(Clearwisdom.net) An ordinary person thinks that having a wealth of experiences in life is a good thing. It is even recognized as one of the treasures of life. However for a cultivator, such things are not to be compared with one's true self, but are rather notions and external things that we cannot be attached to, and have to let go of.

I used to be a very successful teacher. I taught the Chinese language very well and my students did very well in their exams. I later moved to another school and it turned out to be very difficult. I taught the same way as I did before, but my students did not do well in their exams. At the time, I was always searching externally for reasons. I thought that it must be because the other teachers were doing something under the table. Of course, there indeed was something going on behind the scenes: the problems tested during the exams had all been tested before, so the other classes were well prepared for it. As such, I looked outward even more. I even put in great efforts into competing with others rather than looking inward to find my own attachments.

A few days ago I was studying Teacher's lecture "Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Houston" in which Teacher said:

"With modern people in particular, do they really know how they are living? In his life, from youth to adulthood, a person accumulates many 'experiences,' and these 'experiences' form notions in the person's mind. People think that when they run into a problem that 'as long as I deal with it this way it will work out.' Then after a while, in this fashion fixed notions come to be formed. You think that you have dealt with many things well, but you yourself don't exist anymore; you have entered a slumber. The 'you' living in everyday society--your flesh body--has been dominated by those postnatally-formed notions. Doing this, doing that, all day you are in a daze, and you pass the days like this. But those notions were all produced so as to protect you from harm. But if you aren't harmed, you cannot repay karma; you will gain in ways that you shouldn't have; and you will harm others, thus constantly creating karma. And that karma is alive, for the postnatal notions and the karma form thought-karma in the brain. Then when you cultivate, you have to eliminate it."

Teacher also said:

"If human beings can change their rigid mentality and have a new understanding of themselves and the cosmos, they will make a leap forward. " ("On Buddha Law" from Essentials for Further Advancement)

Yet I was actually holding on to the notions that had been formed during my lifetime as an ordinary person.

Teacher again said:

"Have you paused to consider: is there really anything that you cannot let go? In the course of history you tasted honor and glory, and you endured enormous ordeals. In those long, drawn-out years of waiting, you went through everything possible all so as to arrive at the present. And by all accounts you should be able to, at the end, finish the journey well. Whether your validating of the Fa goes well or not is often simply your own doing." ("Fa Teaching Given in the NTDTV Meeting")

One's life experiences are not the same as one's true self. Whenever we encounter a problem, we should search inward for reasons; we should not measure an occurrence based on our past experience, rather, we should measure it against the Fa.

The above are just a few of my humble understandings, which could be inappropriate in some parts.

October 6, 2009