(Clearwisdom.net) Recently, there have been two kinds of cultivation states manifesting among some practitioners. One is that some practitioners have shown relatively serious symptoms of karma elimination, while another one is that some practitioners have developed severe interpersonal conflicts (especially with their spouses). I think that these are all situations that may need to appear with the acceleration of the Fa rectification in its final stage. But some practitioners feel that they cannot endure the tribulations any longer. These tribulations are, in fact, the practitioners’ tests that are manifested in aggravated ways.
Some practitioners cough and have chest pains that are so severe that they cannot straighten their backs. Some cannot walk because of the pain in their legs. Some have rashes on their bodies, which are intolerably itchy. Different practitioners have shown different severities of conditions. Most of the practitioners have tried to eliminate the interference by sending forth righteous thoughts, but it has not worked well. Some could not endure the suffering anymore and they went to get injections and took medication.
All practitioners know that when Master arranges our cultivation, Master has placed our remaining karma at different stages of our cultivation for the purpose of letting us raise our xinxing. So I feel that our xinxing level should get increasingly elevated, and accordingly, our process of eliminating karma should also go from the easy ones to the difficult ones. Because practitioners have different amounts of karma, Master’s arrangements for practitioners are also different. Some practitioners have not experienced much hardship in the stage of their personal cultivation and they did not suffer much during the sitting mediation exercise, so they may need to make up the missed sessions. (Of course, it is also possible that many practitioners’ xinxing levels have become increasingly higher, whereas they have not experienced their karma elimination, becoming more difficult).
Usually karma elimination will not affect doing the three things. If doing the three things is affected, the practitioner can send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the interference. However, this will work only when the practitioner can send forth righteous thoughts with a strong focus, with nothing else in their minds. For the karma elimination arranged by Master, the practitioner should be able to get through it with some effort. For a few practitioners who cannot withstand the suffering, what should they do? In case of tribulations, whom should they ask for help? Should they ask Master for help or resort to ordinary people’s means? This is a critical issue. If one goes to get injections or take medicine, he or she has already lowered him or herself into an ordinary person’s level. One practitioner said, "I have asked Master for help. It does not work. What should I do?" First, one should not ask Master for help for whatever tribulation one has encountered. Cultivation means that one should cultivate oneself and make improvement by oneself. One cannot let Master do all the cultivation for oneself. Second, it is Master who has arranged the tribulation, so how could it work to ask Master to eliminate the tribulation? Master said,
"For instance, when I taught a class in Changchun, there was a person with very good inborn quality, who was indeed a good prospect. I found him to be very good and increased his tribulations a little bit so that he could quickly repay karma and become enlightened—I was preparing it this way." ("Lecture Six" of Zhuan Falun, 2000 translation version)
Third, it is not that Master’s help does not work when we encounter severe tribulations. It is that Master cannot help us because we have taken the karma elimination as our having an illness and as a result, we have already lowered ourselves to the ordinary person's level. How can Master casually take care of ordinary persons’ problems?! There is another issue: It was initially karma elimination, but when the practitioner deemed it as an illness, the old forces would have found the excuse to make the tribulation worse: "It is already in the last phase of cultivation. He still considers himself an ordinary person. If the tribulation becomes a little severe, he may stop his cultivation. Look! A fake practitioner has been screened out."
Master will certainly help us if we have strong righteous thoughts. In this region, there is a female practitioner who has experienced severe symptoms of dizziness. When she could not endure it anymore, she knelt on the bed and asked Master for help: "Your disciple’s will is not very strong and I really cannot withstand it anymore. This time I beg Master for help!" Before she finished her words, she and her husband saw, at the same time, a Falun rotating above the wall clock. She immediately felt clearheaded and everything became fine. In fact, one does not necessarily need to ask Master for help; one single thought can show whether a practitioner is a human or a god, and accordingly, the effect will be drastically different. When some practitioners felt excruciating pain and could not endure it anymore, they then thought in a different way: "I am Master’s genuine disciple. I am a god and as huge as the cosmos. I can correct any incorrect states!" With such a thought coming out, all the tribulations were immediately gone. There are many such examples.
There are also some practitioners with karma-elimination that has lasted relatively long. This is possibly because the practitioners’ xinxing in certain aspects have not been improved and they have stalled at a certain cultivation level. It is also possible that these practitioners need to pay back the karmic debts that they have accumulated in their current and past lives. At the end of their cultivation, they need to pay it all back. It will not do if the practitioners want to have Master eliminate all the karma for them and they then suffer nothing; they cannot reach Consummation in leisurely and relaxed ways. Master said,
"There is this saying: ‘The great Fa is boundless.’ Cultivating it depends entirely on your heart. As to how high your cultivation level can reach, it all depends on your endurance and your ability to bear hardships." ("Lecture Two" of Zhuan Falun)
It is relatively easy to pass physical tribulations, while mental conflicts are more difficult to pass. Nowadays, many mental conflicts often exist between couples. Some practitioners have said, "I can tolerate others’ criticizing me. I just cannot tolerate his or her criticizing me." Some said, "It is fine if he or she were an ordinary person. But he or she is a practitioner. I cannot tolerate his or her criticizing." There are still some others saying, "He or she is a Dafa practitioner. His or her attitude was so bad. I struck back so I could help him or her to improve." We should view this issue this way: When he or she helps you in your karma elimination, you cannot turn back and go to criticize him or her under the guise of helping their karma elimination. This is, in fact, because you always stare at others’ mistakes, do not search within yourselves, and find excuses for your striking back. This is just like what Master has said,
"Perhaps as soon as you step in the door, your spouse will throw a fit right in your face. If you endure it, your effort of practicing qigong today is not in vain. Some people also know that in qigong practice one should value de. Therefore, this person usually gets along very well with his spouse. He thinks, "Usually, if I say ‘one,’ she doesn’t say ‘two.’ Today she’s overruling me." He cannot control his temper and will start a fight. With this, today’s practice ends up in vain." ("Lecture Four" of Zhuan Falun)
People often get used to their own temper and shortcomings, and they no longer think there is anything wrong with themselves. Once criticized, one would become intolerant and get irritated. As a result, the family members would stay away from the practitioner. If everyone only says good words to you, how can you eliminate your shortcomings? It is because a husband and a wife care about each other that he or she speaks what he or she thinks about the other side directly and without reservations. Because a couple have lived together for many years and they know each other very well, one can point out what his or her spouse has specifically not done well. Furthermore, when one speaks at home, one should not mind what his or her spouse will think. One practitioner said, "She has never been so harsh in her words in the past," while the practitioner’s spouse said, "It cannot get his attention if the words were not harsh." As a result, some practitioners feel that they cannot accept their spouses’ attitudes, and they even feel that their spouses are deliberately making trouble for no reason.
It is, in fact, that different persons need different cultivation environments. The husband and wife may provide the cultivation environment for each other. Being Dafa cultivators, we cultivate in the ordinary society and do not need to stay in temples or go wandering around. So how could we raise our xinxing? Master said,
"Wandering around in society is rather torturous. It must beg for food and meet different kinds of people who will scold, insult, or take advantage of it." ("Lecture Eight" of Zhuan Falun)
In the process of our cultivation, we need others to create the opportunities for us to elevate our xinxing. So there are situations where some people will talk about us in bad ways or deliberately make trouble for us, which are used to test our tolerance and endurance. Otherwise, how could we have mighty virtue after we get into a paradise? If the others are always modest, kind, and reasonable, how can our tolerance and endurance be tested? Therefore, the husband and wife need to provide for each other the opportunities for xinxing improvement. We really should not become angry at our spouses. It is possible we have owed something to our spouses in the past. Now they are helping us in transforming our karma, and we need to thank our spouses from the bottom of our hearts! We also should not be too picky about their attitudes. Although he or she is also a Dafa cultivator, his or her side that has cultivated well has been separated by Master. Sometimes it is Master who has used our spouses’ mouths to say some things, which are hints from Master. Therefore, we need to be understanding towards our spouses and be tolerant. We need to be strict with ourselves and search within ourselves. In the future, after we have reached consummation, we will look back and find that it is because of the predestined relationship between a couple that one spouse has helped the other tremendously!
Of course, we can make suggestions to help fellow practitioners; however, we need to base our views on the Fa. We should be compassionate, rather than get angry. If we always view things from ordinary people’s angles, keep bringing up the things that happened in past, and become very angry, we may have already dropped down in our xinxing. If we speak bad words and deliberately make trouble, we may also lose virtue. Every thought and every word of ours carries a different meaning, so the resulting consequence of our words would also be different.
Master said,
"Of course, the process of cultivation is a very slow and gradual one, and one must sacrifice quite a lot. It is not very easy for one to temper oneself physically and mentally." ("Lecture Nine" of Zhuan Falun)
We study the Fa every day. We know and even recite Master’s words very well. But we have not done very well in following Master’s words. Therefore, I have cited some of Master’s words here. It does not matter if the tribulations are used to temper ourselves physically or mentally, these are karma eliminations and they are all xinxing tests. They are probably not nearly as bad as "A hundred hardships falling all at once." ("Tempering One’s Heart and Will" in Hong Yin, English Translation Version B)
In the last phase of the Fa rectification, we need to more closely rectify ourselves. With the speeding up of the Fa rectification, we also need to hurry up in cultivating ourselves well. We should not just busy ourselves in doing Dafa work, while forgetting our own cultivation. Only with raising our xinxing can we do even better in assisting Master in the Fa rectification.
