Western Practitioner: Experiences in Memorizing Zhuan Falun

(Clearwisdom.net) I started to practice Falun Gong in April 2004 at my university. Since then, I have been studying the Fa every day and trying to hold myself to a practitioner’s standard.

Only one weekend comes to mind – my graduation from university – when I really couldn’t calm down and find the time to study the Fa well. Those were a couple of very terrifying days, when I felt I was no longer truly in control of myself, and it was very hard for me to pick up the book and read. I remember picking up the book and the words just swam before my eyes. Even though I knew in principle that I had to study the Fa, I couldn’t muster the willpower to calm my mind, and after two hours of sitting on the bed in frustration, I really felt like a failure. I now see that at that time I had been unable to detect the problems in my xinxing, but it was also a good lesson to never neglect Fa study. After that I have tried to make Fa study a top priority every day.

Within the first year of practicing, I had a wish to memorize the Fa. I had the feeling that it was hard for me to truly understand the meaning and the weight of Teacher’s words in Zhuan Falun. I also thought it would help me to maintain and improve my xinxing amidst difficult moments, and never forget that I’m a practitioner.

I didn’t have an organized plan, though, so I just memorized whatever I felt like memorizing, or when I felt like memorizing. Compared to those practitioners I read about on the Clearwisdom website who could memorize the entire book of Zhuan Falun within a month, several months, or a year, I took a long time. But I reminded myself that what was important was to continue, no matter what. My goal was to finish memorizing the entire book of Zhuan Falun, no matter how long it took.

I will share just a few insights on how I began to memorize the Fa.

1) The first question I had was how and what to memorize. Should I do the English version? The Chinese (very slowly)? Hong Yin? Through trying different methods and reading fellow practitioners’ experiences on Clearwisdom, I decided to memorize the English version of Zhuan Falun. Reading these sharings greatly helped to motivate me. It helped me to look inside and examine my heart when I couldn’t memorize the Fa well, and gave me ideas for how to arrange my Fa study time well.

2) At first, I had the idea that I would like to be able to recite the entire book from start to finish, just like Teacher mentions in the audio lectures (Guangzhou) about the Changchun practitioners. So for the first section of Lecture One, “Genuinely Guiding People Toward High Levels,” I reviewed previous paragraphs and made sure I could recite all of them in succession before considering the section complete. But this process took me many days and I was worried that it would be too slow. I then perhaps gave myself some excuses, thinking “I don’t have that kind of Fa study environment,” “memorizing the Fa in English is different than in Chinese,” “this current phase of Fa rectification is different from the personal cultivation phase when practitioners had more time to sit and memorize the book.” So after I finished the first section of Lecture One, I decided to take the “faster” way, the more “encouraging” way. This meant that once one paragraph was memorized I would continue to the next without going back to the previous ones. I told myself that once I finished memorizing Zhuan Falun once this way, I could always go back and make my memorization more and more solid.

I decided to memorize Zhuan Falun line by line, paragraph by paragraph. So I started in Lecture One, memorized the first subheading “Genuinely Guiding People Toward High Levels,” and then the first sentence. Then the second sentence, then the third, and so on. After a few sentences I would return to the first one, and when I could recite all those sentences, I would move on to where I had left off earlier, until I finished the paragraph. Once I could recite the entire paragraph without any mistakes, I moved onto the next paragraph, and did not turn back.

Now, when I look back, I see that my attachment to time was quite strong. However, to this day I feel my understanding of the first section of Zhuan Falun is deeper than the other parts, and I do not feel it was “wasted time.” I suppose each practitioner should decide for him/herself what works best based on his/her own understanding.

3) I experienced many tests of my determination, my heart, and my state of mind while memorizing the Fa. For instance, once in a while, I would experience a “block” in my mind where I just felt I could not finish the paragraph. Sometimes it would take me several days to finish just one paragraph, and I would feel frustrated. At those times, I tried to look inside myself, and usually I would find an impure motive in my heart or a wrong notion in my mind: I wanted to make progress, I wanted to move on, I wanted to get to a more “interesting” part. For me, memorizing the Fa was a good way to expose these attachments that might have remained hidden if I had just continued to read the book through every day.

It took me about three years to finish memorizing the book, as I didn’t do it very steadily, and I would sometimes go for a few months without memorizing anything, and then I would become very motivated and memorize two paragraphs per day for a week. Through this process, however, I overcame many challenges and tests, and I feel I deepened my understanding of the Fa and what it means to cultivate. Sometimes I would feel incredible joy while reciting the Fa. I could feel all the cells in my body changing. I felt this was also a very good way to increase my Fa study time while maximally conforming to society. For instance, I could recite the Fa while I walked to work, or if I had a few minutes on the train, or if I was out to dinner and needed to clear my mind.

While I am aware I still have many, many attachments, I have greatly benefited from studying the Fa in this way. It has given me hope at times when I feel that I treat Fa study as a formality. It has allowed me to study the Fa more thoroughly and more deeply. I try to balance memorizing the Fa and reading the Fa. For instance, I feel it is very good to read as usual with group Fa study, but also spend 15-60 minutes per day memorizing the Fa. In terms of quantity, I don’t set a strict requirement for myself, but instead, just follow my heart and memorize as much as I have time to do. In this way, when I read with the group, I feel my mind is cleaner and my understanding deeper. This is because for a long time, I could not detect the deep notions that controlled my mind when I read in the group. Memorizing the Fa has helped me to face some of these notions and attachments.

While memorizing the Fa is not the only way to study the Fa, I cannot imagine having walked my path without it. It has become a very valuable and precious part of my day and I think it has really helped me to cultivate myself better.

My understanding is that the purpose of memorizing the Fa is not just to complete a task or be able to say that one has memorized the book. The purpose of studying the Fa well is to cultivate ourselves well. If memorizing the Fa can help us study the Fa better, I think we might as well try. Even memorizing just one line is incredibly precious, because it means that a part of us has assimilated to the Fa.

At times when I feel discouraged in my cultivation, and even feel resistance to studying the Fa, I tell myself to start small: memorize one phrase, one line, or one short poem. One line at a time, we will undergo changes and assimilate to the nature of the universe! For those starting to memorize Zhuan Falun, I recommend beginning with “Lunyu” and the “Table of Contents,” and then Lecture One.

I am very happy that our Fa study group has started to memorize the Chinese version of Zhuan Falun together. I can see the progress in the Chinese practitioners, and our group has become much more harmonious. In order to keep up, I have also started memorizing the English Zhuan Falun a second time, and have also started studying the Chinese version with the help of a computer program called Wenlin that translates each character into English as you drag the mouse along the text. Having the English Zhuan Falun imprinted in my mind has helped me to understand the Chinese version, because once I recognize just a couple of Chinese words, either while studying the Fa on my own or listening to Chinese practitioners in our group study, I already start to have an understanding of what the sentence says. Some day I hope to memorize the Chinese Zhuan Falun.

These are just some of my experiences in studying the Fa over the past few years. I feel that studying the Fa in these ways has helped me to let go of so many of my narrow mentalities and human attachments. It’s difficult to explain the wonders of this process in just a short article like this one.

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