(Clearwisdom.net) For a very long time I had not been able to concentrate when I sent forth righteous thoughts. I would be distracted with different thoughts or doze off. Sometimes I wanted to stop after only a few minutes. I was restless and constantly wanted to stand up.
I knew I was in trouble.
For the longest time I had not been able to find a solution. I dawdled my time away. I could not even concentrate when I studied the Fa. Not long ago I read a fellow practitioner's article, in which he shared his costly lesson of failing to concentrate when studying the Fa and sending forth righteous thoughts. It was a shock to me and he was right. I had been doing the three things, but I was merely getting them over with. I was passive when I clarified the truth about Falun Gong; therefore, people were not very receptive. How could I call myself a Falun Gong practitioner? I searched for relevant articles on Minghui.org and reflected upon myself. I found myself falling behind and identified my xinxing to be the root cause.
First, I did not take it seriously enough to send forth righteous thoughts. We are supposed to send forth righteous thoughts four times, but I did it only three times a day. I told myself that I should follow an everyday person's normal schedule, so I skipped the midnight global time. As for the other three rounds, I often skipped a round if I had a lunch or dinner invitation. I didn't see it as important or an honor to send forth righteous thoughts. It showed I didn't have enough respect for Teacher or the Fa. I was not acting like a cultivator. How would I have any supernormal capabilities? I had been so foolish. Teacher said,
"... when Dafa disciples around the world send righteous thoughts together at the same time, the power is boundless. So, if each person had been able to handle this matter with very strong righteous thoughts and been doing it very well from the beginning, then perhaps there would be no evil remaining now. It's precisely because many practitioners have been interfered with by one thing or another that it hasn't been done well." ("Fa Teaching at the 2007 New York Fa Conference")
Teacher said,
"when he sends forth righteous thoughts he has to be able to truly calm his mind and truly produce the effect of righteous thoughts. So this is something extremely critical, extremely important. Then if every student is able to do that, I can tell you, with five minutes of sending forth righteous thoughts together, the evil in the Three Realms will never exist again--that's how important this is." ("Fa-Lecture at the Conference in Florida, U.S.A.")
I also identified my attachment to comfort. After I retired, I felt unbearably lonesome and bored. I began to watch TV and chitchat. I might have watched TV only for a short while, but the old forces used my attachment to lure me away from my responsibility to send forth righteous thoughts or from studying the Fa. I could not calm my mind, and I felt restless. I became curious about other people's lives and meddled in other people's business and affairs. I wanted to talk about other people behind their backs. The evil old forces expanded my attachments even further. I lost interest in doing the three things. Instead, I was absorbed in everyday people's affairs. Even though I slept a lot, I constantly felt sleepy.
Moreover, I was not receptive to fellow practitioners' feedback. I thought they were dramatizing my problems. I even rebutted by picking on their problems and quoting Teacher's works to back myself up. My belligerence and my ego blinded me from my problems. For a very long time I was trapped in a bad place and lost many opportunities to upgrade my xinxing level.
Once I identified my attachments, I spent one additional hour each day to eliminate those bad notions. At first I had difficulty calming my mind and constantly wanted to stop. Then I told myself, "It is not my true self that did not want to send forth righteous thoughts. If you do not want me to send forth righteous thoughts, then I shall do it to eliminate you." After persevering for two weeks, I was able to calm my mind. I knew it was Teacher that removed those bad thoughts from me.
Teacher said,
"Cultivation depends on one’s own efforts, while the transformation of gong is done by one’s master." (Lecture One, Zhuan Falun)
It is because I genuinely wanted to eliminate these bad notions and worked hard at it that Teacher removed them for me.
Nowadays I am able to send forth righteous thoughts in tranquility every day. I feel warm all over my body and very comfortable. I like sending forth righteous thoughts more and more. I can feel my energy field becoming cleaner. I am able to focus when I study the Fa. Since I have immensely benefited from reading fellow practitioners' articles, I decided to share my humble insights with the hope that those fellow practitioners who are facing the same challenges will start making a change now. It is important for us to have a steadfast faith in Teacher's words, search inward quickly and eliminate any attachment that has made us stray from the Fa. Once it is eliminated, we will upgrade our cultivation level. Then we will be able to send forth righteous thoughts effectively and assist Teacher in Fa-rectification.
