(Clearwisdom.net)

Teacher clearly indicated in "Lecturing on and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference," that "studying the Fa and cultivating yourselves" is one of the three major tasks for Dafa disciples at present. In "Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Vancouver, Canada, in 2003," Teacher repeatedly talked about the importance of strengthening individual cultivation. All these remarks awakened me. I came to realize that recently, I hadn't paid enough attention to personal cultivation, which would have been very dangerous had I let myself continue in that kind of state.

Since July 20 1999, I have been steadfastly committed to validating the Fa. As my understanding of Fa-rectification became deeper and deeper, I became busier and busier since I was involved in many Dafa projects. The time that I spent studying the Fa and practicing the exercises became shortened. More seriously, I unintentionally cut myself some slack when instead I should require of myself to constantly look inward and truly follow the principles of Truth, Compassion, and Tolerance as a Falun Dafa practitioner. As a result of this problem, some of my attachments became stronger instead of being eliminated.

1. I tended to forget cultivating myself during the process of validating the Fa. I thought that as long as I was fully committed to the Fa-rectification process, I would be safe and everything would turn out all right. I thought that as long as I finished Dafa projects well it would guarantee my reaching Consummation. Therefore, I used the excuse of having too much Fa-rectification work to shorten my Fa-study time. Because of this, I no longer paid as much attention as before in holding myself to constantly improve my xinxing (mind nature), as a cultivator.

In fact, validating the Fa is not some common affair for everyday people. It is a huge event when the firmament is to be rectified, and only Falun Dafa practitioners are qualified to get involved. Teacher said,

"With a practitioner, his thoughts direct his abilities to do things. But with an ordinary person, his thoughts just direct his four limbs and his sensory organs to do things." (Zhuan Falun, Lecture Nine)

I believe we have all experienced that when we handle things based on the Fa and with the pure heart of a cultivator, everything will go smoothly.

That is because at that time, we used the side of ours that has obtained the Fa and our supernormal abilities. Different Buddhas, Taos, and Gods will help us because those actions were pure, and at the same time, the evil would have no excuse to interfere. Therefore, only by rectifying ourselves with the Fa and getting involved in the Fa-rectification process in the state of a true cultivator, can we do a good job with Dafa work. Otherwise, when our understandings deviate from the Fa, things won't go smoothly and we won't be able to do Dafa work well.

Also, nothing can replace cultivating ourselves, not even doing Dafa work to validate the Fa. As Teacher said,

"So if somebody just does these few sets of movements every day, you think he counts as a Falun Dafa disciple? Probably not. The reason is, when you truly cultivate you have to discipline yourself with that character standard we talk about, you have to really improve your own character, and then, and only then, is it true cultivation." (Zhuan Falun, Lecture Three)

We can see that some of our fellow practitioners improved very quickly because they paid serious attention to xinxing cultivation, and yet some other practitioners who were busy with various kinds of Dafa work lingered at a certain level because they didn't care as much for personal cultivation.

Just as Teacher told us in Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Vancouver, Canada, in 2003,

"So things like your validating the Fa and saving sentient beings encompass how you improve yourselves, how you eliminate your omissions, things you're still attached to, and all types of shortcomings. This way, no matter what forms from the ordinary society you use in validating the Fa, you're cultivating, no matter what you do you're improving, and no matter what you do you should do it with a cultivator's state and not from the base point of an ordinary person."

2. My Fa-study was focused more on Teacher's new articles instead of on Zhuan Falun even though Teacher once again emphasized the importance of studying Zhuan Falun in his Lecturing on and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference. Teacher said,

"And it doesn't stop there: things of even the final step can be pointed out to you. No matter how high a level you cultivate to, everything is in there. What a Dafa disciple should do is all in there."

Teacher's new articles are very important since they give us directions on how to deal with recently occurring issues. We need to study those new articles. However, as Teacher has been repeatedly telling us,

"What I gave man for cultivation practice is Zhuan Falun, and this book is the systematic Fa. The other things that I have said are merely interpreting Zhuan Falun and they are all supplementary." (Falun Dafa, Lecture in Sydney)

Teacher also said,

"This Law I'm teaching actually covers different levels at the same time, so as long as you cultivate, from here on out at different levels of cultivation you'll discover that it can always guide you." (Zhuan Falun Lecture Three)

Zhuan Falun is the book that systematically explains how to cultivate ourselves. In order to get rid of all sorts of attachments, we need to continually study Zhuan Falun so we can use the standards of the Fa to judge ourselves, to expose our shortcomings, and to improve our xinxing as a whole. So, we must focus our Fa-study on Zhuan Falun if we want to steadily and rapidly make progress in our cultivation.

Teacher said in the last experience sharing conference in Chicago that,

"You're Dafa disciples, so if you want to do well going forward you need to focus your emphasis on cultivation more." (Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Midwest-U.S. Fa Conference)

I hope all Falun Dafa disciples can strive forward to strengthen our individual cultivation, to do well in those three tasks that Teacher asked us to do, and not to let Teacher down.

The above are my personal understandings. Please correct me if I wrote anything inappropriate.