher said,
"What smells good to people here smells bad over there" ("Fa Teaching at the 2008 New York Conference")
No Killing and No Pets
Many practitioners do not kill any lives. Sometimes when they kill lives by accident, it will bring them interference and obstacles while doing the three things. Hence, it is a serious matter that we must not neglect. A few years ago, a fellow practitioners bought a lot of napa cabbages in the autumn season. She stored the cabbages in the backyard and rats ate many of them. She was furious and bought rat poison from a drugstore owned by another practitioner. It just happened that several practitioners, including me, were in the store when she came in. She said, "Give me a pack of rat poison." The owner sold her one. I realized it was wrong and said, "Are you going to kill rats?" She said, "Our napa cabbages for the autumn were eaten by rats. What else should I do?" We discussed the issue and she finally realized there must be a reason behind what happened, and that she shouldn't purposefully kill any life, no matter what the reason. After she returned home, she told the rats to leave and then found that all the rats had left and the cabbages were left alone. But two years later, the same thing happened again. This time she told the rats to leave, but it didn't work. This time she couldn't stand it any longer, and she bought the rat poison and spread it at the foot of the walls. But when she was spreading the rat poison, her body trembled, and she couldn't stand up straight. When she was lying in bed, the trembling continued and her back remained humped over. She said that when she ate, the food felt like fire burning her mouth and throat. She was in bed for seven days. How could she do the three things like this? The fact was that she was consuming karma for killing rats. Of course, everyone faces different situations, but a cultivator shouldn't take any life casually, even those bad lives!
One practitioner has a hobby of growing flowers and plants all over her place, which requires her to prune plants and kill pests. For years, she suffered from leg pain. She used to be able to practice the sitting meditation in the full lotus position, but due to the leg pain she could only do the single lotus and then eventually even the single lotus position became unbearable for her. She didn't understand why this was happening to her. She thought it was karma on her legs. One day a practitioner whose celestial eye was open saw that many trees and flower branches were sticking in her legs. No wonder her legs were in so much pain. This interference and obstacles formed because she failed to pay attention and check herself carefully against the Fa. Practitioners in this situation tend to compare themselves with non-practitioners. Instead, they should check themselves against the standards of their respective levels. If a practitioner happens to be a farmer by profession, it is alright for him to remove weeds, but growing plants is an attachment.
It is very common for today's people to have cats, dogs, turtles and fish as pets. If a cultivator's family has pets, he/she should try to persuade them to give them away. I have known an entire family of practitioners who had pets. One practitioner has a dog who will put its front paws together and worship you when you call on her. This is not normal. A few years ago my older sister had a cat. Every time she practiced the sitting meditation, the cat would come in and lay down beside her. One day when the cat was still outside, my sister saw a cat's head in the size of a tiger's head in front of her. She realized it was a hint, so she gave the cat to a relative in another city.
Don't Invite Evil
Naturally, most fellow practitioners will not invite evil, and they know the significance of it. But some practitioners have friends who practice different religions. In the Fa-rectification period, some evil beings in other dimensions are manipulated by degenerated divine beings to interfere with Falun Gong practitioners. If we fail to have strong righteous thoughts, or if agree with them, these evil beings from other dimensions will be able to interfere with us. They will deliver their messages in the things they offer us. For example, a fellow practitioner who was released from a forced labor camp told me a story. When several former practitioners took turns slandering Falun Gong in front of her at the camp, she completely denied the lies they told her and everything they said to her. After she was released unconditionally, these collaborators played nice by calling on her and bringing bread as a gift. She said, "When I accepted the bread, I felt a humming noise in my head. I felt something wrong with it, so I told them, 'I may accept the bread, but I will not accept your thoughts.'" This shows that the things they carry also carry evil matter, and it is true in other dimensions as well. Some people of different religions carry bad messages. If you buy bead bracelets or necklaces at religious tourist sites, you may bring bad messages home and not even know it.
This concludes my limited understanding on these issues. Please kindly point out anything inappropriate in my understandings.