How Steep Is Your Path of Cultivation?

(Minghui.org) There is a common phenomenon in my company: employees at the same pay level are given very different workloads. I am one of the few given the most tasks but not extra pay.

Unfair Work Assignments

The leadership in my company does not care about fairness or long-term strategies, only trying to make their own life easy without putting any effort into assigning jobs.

In order to make the deadlines and meet the productivity goals, the leadership often assigns more workloads to those who are capable, and less to those who are not. It has become a vicious cycle. The more load someone carries, the better chance for them to be criticized, and the more worn out they become. The more incapable an employee is, the less work they get.

I am one of those who are loaded with extra work. For this reason, I often complained about how unfair I was being treated. I felt that my job took up too much of my energy and precious time. Although I knew that this was a manifestation of my resentment and jealousy and I needed to cultivate through it, it was still difficult to handle the next time around.

How to Handle The Unfairness

One day while studying Zhuan Falun, I suddenly realized that I should look at my job issue from the Fa’s perspective and that I shouldn’t feel upset about it.

If I do more than my colleagues, then my manager who pushes the extra load to me will give me virtue and my own karma will be transformed into virtue through my hard work. If at this time I do not complain and accept it calmly, my xinxing will improve and Master will transform my virtue into gong. My level will also elevate. I will be able to achieve four things in one go. But if I complain, my xinxing and level will not improve. My manager is in fact arranged to be here to help me eliminate my karma and improve my xinxing.

When my colleagues leisurely look at their phones and play games at work, while my fingers are flying on the keyboard to get the job done, I came to see that I have a different mission in life and need to meet different standards and requirements. My goal is to reach consummation. I need to seize every chance to eliminate karma, endure hardship, and cultivate off attachments. Only then can I constantly improve my level and reach consummation.

Cultivation Path as a Line Segment

Cultivation has a beginning and an end. To use an analogy, every practitioner’s cultivation path is like a line segment with a different slope in a two-dimensional plane, with the horizontal axis being time and the vertical axis being the cultivation level. A non-practitioner’s life path could be depicted on the same plane as well. Those with high moral standards and able to refrain themselves from doing bad deeds may have a horizontal line. Those who indulge themselves in doing evil will have a downward-sloping line.

Cultivators, on the other hand, should have upward-sloping lines if we’re able to improve our levels at all times. The more diligent we are, the faster we can elevate our levels and the greater the slope is. The most diligent ones will have an almost vertical line with a slope of nearly 90 degrees.

As time passes, all cultivators eventually have to come to the end of their cultivation. But how to spend their cultivation time is very different for each cultivator, and the level of cultivation and endpoint also varies.

How to reach one’s pinnacle? One needs to move upward at every point of their cultivation path. In other words, one has opportunities to elevate at all times. In that case, the conflicts, difficulties, and problems that people generate for us really are stepping stones to raise us up.

Master made it very clear in his Fa teaching:

“I will just tell you one thing: it is because you are a cultivator that you experienced that, and since you are a cultivator, those things—whether they seem positive or negative—are all good. (Enthusiastic applause) That’s because they were put in place for you so that you can improve yourself on your cultivation path.” (“Fa Teaching Given at the 2014 San Francisco Fa Conference”)

Whenever we live leisurely and comfortably, we might not make big progress or even slide downwards. The time for Fa-rectification is limited, and if we want to reach a higher level, then we need to improve faster than ever in each time period. Don’t feel unfair over worldly gains or loss. We should hold ourselves to a higher standard, since there is no point of time to waste.

Because we are going against the current, we are going upstream – that’s why it’s hard.

Master said,

“When it’s difficult to endure, you can endure it. When it’s impossible to do, you can do it.” (Zhuan Falun)

As long as we meet the requirements of the Fa at different levels, we can go all the way up. Master has carefully arranged for each of us the path of cultivation that leads to consummation according to the situation of different disciples.

“Cultivate as you did at the beginning, and you are sure to succeed!” (“Fa Teaching Given at the 2014 San Francisco Fa Conference”)

Editor’s note: This article only represents the author’s current understanding meant for sharing among practitioners so that we can “Compare with one another in study, in cultivation.” (“Solid Cultivation,” Hong Yin)