(Clearwisdom.net) Over the past five years that I've been a Dafa practitioner, I have read Zhuan Falun many times. However, when I started to try to memorize and recite the Fa, I found the characters that had looked familiar difficult to remember. Teacher's Fa teachings, unlike ordinary people's theories with intentionally profound wordings, are accessible and easy to understand, yet I am still unable to recite a paragraph after reading it several times. I have even forgotten the first sentence when trying to recite the paragraph. I sometimes can't even recite one sentence at a time correctly, without adding or omitting a word.
The attachments of dispute, hatred, and grievances that I thought I had already eliminated suddenly resurfaced and interfered with me as I tried to recite the Fa. This interference caused me to unknowingly lose focus, and relive recent personal events over and over.
Suddenly, I realized what was happening. Since I was reciting the Fa to eliminate attachments, how could I have these bad thoughts? How could I be leashed by these attachments? When looking at the contents that I wasn't able to recite, they were centered on "de" (virtue) and "karma."
"While swearing at or bullying another person, he is tossing de at this other person."
"An everyday person cannot see this principle at this level. Feeling humiliated, he cannot put up with it and thinks, 'Since you hit me, I've got to return the same.'"
(Zhuan Falun)
I came to understand that the reason I wasn't able to recite was that I had not completely gotten rid of these attachments--the process of reciting the Fa was to eliminate them. Thus, this thought karma that had been formed in my daily life was unwilling to disappear and was struggling with me to avoid being eliminated.
The sentiments I was holding onto were nothing but trash in the eyes of gods. There's no difference between good and bad trash--all must be thrown away before one's level can be raised even a little. This is the difference between Dafa practitioners and everyday people.
Looking deeper within myself lately, I had felt depressed about looking for a job and my graduation thesis. Wasn't my fear about not getting a job like everyone else's? In fact, I still kept my original job but hope I'll be getting a much better one after graduation--isn't that an attachment of fame? When I was recommended to take a temporary teaching job at a college, my first thought was not about whether I could do a good job and take the opportunity to clarify the truth. Instead, I was considering the possibility of getting a position there after my graduation.
Since I was thinking of my own personal gain with regard to everything, with such a strong attachment of selfishness, how could I not be taken advantage by the old forces? That's why I not only haven't been able to do the three things well recently, but also I've interfered with things among everyday people. No wonder people have been saying that I haven't been looking well. I've been worrying too much about ordinary things on a daily basis.
Reciting the Fa isn't simply remembering written words. It's assimilating oneself to the basic characteristics of the universe, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. It's correcting oneself. Teacher has born our karma in history. What we do today is assimilating ourselves to the requirements of Dafa. Teacher said,
"In other words, you should pay attention to xinxing cultivation and practice cultivation according to the characteristic of the universe, Zhen-Shan-Ren. You must completely dispose of the desires of ordinary people, immoral thoughts, and the intention of wrongdoing. With every bit of improvement in your state of mind, some bad things will be eliminated from your body." (Zhuan Falun)
Having found my attachments, I was quickly able to recite this paragraph of the Fa, and I was able to recite the following two more paragraphs in less than twenty minutes. After reciting the three paragraphs, I felt great, and I became an entirely different person. Teacher said,
"Cultivation depends on one's own efforts, while the transformation of gong is done by one's master. It is good enough if you have this wish. It is the master who actually does this, as you are simply unable to do it. "(Zhuan Falun)
I was already familiar with Teacher's words above, but today I had an entirely different feeling. My deepest gratitude to Teacher!
I previously studied the Fa every day, but due to my attachments and significant interference at times, merely reading the Fa didn't always allow me to absorb the meaning. On the surface, I seemingly read a couple of lectures, but its effectiveness was unknown. Soon after putting down the book, sometimes one phone call could stir up my attachments again, and I lost all righteous thoughts and started arguing with people. Before becoming a Dafa practitioner, I had a strong attachment to arguing and a violent temper. Because of this, I frequently had disputes with people, which affected my truth clarification. I really regret this when I look back on it. There's an old saying, "It's easy to change rivers and mountains but hard to change a person's nature." I could not imagine my current improvements without Dafa.
Thank you, Teacher
October 28, 2009
