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From a New Practitioner: What I Learned from Mosquitoes

April 10, 2015 |   By a practitioner in China

(Minghui.org) I am a new practitioner who started my cultivation two years ago.

Before, I used to hate mosquitoes and would always make an effort to kill them if they got in the house. During the day I would make sure to envelop myself in a thick layer of mosquito repellent, and I'd made a habit of slamming the door behind me quickly so that the bugs wouldn't follow me in.

After I began cultivation, I knew that I should not kill. Yet I still sometimes burn mosquito-repelling incense and find excuses to justify killing the bugs. I told myself that I should live like a normal person, or that it would be a waste of money since I'd already bought the incense.

One night as I was about to fall asleep, I heard a mosquito buzzing around my ear. I had goosebumps immediately.

I said to myself, “Should I get up and kill it? Should I burn the incense to repel it?”

Then I thought, “If it bites me, it might be because I harmed it before. I owe the mosquito a debt, and now it has come back to claim it.”

So I said in my mind, “If I owe you, I will pay it back today. If not, you shouldn't harm me.”

Soon I was bitten multiple times on my arms, legs and feet. When I scratched the bitten areas, I felt many large bumps.

I said to myself, “I should stop scratching. I am a practitioner. Why should I be concerned with the itching?”

Then I fell asleep again quickly.

The next morning, I woke up to find my skin perfectly smooth, and all the itching was gone too. Prior to that, my skin used to take weeks to heal after mosquito bites. If it were not for the tiny spots on my skin where I was bitten, I would've thought the whole thing was a dream.

This was a personal experience that made me realize the extraordinary nature of cultivation.

At the Mid-Autumn Festival, I went back to my hometown to visit my mother. Upon entering her house, I noticed that the door to her bedroom was shut all the time.

She told me, “For whatever reason, there have been so many mosquitoes recently. A few days back, I killed several but then felt that there was something wrong with killing them. So I stopped and just shut the bedroom door to prevent them from getting in.”

I told her about my experience.

She said, “I should look inside to solve this problem. I need to improve in my cultivation. Sometimes I just can't follow the principles well, even though I know them by heart.”

I replied, “You are right. In fact, mosquito bites are no coincidence. Now my bedroom door doesn't need to be shut, because they're not a problem for me any more. But I just cannot bear the constant buzzing during my sleep.”

It seemed that the mosquitoes came back just because I said I hated their buzzing. One night as I was doing the fifth exercise, a mosquito flew around my ears. Upon hearing it, a chill came down my spine and goosebumps appeared all over my body reflexively.

I asked myself, “Why am I reacting to the buzzing so dramatically? There are countless sounds in this world. Why do I fear the mosquito buzzing? It is my attachment to fear acting up. It is not my true self. I'm not scared.”

After that, the buzzing no longer bothered me. As if the mosquito did not think my xinxing had improved sufficiently, it continued flying around my head for a whole night.

I said to it in my mind, “I know it now. You are here so that I can upgrade my xinxing.”

I have come to the realization that problems won't arise as long as we handle ourselves as true practitioners and view things from a righteous angle in each and every matter we encounter. Those so-called troubles in our lives are only meant to upgrade practitioners' xinxing. Since our ultimate goal is to improve our xinxing, those troubles are indeed good things in our cultivation.