(Clearwisdom.net)

I have often wondered about the fundamental difference between non-practitioners people doing Dafa work and cultivators doing Dafa work. Especially after experiencing an incident in which a phony practitioner pretended to enthusiastically take so-called "proactive actions," I further realized the importance of discerning the difference between work and cultivation.

In the past, I only partially understood what Teacher Li mentioned about the relationship between personal cultivation and cultivation in the Fa-rectification period. I thought that we had begun cultivating completely within the Fa-rectification period, and that my cultivation would be no problem as long as I actively participated in Fa-rectification activities and totally denied the evil's interference, because Teacher Li has never arranged any tribulations for our personal cultivation after the July 20, 1999 incident. As a result, I thus ignored the improvement of my personal xinxing. I had an especially strong mentality of doing things with pursuit, and the mentality of competition. I was also conceited, not noticing that I always thought I was right while others were wrong. Furthermore, my mood often remained in a state of excitement. As a result, I often went to extremes, and focused only on superficial achievements. In particular, when seeing some fellow practitioners slacking off in their cultivation, I always wanted to urge them to step forward and do something. Therefore, most of the words I uttered were irrational.

During that period of time, my excuses were: "Time and tide wait for no man. As the practitioners who have reached a high xinxing level should do the Fa-spreading and Fa-rectification work, so should those who haven't reached a high xinxing level and have attachments. Having attachments will still happen, because we can improve ourselves while doing Dafa work. Doing something is always better than sitting there and doing nothing." With these excuses, I could neither study the Fa deeply nor sincerely listen to other practitioners' opinions. I only considered how to deal with one thing today, and another tomorrow. Therefore, I was overwhelmed by the things around me.

Now that I look at things from another perspective, I find that the principles are quite simple. Teacher Li has repeatedly stressed that cultivation is to cultivate our hearts, and other things are not as important. No matter how much Dafa work has been done, if it were being done only by people who were not cultivating well in Dafa, then how magnificent would it be? In retrospect, it was really silly for me to focus on the superficial and neglect the essentials. Were those excuses I used in the past simply barriers arranged by the old evil forces to hinder my improvement?

When comparing a cultivator's ways of doing things with those of non-practitioners, the difference is obvious. The minds of people in society tend to be volatile and sentimental; they long for fame and fortune. However, a cultivator's mind is peaceful and unaffected, exuding gentleness and kindness. What we need in the course of Fa-spreading and Fa-rectification is not the worldly heroic stories like those of Liu Hulan [the "Joan of Arc" of the ruling Party], but true internal firmness, rationality, peacefulness, and harmony.

I still remember a minor thing that took place not long ago. I worked for a company, and tried very hard to squeeze in some time doing Dafa work through the Internet. My workload was almost twice that of others, but the pay I received was not much more than others. Theoretically, the management should have been satisfied with my performance; however, my manager always found fault with me, and repeatedly stressed that I was not supposed to do personal business during office hours, and that I should take the initiative to help others more actively. At that time, I regarded the criticism as evil interference, and took some actions to counter it. The situation came to a deadlock. Later I realized that as a cultivator, I am supposed to be a good person wherever I am, and I should volunteer to do more work. Seemingly I had less time to do Dafa work, but my xinxing level was improved. Since I looked at things from others' perspectives, and took others' situations into consideration, I was able to realize twice the results with half the effort when I did Dafa work later. In the past, I couldn't understand why Teacher Li once mentioned that our studying for degrees would not affect our cultivation, and that our dedicating time to Dafa would not affect our studies. Now I finally realize that everyday people's ways of thinking are invalid in higher dimensions. As a cultivator, only after we fundamentally change our conventional human notions can we upgrade our understanding of the Fa.

Certainly, cultivation is a process of continuous improvement. If we are able to step forward to take part in Fa-rectification activities, then we are making progress. Nevertheless, while we are doing Dafa work, we must continuously improve our own xinxing level at the same time. The more we cultivate the righteous Fa, the more our personal cultivation can catch up with the progress of Fa-rectification. Otherwise, the situation will be tantamount to everyday people doing Dafa work.

The above is my personal understanding, and your comments are appreciated.