Small Reminders Along the Way

(Minghui.org) I have come to realize that even the smallest things practitioners encounter in life are not coincidences, but are often arranged to help us along in our cultivation. I’ve written down a few of the things I have come across to share the wonder of these small everyday experiences, in hopes that others might recognize more of them and seize the opportunity to cultivate.

Looking Inward Reveals Opportunity to Cultivate

I was out shopping with my mother around Christmas, when a song playing in the background in a store led me to reflect on my cultivation of patience.

It was an ordinary pop song about love and human sentiments and I was not paying much attention to it. But as I internally contemplated the patience required for cultivation practice, a single line of the lyrics, something to the effect of ‘the road being long and rocky but worthwhile’ jumped out at me and caught my profound attention.

I realized that I had not heard it by coincidence, and, in fact, despite it being an ordinary pop song, Master had arranged for me to hear and pay attention to it. That one line answered and put to rest my doubts about my own patience in cultivation as I looked inward. If I hadn’t been looking inward and had just listened to the song out of sentimentality, no doubt the opportunity to cultivate in that moment would have been missed.

Attachments to Food Highlighted by Bitten Lip and Mouth Ulcers

I was walking in the city where I live and decided to stop and buy a chocolate bar. I wasn’t particularly hungry, and as I took a bite, I realized that I had bought the chocolate only out of my attachment to food.

As soon as this realization hit me, I accidentally bit my lip, painfully, as if to remind myself to let go of the attachment.

Over the next couple of weeks, I wasn’t diligent in letting go of the attachment to food, which is a strong attachment I have particular trouble with, and the bite on my lip became painfully inflamed. I weakened the attachment and the injury healed, but I soon became complacent again and I noticed two ulcers in my mouth.

I began trying to keep the words of Master’s poem “In Dao” from Hong Yin in my mind: “Eating but tasting not— A mouth freed from attachment.” I knew that the inflamed bite and ulcers were pointing at my attachment to food, as I had not been diligent in this respect and was eating excessively, lustfully pursuing foods I desired rather than eating without attachment.

I still have a way to go in releasing the attachment to food completely, and I often experience similar problems when I don’t do well in this respect.

Signs and Wonders While Working on Dafa Projects

I went to another city to help practitioners at the university there to establish a Falun Gong club. As I was walking up a staircase, a sign posted on a notice board caught my attention. It featured the colors of the rainbow refracted by light shone through a prism and the words “lighting the way.”

I realized that it was symbolic and that I had not seen this by coincidence. The colors were those Master describes in Zhuan Falun as representing the different stages of gong development in cultivation, and the pyramid-like shape of the prism is what Master uses to describe the different cultivation schools, with Dafa being the great way that leads directly to the peak.

The phrase “lighting the way,” I believe, hinted that I was in the right place at the right time.

Truly Master was lighting the way for me to validate the Fa.

On another occasion, we were demonstrating the exercises and distributing leaflets outside on a wintry day at a university event. A strong, cold wind blew in off the sea, as the university is by the coast, and it snapped one of our banners in half, leading us to believe it was a form of interference.

As we stood doing the second exercise, a long red carpet laid out in front of us for the university event was tossed about by the wind. Another practitioner and I turned it back over twice before we found something to weigh it down, and I noticed that it was very heavy as I straightened it out.

I resumed the exercise and saw one of the Falun Gong leaflets we had laid out in front of our remaining banner blow away a short distance in the wind and come to rest next to the exercise mat. I suddenly realized… That carpet was so heavy, yet it was being overturned constantly by the strong wind. Only a heavy box of books was able to weigh it down. Our leaflets weighed very little, yet only one had blown a short distance in the gusty wind. I believe that Master allowed that one flyer to be disturbed so that I could recognize the significance of the whole stack being undisturbed by the gale.

Attachments Highlighted and Weakened While Promoting Shen Yun

I neglected to take my phone with me while distributing Shen Yun flyers door to door one day and was thus nervous about getting separated from the other practitioners and lost in an area I didn’t know.

We had parked in a residential area, and the first house I approached had a small Buddha statue by the front door. I smiled and realized that there was nothing to worry about with Master’s arrangements, as I put a leaflet through the letterbox.

Sure enough, though, I soon became separated from the other practitioners. The driver left to take others to another location, and I lost sight of them all. After wandering around for a while looking for the other practitioners, I decided to do a few more houses and then wait near where I had been dropped off to study the Fa. I posted leaflets at the few extra houses in sight then leaned on a street sign to open Zhuan Falun. Almost immediately, the driver came round the corner with all the other practitioners already on board to pick me up.

Back at it a couple of days later, I found my thoughts were not quite right. I tried my best to put each Shen Yun leaflet through the letterboxes with righteous thoughts of saving the sentient beings in that household, but between houses, my attachments nagged at my mind.

I was thinking about a young woman I was attracted to, as well as wondering why some people had to be so difficult with me sometimes, and wishing I had gotten more sleep the night before, and looking forward to getting back to my comfy bed at home. I also experienced some interference from past religious notions, and my mind generally wandered all over the place.

All sorts of thoughts were running through my head. I knew it wasn’t good to be doing Shen Yun promotion work with my head full of such thoughts, so I carried on trying to keep them at bay and making sure I at least posted the leaflets with righteous thoughts in mind.

Later that day, though, as I was pushing a leaflet through a letterbox, a dog jumped up from inside and bit my hand. I realized that this was entirely because of my attachments and karma. I only suffered a tiny bite on my finger, but it bled profusely and made me think long and hard about how I was going about the work at hand.

This experience made clear to me just how important it is for my thoughts to be clean, calm, and pure while working on Dafa projects.

I stayed back at the base for the next couple of days with some of the older Chinese practitioners to send righteous thoughts. Besides clearing any interference obstructing Shen Yun, I targeted my own attachments. I wanted to dissolve the elements that had prevented me from doing the leaflet distribution with purely righteous thoughts.

We read through all three volumes of Hong Yin on the second day, stopping every 15 minutes to send righteous thoughts. As I held the lotus hand gesture one time in the afternoon, holding the thought of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forebearance blossoming like a lotus in the hearts and minds of sentient beings, a golden sky more beautiful than any I have seen on earth appeared before me.

Only moments later I thought to take a closer look, and my human side waking up to the scene caused it to disappear. I nonetheless felt incredibly blessed and serene to have witnessed even this brief moment of beauty through my celestial eye.

I believe this was Master giving me a glimpse of my true home, and it encouraged me to become more steadfast in cultivating Falun Dafa and removing my human attachments.

These are only a few of the small things I’ve experienced. If I pay attention, I can notice things like these happening every day.

I feel that these small things, which might escape the notice of many, can play an important role in guiding and reinforcing our confidence in cultivation. As practitioners, we are able to observe signs and wonders in the smallest of details as we cultivate.

This is just my limited understanding at the beginning stages of cultivation, so please point out anything inappropriate.