(Clearwisdom.net) Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
I came to Australia from China more than two years ago. I personally feel that the cultivation environment overseas is also very tough. One still cannot improve oneself without diligence in cultivation. The evil factors from the other dimensions will still interfere and try to stop all beings from being saved. As Dafa disciples, the true meaning of our existence today is to offer salvation to more sentient beings, not for personal cultivation. Our cultivation has a direct impact on sentient beings’ salvation. So the cultivation requirements overseas are as stringent as in China. If we do not cultivate well overseas, it will also cause great losses.
While cultivating overseas, the environment on the surface appears to be very relaxed, and there appears to be no trail of the evil persecution. But in the areas of searching within and coordinating as one body, the requirements are even higher and more stringent. Overseas, as long as you want to cultivate, you can participate in any group practice regardless of how many attachments you still have. However, if we don't search within, even though it is a matter of self cultivation, it will have an overall negative impact. This kind of damage and disturbance normally would not be noticed by us. In fact, the interference could be regarded as the others’ problems because, at the same time, we are still busy doing many Dafa activities every day. Therefore, overseas practitioners must look inward and cultivate more stringently. We need to look more at other practitioners’ strengths, emphasize letting go of self, and embrace one another as one body.
Last year I participated in a project, but in the end there were many conflicts among our fellow practitioners. We broke up in discord. At that time, everyone felt they were right. I also took this matter to heart. I had always felt it was a certain practitioner who caused the problem, and that the truth was on my side. I even had the ordinary thoughts of interfering on behalf of the injured party. I held this incorrect thinking for nearly six months. I even told other practitioners, “I have finally gotten a taste of the cultivation environment in Sydney. No wonder Master had to dedicate a lecture to practitioners in Australia.” All I could see was someone else's shortcomings while holding myself aloof from the masses. I had virtually placed myself outside the one body, but benevolent Master had been waiting patiently for me to come to realize the truth.
At times when my mind calmed down, I was in agony. I vaguely felt that there must have been problems within myself. However, because it was difficult for my mind to calm down, I could never truly identify my own problems. Instead, it was easier to look at others' faults. Regardless of how I looked at it, I always felt that I had good reasoning. The only reason I was also worried about this matter was because I was trying to uphold the Fa instead of my own personal gain. Therefore, I wanted other practitioners to change. This kind of mentality stopped me from searching within. I tried to communicate with the practitioner with whom I had the conflict. Before I spoke to him, I kept telling myself to calm down and to have compassion towards him. But very quickly we ended up having a communication breakdown.
The call for papers for this year's Fa Conference then came. Fellow practitioners asked me to submit a paper. I told them I had nothing to write about because I was lacking a good state of mind. I knew I had problems, but I was unable to pinpoint exactly where they were. I explained my frustrations to a fellow practitioner over the phone. She then shared her experiences with me. We chatted for hours. As an outsider, she saw through my problems. She didn't seem to be interested in any specific incidents that had just occurred around me; she only pointed out my attachments. She said to me, “The only way to solve your problems is to search within. You should calm down and have a face-to-face, candid conversation with the practitioner with whom you had the conflict.”
This practitioner's sharing touched me deeply. At the same time, I was reciting Master's "Further Understanding" from Essentials for Further Advancement. In it, Master said,
“The tests for you to pass are in fact meant to remove your demon-nature. Nonetheless, from time to time you have used various excuses or Dafa itself to hide it, and failed to improve your xinxing while missing opportunities again and again.”
“Do you realize that as long as you’re a cultivator, in any environment or under any circumstances, I will use any troubles or unpleasant things you come across—even if they involve work for Dafa, or no matter how good or sacred you think they are—to eliminate your attachments and expose your demon-nature so that it can be eliminated, for your improvement is what’s most important.”
In comparing myself to Master’s teachings, I see I was just using Dafa work to cover up my own attachments. I have watched Master's lecture "Fa Teaching Given to the Australian Practitioners" in 2007 many times now. But only when my mind has calmed down and after comparing myself to Master's Fa principles, have I realized that there are still principles I have not yet fully understood. In this lecture, Master said when we see other practitioners who have not done well, we should be feeling sad and offering our sympathy and support to them instead of criticizing and forcing them to accept our points of view. In comparing my actions to Master's requirements, I was totally wrong. I didn't follow what Master asked us to do.
Looking back at that unpleasant encounter, even though I kept reminding myself to calm down and be benevolent, I was in fact still trying to convince him. The reason for my benevolence was to make him accept my point of view, it was not true benevolence. Therefore, he could not feel my compassion. I didn't see my own problems and search within. I wasn't treating my fellow practitioner as my bosom friend. I forgot about the Fa principles when going through tests myself. I was using Master's Fa principles to judge other practitioners rather than cultivating myself.
I also discovered the impurity in my mind. Whenever I saw or even just thought about the practitioners I had conflicts with, very negative images about them immediately appeared in my mind. These negative thoughts continued to strengthen in my mind. I even vented to other fellow practitioners, and I was therefore passing on these negative thoughts to them. If they then passed them on to more practitioners, the entire negative field would spread even further. If more practitioners only talked about thoughts of dissatisfaction of a certain matter or disagreement they had with other practitioners or coordinators, how could the whole Fa-validation environment become positive? How could we ever have a breakthrough in promoting the annual Shen Yun performance? I was part of the reason for this negative environment. At the same time, I kept coming up with ‘plausible’ excuses, that it was all due to others' problems. I even said that I finally got a taste of the problems in Australia. Master said in "Fa Teaching Given to the Australian Practitioners" in 2007 that nowadays, as soon as two Chinese get together, they close their hearts immediately. This is exactly what happened to me. If there was a problem in Australia, then I should first ask myself why. Master said,
“Nobody should blame others for it, as everyone has added fuel to the flame." (“Lecture Seven” from Zhuan Falun)
Master also said,
“Every attachment for you to remove in your cultivation practice is a wall, standing there and blocking your path of cultivation practice." (“Environment,” from Essentials for Further Advancement)
Gradually I feel the path ahead of me opening up, because I can finally see my own problems. During our nighttime media group Fa study, the person I had conflicts with was also there. So in front of everyone, I apologized to him. I admitted that it was my own fault and I hadn't acted in accordance with Master's requirements. At the time, I felt my eyes were a little bit moist. I was finally able to search within instead of focusing on others' faults. After I finished talking, I went straight to that practitioner and asked to have a separate discussion with him. I saw that his eyes were also moist. He was truly touched by my sincerity. Finally, our hearts came together.
I was finally able to start searching within through this incident, but in regards to other issues in my daily cultivation, the impurities in my mind still come up constantly. Sometimes I still have resentment towards a certain matter or certain fellow practitioners. When it happens, I now say to myself, “Alright, my heart has been disturbed again. Now is my chance to cultivate, I should not let this opportunity pass. This happened only because I still have attachments that have not been eliminated. They are now exposed through this incident. This is my chance to seize the moment and eliminate them once and for all.”
I would also like to thank the fellow practitioner who spent hours of her precious time to share experiences with me and point out my problems with compassion. Otherwise I might still not be able to get out of my own predicament. As practitioners in Australia, we should lend one another a helping hand. We all have areas where we need improvement. We might hurt other practitioners’ feelings without even realizing it. During times like these, we really need to help each other with compassion so we can eliminate our attachments. I sincerely hope that every Dafa disciple in Australia can meet Master’s requirements to form an environment that enables us to search within and catch up with the advancement of Fa-rectification, just like the Canadian Dafa practitioners have done, to truly make Master satisfied.
Thank you, Master! Thank you, fellow practitioners!
