(Clearwisdom.net)

I had taken countless exams in my life and still clearly remember the situations. When an exam was nearing its end, the supervising teacher would say, "There are only 5 minutes remaining, please check your answers and prepare to hand in your answer sheet." At this moment, there were all kinds of reactions from the students. Some students became anxious; some students' goal was just to pass the exam so they did not worry about the problems that they could not solve; some students became nervous and did not know which problem to concentrate on; some students already finished answering all the questions, so they got up, turned in the sheet and left the room; and of course, there were students who had already finished all the answers, but still quietly checked their answers and made full use of each remaining minute.

In a recent lecture, Master mentioned that time was short. What kind of attitude are we going to take? I feel that no matter how we have done on our answers, we should carefully examine ourselves in the final moments and repeatedly look inward. Being steadfast, sticking to and cultivating diligently to the end - shouldn't these be the basic qualities that an enlightened being should have? And yet, cultivation during this Fa-rectification period is totally different from ordinary people's exams. It is much more difficult than any matters of everyday people. On the one hand, the evil is getting more and more vicious in their final struggle, but on the other hand, our cultivation is getting closer and closer to the surface layer. At the same time, our surface layer is the worst part, and the low-level spirits, karma, notions, and even lust, which have been mentioned repeatedly in recent times, are accumulated in our surface layer, which encounters huge interference.

Speaking for myself, some things that I had no trouble dealing with in the past are now more difficult to deal with. I have repeatedly delayed going out to distribute truth-clarification materials. In the past, if I did not do any exercises one day, I would treat it as a big thing that was not tolerable. Recently I became less strict with myself, especially with the fifth exercise, "Strengthening Divine Powers." I often failed to do it. Now I realize this is due to interference from the evil. They are afraid of me clarifying the truth, afraid of me sending forth righteous thoughts, and afraid of me doing this exercise.

I am also a person who wrote a "Solemn Statement" on Clearwisdom.net. Here I want remind all the practitioners who have written a "Solemn Statement" that a divine being follows through on what he or she says.

What does it mean to talk about "catching up with redoubled effort?" If it is the same as before, or worse than before, how can we call it "redoubled effort?" If we do not double our effort, how can we talk about "catching up?"

Although the last 5 minutes of an exam are not long, those few minutes can better test a person. This is because the remaining problems are the hard ones that we cannot solve; moreover, fatigue will test our remaining strength.

Master has said, "Since you are cultivators, even though it's hard you should do even better." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2001 Canada Fa Conference" from Guiding the Voyage) This is a request for us; it is also a huge strengthening of our energy.

The purpose of this article is to encourage those practitioners who are not very diligent in cultivation. This is my personal understanding. Please point out any mistakes.

June 25, 2003