(Clearwisdom.net) Follow-Up to “The Factors That Obstructed Me from Returning to Cultivation” (http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2011/4/9/124300.html)
I deviated from having a good cultivation state ever since I was persecuted, and spent several years in prison. I knew I had problems but did not know how to resolve them. I wanted to be diligent, but I was stuck in life as an ordinary person more and more as time passed. Some months ago my mother experienced sickness karma and we asked for the help of local practitioners. I had the opportunity to meet several diligent practitioners. One practitioner even came a long way to our home every day for two months. I was able to find my own problems after I had many conversations with practitioners and through Fa-study.
I have had many beautiful dreams and wishes about life since high school. I thought Dafa would help me fulfill them. I'd never realized that it was my fundamental attachments that prevented me from understanding the Fa rationally, and I was unable to understand the Fa from the Fa. Here are some examples:
I am introverted and not good at building relationships. I dislike people cheating or deceiving each other in this world. I felt that Dafa practitioners were from a pure land. I did not keep up with the ways of ordinary people or cultivate myself amidst conflicts, but instead tried my best to avoid them.
As practitioners we are told to get rid of attachments to fame and gain. I was lazy and misunderstood this as giving up fame and gain themselves, and used it as an excuse to conceal my laziness, so that I didn't have to work hard at anything.
My husband and I were on the verge of a divorce, but he totally changed after we started practicing Dafa together, and has been very good to me. I have been happy with our marriage and relationship and wanted to maintain it; however, I failed to realize that I was interfered with by the demon of lust for a long time.
I now have a new understanding of my previous dreams and wishes. My fundamental attachment was pursuing a happy life. All those beautiful dreams and wishes about a happy life were blockages on my cultivation path. After looking at things in this world from the viewpoint of the Fa, I have a new understanding.
One practitioner told me that my biggest problem was my doubts about Master and the Fa. I did have doubts initially but I thought I believed in Master and the Fa. I wasn't clear about many Fa principles while I was imprisoned. I even believed the CCP's lies about the Tiananmen Square self-immolation. I did remember that Master said that transformation was wrong, and I would not renounce Falun Gong no matter what happened. I was able to leave the prison without writing a single word of a guarantee statement or making any compromises.
I realized recently that I did not believe in Master and the Fa beyond my own life and death. I should not have advised my mother to go to the hospital for her sickness karma, but should have supported her to break through her tribulations with righteous thoughts. My root problem was not believing in and trusting Master, which is why I deviated from the Fa for many years.
In the "Golden Buddha" story, the butcher did not cultivate his outermost form but gave his whole heart to the Buddha. The Buddha then gave him a golden Buddha body. The most important thing is to believe in Master and the Fa with a pure heart.
Master said,
“If every one of you can understand the Fa from the depths of your mind, that will truly be the manifestation of the Fa whose power knows no boundary—the reappearance of the mighty Buddha Fa in the human world!” (“Cautionary Advice” from Essentials For Further Advancement)
It was not the evil beings who blocked my cultivation path for all those years, it was my own human notions. The strong field of righteous thoughts of those fellow practitioners come from their solid belief in Master and the Fa. A fellow practitioner told me, “Everything is from Master and the Fa!”
