(Clearwisdom.net) I was under the influence of "Sleep Demons" for quite some time, as I had an attachment to comfort. I worked long hours, from half past seven in the morning until five o'clock in the evening. After getting home I would take care of the cooking and the laundry, then I would help the kids with their homework. With all this accomplished I usually felt tired and sleepy. As I had not practiced the exercises in quite a long time, I would tire very easily.
When I picked up a Falun Dafa book I would feel very sleepy after reading only a few pages. As for sending forth righteous thoughts, I found that even more difficult. Sometimes I would even fall asleep when I tried to send forth righteous thoughts. Twelve o'clock midnight (Beijing time), when practitioners all over the world send forth righteous thoughts together, I would get up feeling dazed with sleep and finish hastily. Sometimes when I was awakened by the alarm clock, I would turn it off and go back to sleep. In doing so I even made excuses, telling myself that my job was too hard, so it was okay for me not to get up at midnight. Gradually the intention to send forth righteous thoughts at midnight seemed to fade from my mind. As for doing the five sets of exercises, I would consider it good if I managed to do one set in a week or ten days. I especially disliked doing the second set and felt it was extremely hard to hold the wheel in all four positions. Whenever I thought of practicing the exercises I would tell myself to go to bed to have a little sleep first and do the exercises later, the usual result being that I slept straight through until morning, without studying the Fa or practicing the exercises.
The precious time Teacher has given us to save sentient beings was being wasted. Clarifying the truth about Falun Dafa to people was even more difficult for me. Whenever I met people who could not understand the Fa, I would show my impatience. I thought that they could not be saved because they had poor enlightenment quality. Actually, I sincerely wished to cast off all of these bad thoughts. When sleepiness came, however, my attachment to comfort would coax me to sleep for a while. I knew that this was the result of not studying the Fa enough. In this way I drifted further and further away from Teacher's requirements. I even worried that I was one of those who was arranged by the old forces to play an adverse role in Fa-rectification. However, whenever I thought that way, my original nature would not fully accept it.
I came to realize the seriousness of the problem and I asked myself, if I continue like this, won't it be like going in the opposite direction of the righteous Fa-- Then Teacher published the article "On Reading Weathering the Storm." After reading the article I could not stop crying and enlightened to the fact that cultivation is a very serious undertaking. We are suffering through hardships and we are very busy, but this is the path of human beings becoming Gods! Hardships embody mighty virtue. I knew I couldn't go on like that. Even if I did continue like that, who would be most pleased-- It would be the old forces. They just wanted to drag down practitioners like me who aren't diligent. Suddenly I thought of the true meaning of "under Buddha's infinite grace." Those sentient beings who had entrusted their greatest hopes to me are waiting for me to save them, and the people who have predestined relationships with me are also waiting for me to save them! Yet I was still driven by these "sleep demons" and the mentality of seeking comfort, and I didn't want to be diligent-- I was determined to totally deny these arrangements made by the old forces; those are part of the persecution that I would not accept. I must nobly and righteously walk the path of cultivation arranged by Teacher.
When the righteous thoughts became ever stronger in my mind,
"Indestructible righteous faith in the cosmos's Truth forms benevolent Dafa disciples' rock-solid, Diamond-Like Bodies, it frightens all evil, and the light of Truth it emanates makes the unrighteous elements in all beings' thoughts disintegrate. However strong the righteous thoughts are, that's how great the power is."
("Also in a Few Words," Essentials for Further Advancement II)
I found the "sleep demons" disintegrated instantly. Now I go to bed after midnight every day, sometimes as late as 2:30 a.m., and I still go to work the following day and don't feel tired at all. I study the Fa and practice the exercises diligently. Now I myself get to say when I go to bed.
In cultivation our thoughts have to be righteous, not human. My cultivation path is very ordinary, not like other practitioners whose cultivation paths are glorious and splendid. The reason I wrote about the "sleep demons" is to tell fellow practitioners who are still controlled by them to pay attention to this issue. Teacher arranges the path of our cultivation. When we are able to resist the bad thoughts we are actually strengthening our righteous thoughts and the evil is indeed powerless.
