Western Practitioner: Looking Within After a Serious Tribulation

(Clearwisdom.net) Hello, I would like to share about my recent experiences.

My wife, who was six months pregnant, began hemorrhaging very badly one night and had to be rushed to the hospital for an emergency Cesarean section to deliver the baby early. During the whole process I tried to send righteous thoughts, but it was like my head was blocked up and I couldn't break through it. When the situation was critical, I asked Master to help them both and the situation changed dramatically. It was as if Master had my whole family in the palms of his hands.

Since then, I have been looking within to find the causes for such a traumatic event to happen to a practitioner and his family. I can see many shortcomings on my behalf, which led to my loopholes being exploited. It has also taken me away from working on a major national project.

The first thing I could see was my attachment to lust. I had for a long time been giving in to the temptation to look at filthy things on the Internet. I know this did not come from my true self, but I always felt powerless to resist it. The last time I did this I heard a voice from another dimension commenting with disdain about how my wife was pregnant, but I was still disgracing her and myself by doing this. I believe that part of this problem was due to my failing to take the issue seriously enough and not letting go of my attachment sooner.

My second realization came in recognizing my attachment to self and having a comfortable, enjoyable life. My cultivation state had steadily degraded over the past few years, and my righteous thoughts had seemed to become weaker. As my desire for sleep and comfort increased, so had my resolve decreased accordingly. The current situation forced me to abandon these notions to a large extent, although I am still struggling to reduce my sleep. I was becoming immersed in self-importance and my own gains in life, rather than living selflessly and supporting my wife and family.

The third is my lack of faith in Master and the Fa. My thoughts are almost always negative these days. Master talks in his latest lecture about thoughts and substances attaching themselves to practitioners, and this is something I have felt over the past few years. This has led me to think that every situation will turn out negatively, and thus give the old forces more power than they actually have. I can now see that these thoughts don't belong to me and can be eliminated. I have begun trying to strengthen my righteous thoughts and clear out these substances.

Fourth, I realized that I lacked good quality Fa study. Although I had begun to really work on my concentration during Fa study, the length of my Fa study was not sufficient, with maybe only 30-45 minutes of reading each day. I know this is not nearly enough and I must break through the attachments of sleep and comfort to read more.

I also recognize my lack of sending righteous thoughts at the set times as a problem. I would like to state up front that I have never maintained a good routine of doing the early morning righteous thoughts, and over the last three years, I have slacked off on the other three set times as well. I can see that I treat it as a chore, as something that I have to do, not as something that I want to do. Even if I treat it as something I want to do, I skip it if I am doing something interesting and that I enjoy. This shows I still have too much attachment to the pursuits and enjoyments of everyday people. I know that if I can resolve to improve this, my situation will improve.

Another challenge in my cultivation is reflected in my lack of practicing the exercises. I have fallen into a bad way, only doing the exercises at the weekly class. I can feel a large amount of thought karma blocking me, and I need to break through this, as well as break through the attachment to comfort. The feeling of doing the exercises and feeling truly in the Fa is a wonderful feeling and I know I can break through these factors. As a result of not exercising, my body gets tired, leading me to want more sleep.

Yet another challenge has been my not holding myself to a practitioner's standard and recognizing the illusory nature of this world. I have noticed this especially in the hospital when I understand that the things the doctors say are only a manifestation of the Fa at this level, and the outcome of events is dictated by Master. This took me a few days to understand, and initially I found myself listening to everything they said and believing it. I now understand more and more that Master is actually calling the shots, and that Master will use whatever means necessary to save people.

All in all, I feel that I have fallen behind in Fa rectification, and have much improvement to make. I hope to catch up soon and want to take this opportunity to expose my shortcomings so they will be less of an obstacle for me, and help others who might have experienced similar problems in their cultivation.

Please point out anything inappropriate.