(Minghui.org) In recent years, a number of fellow practitioners have suffered from long-term sickness karma, and some have even lost their lives as a result. Although we all know that this is because these practitioners have gotten stuck at one level for too long without improving themselves, the direct causes for each specific situation vary and are often mixed with many factors.
I would like to share some insights based on what I can see during the course of my gradual enlightenment to help other practitioners avoid these pitfalls. However, please keep in mind that these insights are limited by my cultivation level.
1. Holding Onto Resentment
Many practitioners can easily look inward when dealing with conflicts among everyday people, but are unable to search within when it comes to conflicts with family members or fellow practitioners. Over time, this can cause resentment to accumulate and lead to sickness karma.
Once, a fellow practitioner was taken to the hospital in “critical condition,” but the doctors there couldn't do anything to save her life. I went to see her and found that the fundamental cause for her sickness karma was that she had been holding a grudge against her husband for his unfaithfulness.
She'd always told us that she had let it go, but in reality, she just couldn't realize her own attachment to the issue this whole time. As a result, her sickness karma became worse and worse, and though fellow practitioners helped her by sending righteous thoughts, it didn't have much effect.
Nowadays, with morality going downhill, practitioners who married everyday people may come across situations in which their spouses cheat on them. While it could be a matter of repaying karmic debts in some cases, our goal as cultivators is not to even out karmic debts, but to improve our xinxing. When we fail to realize this, the old forces can exploit these types of situations to cause trouble.
Master said in “Fa-Lecture During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the Western U.S. Fa Conference”,
“You know what? Just on the one issue of cultivation alone it's so complex at the cosmos's lower levels. But it becomes simple at higher levels, where there's no longer any concept of cultivation but only the concept of karma elimination. At levels higher up, all troubles are to pave the way for ascending to Heaven. And at even higher levels, concepts like eliminating karma, enduring hardships, and cultivation no longer exist, and it's just a choice!”
I asked her, “Do you want to die with hatred in your heart or stay alive to assist Master in Fa-rectification and return to Heaven? Take a step back and look at your husband from a different perspective. Right now, all practitioners are devoting themselves to saving more people – we can't get bogged down in human emotions like this.”
Later she realized where she had fallen short. She is now fully recovered and has completely let go of her resentment against her husband.
2. Failing to Cherish Prolonged Life
Those who fall short in this aspect are often elderly practitioners; there are some middle-aged practitioners too, and some younger ones, but the majority are still the elderly. Most of them don't know that their life has been prolonged beyond their predestined time to live.
Master said in Zhuan Falun,
“There is a criterion, however, that the life prolonged beyond your predestined time to live is completely reserved for your practice. If your mind goes wrong a little bit, your life will be in danger because your lifetime should have long been over. You will have such a restriction until you reach Beyond-Triple-World-Fa cultivation. After that, one will be in another state.”
I have seen at my level that many people have their lives prolonged because of Dafa cultivation. Some are very diligent, while others are not. But no matter how many levels they have broken through in essence, their flesh bodies are still cultivating within In-Triple-World-Fa, so they're still restricted accordingly.
If one develops sickness karma, one should immediately look within and improve with righteous thoughts and righteous actions. This way, one can continue to make breakthroughs and continue to assist Master in Fa-rectification.
Some elderly practitioners devote their time to their grandchildren and families, and become full-time nannies, neglecting their cultivation as a result. But it's relatively easy to mistake the attachment of family affection for how practitioners should be kind to everyone, so many of them don't realize this mistake.
A lot of them end up spoiling their grandchildren and always letting the children have their way. As a result, when these children grew up, they stop practicing cultivation or only practice on and off .
We have come to the human world to fulfill our grand pledge to assist Master in Fa-rectification. This is our top priority. If people fail to balance their obligation to Dafa with helping their children, then they are bound to encounter issues.
Some of them are already suffering from sickness karma, and some others will soon get trapped in such tribulations. If they cannot enlighten to this issue, it will be very hard for them to make it through. They need to look inward deeply and conduct themselves with righteous thoughts and righteous actions in areas that require immediate improvement.
Otherwise, nothing can help them – not even if they ask fellow practitioners for their righteous thoughts, or Master for his protection.
3. Carelessly Using Dafa's Resources
Most practitioners cherish and are very careful in the use of Dafa resources and money contributed by practitioners for Fa-validating projects. However, there are people who spend this money excessively.
To take advantage of them, demons in other dimensions fed these practitioners' attachment to lavish expenses and made them commit increasingly worse sins against Dafa until they were destroyed. Such practitioners must wake up before it is too late and do their very best to make up for the loss – if they don't, only worse hardships and sickness karma will await them.
There are also some practitioners who do not pay attention to safety issues; they've carelessly exposed Dafa resources to the evil and caused big losses. Even though this wasn't done on purpose, they still need to bear the responsibility. If this becomes a habit, things may get dangerous for them if they do not learn from their mistakes.
Some practitioners are pretty well-off, and they know they're wealthy because they have vowed in their previous lives to use their money on Dafa. However, as they experience more and more material benefits, they begin to spend less on Dafa projects, saying that they would contribute more later when they were even better off.
Cultivation is a serious matter and as time goes on, the requirement is becoming higher and higher. Even though such practitioners did not waste Dafa resources on the surface, they have used resources that they had promised to use for Dafa.
Of course, I'm not talking about the issue of a positive cycle, where one uses seed money to generate more income. There is nothing wrong with making more money and getting richer, but it is not right to use the additional wealth for personal enjoyment. If one does not do well in this respect, the old forces can use it as an excuse to intensify the sickness karma.
Seeing practitioners squander resources would make the evil most happy, as it gives them a loophole to exploit. For practitioners who have done poorly in this respect, even if they may not meet their retributions straight away, the old forces may settle with them in the end.
And when that happens, nobody will be able to stop the sickness karma.
4. Having Doubts About the Fa
There was a well-known veteran practitioner who obtained the Fa very early on and had suffered a lot during the persecution. Later, he became plagued by sickness karma.
On the surface, he showed firm faith in Dafa, and appeared very diligent. But when he talked with a close fellow practitioner in private, he began to have doubts.
“Is this Fa true or false?” he asked. “How come I could not break through the sickness karma?”
The fellow practitioner was shocked to hear what he said, and urged him to go to the hospital for treatment. He died the next day in the hospital.
He died because he didn't have full faith in Dafa.
Practitioners are allowed to improve gradually in cultivation – there were many practitioners who came into Dafa having doubts, but most of them eventually became steadfast cultivators, and have made fundamental breakthroughs.
This practitioner was the same, but he slacked off later on and let his thought karma accumulate, which led to his skepticism. The old forces saw this and seized their chance to persecute him.
Instead of improving his righteous understanding about Dafa, he became even more doubtful and was trapped in a vicious cycle, with doubt leading to more doubt. His sickness karma became even worse as a result.
As a matter of fact, his life had already been prolonged by Dafa; otherwise, he wouldn't have died so quickly. When one becomes doubtful about Dafa, the life that is given to him for cultivation will be taken back.
Even though one will still be given second chances, there becomes a point when the thought karma becomes just too much, and all hope of enlightenment disappears.
Therefore, when one develops any thought karma that doubts Dafa, one must reject such thought karma straight away and remain steadfast in faith in order to avert danger.
5. Studying the Fa Perfunctorily
I met a practitioner from out of town, who was suffering from sickness karma. She appeared very diligent in doing the three things and often organized others to study the Fa. She also did very well in cooperating with others, and everyone believed that she was an all-around good practitioner.
Later, she developed a serious bout of sickness karma, and I had gone with some local practitioners to help her by sending righteous thoughts.
When I noticed her issue, I had a private chat with her. She then told me that though she didn't quite believe in Dafa, she really enjoyed doing things with others, as it made her feel good. She even complained that her cultivation practice prevented her from receiving timely medical care.
I realized then that she had a fundamental problem, but nobody believed me when I told them about it, saying it was impossible that such a diligent practitioner did not believe in Dafa. But by then, no one could help her any more. She was soon sent to the hospital.
Some people only pay attention to superficial formalities in cultivation and organizing activities. Their Fa study is no more than going through the motions, and they don't take the need to improve seriously. As a result, there is hardly any fundamental change or perceptual elevation in their cultivation.
This is not solid cultivation. In some Fa study groups, people start chatting and gossiping as soon as they finish reading the Fa, or pouring out their resentments and grievances or spreading rumors against others. Instead of stopping such improper behavior, others join in and make it even worse.
When practitioners see or hear about such a situation, they should point it out and help make it right so that the whole body of practitioners can elevate together.
6. Sabotaging Dafa
One practitioner passed away due to sickness karma. She reappeared in the dream of a close fellow practitioner, telling her that she had made some decorated photos of Master a few years earlier, and had sold them to local practitioners for a profit. Later on, she'd realized that what she did was sabotaging the Fa, but she hadn't done anything to fix her mistake. This was why she died from sickness karma.
If such a thing happened before 1999, and she didn't make a profit off it, then it could be excused as an issue of personal cultivation. But one should not do such things after 1999, and it would be even more wrong to profit from it.
If fellow practitioners had discouraged her in her activities, she could have amended her mistake.
There was another practitioner who got cancer. Her condition deteriorated rapidly despite medical treatment and fellow practitioners' righteous thoughts. She passed away very quickly.
A practitioner had asked me what caused her death; I took a look and found that it was because she distributed fake Fa-teachings, and showed no remorse for her actions.
The practitioner didn't believe what I said and tried to argue on her behalf, but as he argued, he revealed that he had a copy of the fake Fa-teachings from her too. He didn't even know it was fake. Now that he understood the seriousness of the matter, he burned it straight away. He was lucky that he had not distributed it further.
Spreading fake Fa-teachings can destroy a cultivator directly, as it is an act of serious disruption of the Fa. If one has committed a sin of such magnitude and still refuses to make up for it – or even worse, tries to cover it up – then the sin will become all the more serious.
Some people have promoted evil websites, and when they know it was wrong to do so, they still refuse to rectify their actions. Master said,
“I would suggest to whoever has circulated the special agents' website: undo any harm you have caused as quickly as possible; find and clear things up with those whom you circulated that website to. If you miss even a single person, you will, together with him or her, be eliminated.” (“Sifting of the Sand” The Essentials for Diligent Progress Vol III)
Why is it that there are still people who don't follow Master's teachings? On the surface, they may not want to correct their actions properly because of an issue of saving face. But in reality, demons are in the background preventing them from doing so.
What we see in the human world is that when they want to make things right, they would run into all kinds of factors which prevent them from doing so, allowing them to find excuses for themselves. As time goes by, they would stop treating the matter seriously, which would eventually lead to their destruction by the demons.
There are also practitioners who have caused serious financial losses to or betrayed fellow practitioners. Some practitioners also spread rumors about other practitioners – they thought that the rumors were true and actively passed them onto other people.
What they did was no different than disrupting the Fa, and those involved were destroying others' cultivation as well as their own.
If one truly feels repentant and tries to make up for his or her sins, Master can give everyone a benevolent resolution. However, if one keeps covering up his or her wrongdoings and doesn't learn from his or her mistakes, the old forces can then persecute him or her easily. And sickness karma is simply a form of such persecution.
(To be continued)
Category: Improving Oneself
