(Clearwisdom.net)

3. Looking inside. We should judge our behavior and thoughts by applying the Fa. We should always conduct ourselves in accordance with the Fa.

Teacher said in Zhuan Falun,

"Without knowing the Fa at high levels, one cannot practice cultivation. Without cultivating one's inner self and one's xinxing, one cannot increase gong. These are the two reasons." "The understanding of the Truth of the cosmos by students of Dafa cultivation is an elevation that results from rational understanding and experience." (Excerpt from "Further Comments on Superstition")

Studying the Fa and looking inside are both very important. The two are complementary to and encompass each other. In the very beginning of our cultivation, we were looking inside and studying the Fa according to Teacher's expectations; but looking inside at different levels has different levels of meanings and the Fa's requirements of us are also different.

The current issue is whether or not we can look inside ourselves, and by doing so, change ourselves fundamentally.

"But as for the matter at hand, many of the cosmos's Kings and Lords know that it is critical to the survival of the firmament; if this Fa-rectification doesn't succeed everything will be gone. Yet they don't want fundamental changes. So it's exactly under the effect of this complicated state of mind that the beings of different levels have demonstrated the true realms deep inside themselves and their behavior." (Excerpt from Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Midwest-U.S. Fa Conference)

In real cultivation, every practitioner knows that he should look inside, but many practitioners cannot look at what is most fundamental, and still only look outside. For example:

I think the reason why the above phenomena still exist is that our understanding of looking inside is still confusing and unclear. Different levels have different understandings. "Selfishness" is the reason why the old Cosmos is disintegrating and why sentient beings degenerated. The old forces wanted to save the whole Cosmos but they could not, because their whole arrangement is based on changing others to meet their own selfish purposes. They never fundamentally change themselves, but constantly protect themselves by changing others.

Thus there exists a centrifugal force between particles of the cosmos, and the Cosmos expands constantly and disintegrates eventually to fulfill the process of the "creation, stasis, degeneration and destruction cycle." The Fa in the new Cosmos, however, is all encompassing, all harmonizing and indestructible.

In the process of us assimilating to Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance, and becoming a new life in the new Cosmos, we keep studying the Fa, assessing ourselves with the Fa, and eliminating all those bad elements from the old Cosmos, using the mechanism of looking inside just as Teacher told us.

We should look inside, change ourselves fundamentally, and constantly correct our behavior, thoughts and those elements that are not righteous according to the Fa. We should be tolerant and understanding with an integrating centripetal force to cooperate, and we should always be doing things according to the Fa.

Then how do we look inside? I often hear practitioners say that they have difficulty looking inward, or they don't know how. I think we can try the following:

If you do not analyze or consider what you are thinking, then you are not doing a good job as gatekeeper against bad thoughts; instead, you let them in.

"And where do people's thoughts really come from? Scientists have now realized that man's brain isn't really where his thoughts originate. So where do people's thoughts come from? Everybody thinks they come from what they've learned in the ordinary society and from their own reasoning. But that's not how it works. When an everyday person has a thought about doing something, his brain actually hasn't gone through some long process of reflection. A lot of things just instantly pop up, and a lot of words just roll right out off the tongue. So then just where exactly do those thoughts come from? We cultivators all know that there are actually connections between a person's mind and factors in a lot of different dimensions, and when it comes to major things, man is just doing things under the control of other beings. He's just acting things out here in the human world, that's all. The surface of the human body, the postnatally formed body, is really nothing." (Excerpt from "Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A.")

"When this happens, some cultivators get confused about what's going on, and they think that those are their thoughts. And then there are people who think it's possession, but it's not. It's caused by the thought-karma reflecting into their brains. Some people's master consciousnesses aren't strong, and so they go along with the thought-karma and do bad things. They're done for, and they fall. But most people can use their strong minds (their strong master consciousnesses) to get rid of it, to fight it. That shows that this guy can be saved, and that he can tell good from bad, and it means that his comprehension is good. My Law Bodies will help him remove most of that thought-karma. This situation is pretty common. When it comes up, it all depends on whether the person can overcome these bad thoughts. When you can stay steadfast we can eliminate karma." (Excerpt from Zhuan Falun -- "Your Master Consciousness Needs to be Strong")

Whenever we try to eliminate them, they behave more wildly, but no matter what, we should be determined to eliminate them. Then eventually they will be eliminated. It is only an issue of time. Sometimes it needs a process or you may have to do it again and again. But if we are determined in our righteous thoughts, eventually they will be eliminated.

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If you look outside, and find faults with others, aren't you missing out on opportunities and on the nature of cultivation? As a cultivator, the nature of cultivation is to for us to improve ourselves, so we should take advantages of all of these situations to look inside whole heartedly and unconditionally. All bad thoughts, attachments, and elements of the old forces are afraid of us looking inside because they know that we will find them and eliminate them.

This is really changing ourselves fundamentally and assimilating ourselves to the new Cosmos and thus sentient beings can be saved.

"If whenever we encounter things, we could look inside ourselves, then I say, this person is really great. There will be no obstacles that could stop you in your consummation path of cultivation. But often times when we encounter things we would look outside and think, 'Why would you treat me like this?' A sense of unfairness arises in your heart. You don't look inside yourself. This is the biggest and fatal obstacle of all beings. In the past, people were talking about the issue of not being able to make it in cultivation. How could one make it without overcoming the biggest obstacle? Nobody wants to look inside himself in a conflict, thinking that he himself suffered a lot already but still has to look inside himself. It is really hard to do. Whoever could do that, I would say, in the path, in this cultivation path, in the immemorial future of your life journey, no obstacles could stop you. It really is like this. Although we still could not pass tests at times, we understand the principles in our heart. We know what is right and what is wrong. If we could not do well the first time or second time, we could do well later. The key here is whether or not you know yourself and how you treat yourself and look inside yourself."

"I've often said that when two people have friction between each other, each should examine him or herself. Not only should the two people with the friction examine themselves, but also the bystanders who happen to observe the incident should examine themselves. Then you'll really improve by leaps and bounds." (Excerpts from Lecture in Singapore Fa Conference)

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"Having humanly fostered the evil demons, you allow them to capitalize on the loopholes in the Fa" (From "Expounding on the Fa" Essentials For Further Advancement).

Eventually we cause loss, which is why our cultivation path is very narrow. We should try our best to be strict with ourselves in every aspect, because the closer we are to the end, the fewer opportunities we will have. We need to try our best to fare well on our cultivation path.

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In a nutshell, fundamental changes come from the ability to let go, giving up what we used to think were beautiful human thoughts, ideas, and different levels of understanding of the Fa, while continuously striving to improve and transcend ourselves and to let go of our own stubbornness. We need to be open to suggestions from our fellow practitioners, taking advantage of every opportunity around us to look inside to establish a self-mending mechanism. Thus our sentient beings can be saved, our cosmic body will never degenerate, and our whole Dafa body can cooperate and harmonize well to maximize our abilities as a whole to better save all sentient beings.

Please see Part 1 at
http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2003/9/3/39858.html

Part 2:

http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2003/9/12/40162.html

Part 3:

http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2003/9/14/40250.html

Part 4:

http://clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2003/9/15/40295.html

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(Translated on September 7, 2003 from an edited version of

http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/8/28/56253.html )