(Minghui.org) I think my biggest gain in these two years is that I am able to persevere in memorizing the Fa. I would like to share my experience with fellow practitioners.
Changing My Fa Study State to Concentrate on Memorizing the Fa
From childhood, I loved watching movies and television shows. The notions of fame, gain, lust, and anger that I learned from them would often buzz in my head, muddling up my thinking so much so that even after I started practicing Falun Dafa, my thought karma remained strong.
As a result, for over a decade, the number of times I was able to study the Fa with full attention was rare. I was basically going through the motion. I couldn’t even remember I had ever studied one lecture in Zhuan Falun properly.
Early last year, I finally decided I must put a stop to that and make a drastic change once and for all to my pitiful cultivation state.
I came up with the idea of committing the Fa to memory.
I had tried that before, but perhaps I didn’t have a strong enough determination or perhaps I had not done it with a pure heart, my efforts had ended up in vain.
Having learned from my past mistakes, this time, my approach was absolute sincerity, determination, and perseverance.
Because of my thought karma, I would often become absent-minded when I was memorizing the Fa. So, I strictly required of myself to pay close attention to every single word.
When I was able to achieve that, I found the bad things in my thoughts were being eliminated, leaving my brain clear so that I began to gain some understanding of the Fa I was memorizing.
I arrived at another realization, and that has to do with a correct attitude and state of mind. When studying the Fa, having even the slightest bad thought is wrong.
One time, I tried to memorize a particular paragraph over and over but just could not remember the words correctly.
I stopped to look inward and realized I was reading Master’s words with resistance and a critical mindset. I was using my human notion and some learned scientific research methods to examine Master’s Fa.
The realization brought a shock to my system.
I suddenly understood why there was not much change in me despite long years of cultivation practice:
I had not rectified myself with Master’s Fa but had been using my human notions of right and wrong to measure Dafa.
I was placing myself higher than Dafa.
How truly ridiculous! How absolutely full of myself! How completely disrespectful of Master and Dafa!
How can any Dafa’s content be revealed to me?
When I changed my attitude and eliminated the notions that were blocking my mind, I was able to memorize the paragraph without any more problem.
In the process of memorizing the Fa, I was also ridding myself of attachments to laziness, to fear of enduring hardships, to pursuit, to irritability, and so on.
At the beginning, I would often look at Zhuan Falun and worry how I could manage to memorize such a huge volume or when I would be able to finish all nine lectures.
Then, I would want to shy away, to slack off, in fear of the difficulty I would be facing.
I would then give myself a warning and remind myself that I memorize the Fa in order to study it better, to understand it so that I can truly obtain the Fa and be one with it so I can elevate.
Now, I have gotten into the habit of memorizing the Fa and have succeeded to get rid of my attachments to irritability and running away from difficulties.
I have a firm determination to continue to memorize the Fa. As a result, I found more clarity in my thought process.
Before, whenever I could not remember what I was reading, I would give up, believing in continuing would adversely affect the quality of my efforts.
Now, I know that is exactly the time to continue, that the more I feel I cannot succeed the more I should try until I succeed. This is a battle between good and evil. Only in not succumbing to any interference will I be able to eliminate all evil interferences.
My main consciousness must predominate. Then, my true self will surface and give me guidance. I will be playing the lead role. As a Dafa disciple, I have to be guided by nothing but the Fa.
In our current society so chock full of worldly temptations, a Dafa disciple has to maintain a clear head so as not to be carried along by the misleading tide. That righteous thought and courage come from the Fa.
Last summer, a former patient brought his mother and grandfather to me for treatment. As I was unable to take care of two patients at once, I passed the grandfather to my boss.
After the patients left, I realized my boss intended to overcharge the patients by 1,000 yuan when they would return for a follow-up and pay their bill.
I didn’t know what to do.
I knew I couldn’t stop my boss. I also knew I didn’t know anything about their karmic relationship. But I did know I could not and would not stand by when I knew something is contrary to the Fa principles.
With that thought, I found a chance to offer my boss an indirect hint that overcharging is unethical.
As it turned out, I was happy and relieved my boss did the right thing.
Recognizing Fundamental Attachments to Solidly Cultivate
I work in a clinic. Dispensing medical treatment is a very risky business. I used to be in a constant state of anxiety, worrying I might bring irreparable damage to the patients or myself.
For the two years in the clinic, I have not done much to validate Dafa. I was always busy and weary. My boss was not too happy with my performance. I felt like a lost soul in a maze, unable to find a way out.
During the first half of last year, several articles on trusting Master and trusting Dafa were published on the Minghui website. I found them very enlightening.
I began to look inward to uncover personal problems in this trust issue
I realized that for a long time, my cultivation state has been stagnating.
For the past two years, I spent practically all my time and energy on my job and improving my skills, believing that only in doing so would I be able to make money and live a stable life.
I strove desperately toward that end, with little result. I constantly made mistakes and won nothing but contempt from my boss.
Since childhood, I have been rather negative in outlook and suffered from a lack of self-confidence. So, I have always lived and struggled under the cloud of worry and bitterness.
When I started to memorize the lecture in Zhuan Falun on “Whoever Practices Cultivation Will Attain Gong”, I seemed to come to some understanding.
A fellow practitioner has said to me, “You are not cultivating in the Fa. You are searching in the Fa.”
“So, what am I searching for?” I asked myself.
Looking inward, I realized I was searching for a comfortable life among ordinary people.
Master says:
“Studying the Fa with attachments is not true cultivation. Yet during the course of cultivation a person may gradually become aware of his fundamental attachments, rid himself of them, and thus meet the standard for a cultivator. What’s a fundamental attachment, then? Human beings acquire many notions in this world and are, as a consequence, driven by these notions to pursue what they yearn for.” (“Toward Consummation” from Essentials for Further Advancement II)
I knew Dafa is good, so I entered into Dafa, but with all my human attachments, to seek smooth sailing at work and at home.
Under the influence of human notions, Party culture, empirical science, the theory of evolution, and atheism, I continued to entertain doubts about God, faith, and miracles.
That is tantamount to not trusting Master and Dafa 100 percent.
I used to think, “If I do well, Master will help me solve all problems.”
Through studying the Fa and reading Minghui articles, I slowly came to understand that cultivation practice involves meeting problems head on, that whatever problem we encounter, we have to proceed with the Fa’s standards in mind, and rectify ourselves according to Dafa.
And that’s that simple.
There is a process between enlightening and actually doing what I have enlightened to. That process is solid cultivation.
Before, I used to think all it took was to study the Fa more and have neglected the importance of looking inward.
If a cultivator does not look inward, everything comes to nothing.
I believe looking inward is the beginning of solid cultivation.
For quite a while, I was nursing a strong resentment toward my boss. In return, she would be upset as soon as she set eyes on me, even when I knew I had not done anything wrong.
The mutual hard feeling made me feel pained. I found it hard to overcome this tribulation.
One day, during an experience sharing, I looked inward and suddenly came to the realization that there was a hard and cold thing hidden deep in my heart. The essence of that thing was selfishness.
All at once, I knew everything was my own fault. It was this cold, hard thing that had caused me to feel resentment toward my boss. That thing was my attachment to fame and recognition.
I noticed my boss had favored another co-worker, always showering her with praises. And what I got was looks of despise, no matter how hard I tried. I longed for my boss’ affirmation and approval, which never came my way.
I understood at once I was pursuing recognition among ordinary people. I wanted to hear accolades and feel the pleasure of receiving praises. My resentment came from not getting what I wanted.
I was after some vague and illusive feeling. How sad!
Master says:
“I have thus said before that Dafa disciples, being cultivators, should view problems in the opposite manner from how human beings do. Some people are unhappy when they meet with unpleasant things. Then aren’t you a human being? How are you any different? When you encounter unpleasant things, it is precisely time to cultivate yourself, to cultivate your mind.” (“Dafa Disciples Must Study the Fa” from Teaching the Fa at the Conference XI)
I knew in this issue I have fallen and was behaving like an ordinary person, using the thinking of an ordinary person to face adversities. I knew I did wrong.
I should have thanked Master for arranging this opportunity for me to elevate my xinxing. I should have thanked my boss instead of resenting her.
It was then I experienced a profound revelation that Master has used everything to rid me of my various attachments.
With that realization, all turned to tranquility. It is as if I have just woken up from a dream. I am able to look at things from a cultivator’s angle. I have arrived at a cultivator’s state of mind. That is a most blessed feeling.
This past May, Master published His new Lunyu - On Dafa. I committed it to memory.
In the process, I feel I have gained more clarity on what Dafa is, how the cosmos was formed, the origin of life, what is cultivation, how does man become God, the shallowness and superficiality of science, and other issues.
I feel I have finally understood what cultivation fundamentally is and where my attachments fundamentally lie.
It was around July last year that a patient of mine expressed displeasure after a medical procedure. He was in great agitation and wanted to complain to my boss.
After he left, I was in turmoil. I was worried how much pain the patient might feel after the anesthesia wore off. I was afraid when he returned the next day for a follow-up, he would create a commotion over his pain…
My worries lasted the entire afternoon. When I shared my worries with my practitioner family member, I was reminded to trust Master and Dafa.
I tried to calm myself down with diligent Fa study, but with not much success.
I concentrated on looking deeply inward to uncover the root cause of my worries and realized I was worried about the unpredictable future.
I dug deeper and realized the root cause was my not having given myself up completely to Master and Dafa. I have inadequate trust in Master and Dafa.
I was trying to figure out the future based on my knowledge of and experience in science. I trusted these more than I trusted Master’s power and Dafa’s miracles.
It was just as Master says:
“Therefore, some people have developed the stubborn notion that only what one can see through the eyes is real and concrete. They do not believe what they cannot see.” (Zhuan Falun)
I finally uncovered my fundamental attachment, and that is the notion that has been deeply rooted in the human psyche for hundreds and thousands of years of not believing things that we do not see. That is what has been keeping me from embracing Dafa wholeheartedly
I was finally able to see clearly. I made a firm determination to rid myself of its long-term entanglement. I told myself I would cultivate this “absolute trust”. I would give myself up completely to Master.
I felt a thick wall was knocked down around me.
I recited Master’s Fa:
“As long as you come into contact with someone, you are doing something to save him—including when you solicit advertisements. Which side a person stands on, and whether he will make it—these are all things placed along the way as Dafa disciples go about interfacing with ordinary people in various capacities, and you shouldn’t attach too much importance to those activities in and of themselves. The bigger you perceive the challenges to be, the harder things will be to carry out, since “the appearance stems from the mind.” And so the task will become increasingly burdensome. When I say “the appearance stems from the mind,” by that I also mean that the difficulty stems from your overstating the importance of the matter itself and seeing yourself in a lesser light. Don’t take any such things to be a big deal, for with something as significant as saving sentient beings you should just do what you are supposed to do, going about it in a composed manner. When you encounter things that don’t sound so good or that aren’t what you hoped for, don’t take it to heart, and just nobly and confidently do what you are supposed to. If you don’t let the evil’s interference sway you, bad factors won’t arise from you, the evil will become trivial, you will become towering and massive, and your righteous thoughts will be ample. That’s truly the case.” (“Fa Teaching Given at the Epoch Times Meeting” from Teaching the Fa at the Conference X)
I tried my best to eliminate those negative thoughts and all selfish notions. I sent forth righteous thoughts to settle my karmic relationship with the patient with a benevolent solution, believing Master would handle everything for me.
The next day, the patient arrived at the clinic with a complete change of attitude. His symptoms were relieved. Not only was he not upset, he even apologized for his poor behavior the day before.
I knew Master has His hand in this resolution.
I truly experienced the feeling of seeing a light at the end of the tunnel after I placed my trust squarely on Master and Dafa.
The Complete Change of My Environment
Ever since last year when I changed my Fa study attitude, I gradually realized my fundamental attachments.
In the past, I paid attention to superficial things. Now, I know only a cultivator’s righteous thoughts can effect fundamental changes.
One day, a neighbor came to the clinic. For a while I have been hesitating about clarifying the truth to her because of possible danger. That day, we entered into a friendly chat toward the end of her treatment.
We talked about the current corruption of high-level Party officials. Then, we went on to talk about the fabricated news from the media. The topic of our conversation turned naturally to the Tiananmen Square self-immolation hoax, and about forced harvesting of organs from living Falun Dafa practitioners.
I did not entertain any special thought nor was I bent on relating anything negative. I was merely carrying on a sincere, honest conversation, something I couldn’t and didn’t do before.
The neighbor listened attentively and ended her visit renouncing the evil Party and withdrawing from all its affiliated organizations.
For the past two years, I was with the clinic, I have treated quite a number of patients but I don’t believe many remembered me and gave me recognition.
Since I changed my attitude in my cultivation practice, when I started to truly want to share with everybody the goodness and beauty of Falun Dafa, I began to notice more patients patronize our clinic and many are former patients who returned to seek me out.
Master has told us in “Fa Teaching Given at the Epoch Times Meeting” that “the appearance stems from the mind.”
When we enlighten correctly, the environment will change.
Two years ago, I had asked Master to arrange for me to work at the best clinic where I could learn top skills. I believe that was what a Dafa disciple should aim for, to be the best of the best.
Master arranged for me to work at my clinic where I had indeed learned a lot of skills, yet I have continued to feel that the environmental quality has not been up to my expectation.
I have always felt a workplace should be a most ideal place to save sentient beings. But, the fact that I did not have my own office is interfering with my wish to spread Dafa and clarify the truth about Falun Dafa.
As I advanced in cultivation and slowly rectified myself within the Fa, Master stepped in to solve my biggest problem.
Last June, my boss decided to renovate to enhance the clinic’s overall appearance and to include private offices.
In August, before the renovation was completed, my boss informed me one of the best private offices would be mine.
What a most wonderful and welcoming news, thanks to Master!
I realize Master has been constantly watching over me.
I am filled with gratitude toward Master. I feel my future is full of hope. I will cherish this cultivation environment Master has arranged for me.
Master, please rest assured I will do my very best.
