Young Practitioner: Dafa Guides Me

(Minghui.org) I began practicing Falun Dafa with my family when I was very young. Even though I had no understanding about cultivation, deep down I knew that Dafa is good for me. 

Breaking My Addiction to the Internet

My classmates introduced internet gaming to me in the fourth grade, and I was soon hooked. Not playing for several days would put me in an agonizing mood. There was no internet at home, so I played at a neighbor's or friends’ house.

Staring at the computer screen made my head groggy. I realized the severity of my addiction when my grades noticeably dropped. Believing myself to be a Falun Dafa practitioner, I was determined to stop playing computer games. There were a few times I did not control myself and regretted it later. Master must have seen my righteous thoughts and I soon stopped playing.

In middle school, out of curiosity, I clicked on a pornographic link. Since then, I regularly searched for pictures of this nature on the internet. Several months later, as I picked up a Dafa book, I could not look at Master's portrait. I begged Master for forgiveness and vowed to change. However, after being submerged in lustful thoughts for so long, my righteous thoughts were gone. I could not resist the temptation.

Eventually, I started to question whether Master still considered me as his disciple or not.

One day, I read this:

“I have talked before about the old forces' interference. Have you thought about the following? [Sexual desire] is one of the factors [they use] to hold you back! What do the old forces and the old cosmos see as the gravest thing? Lust, [in the form of] sexual activity outside of marriage. That's what they see as the most serious of things. In the past, once someone violated the precept on that, he would be thrown out of the temple, and his cultivation would be utterly finished. So how do gods look at this now? Do you know what they have said in the prophecies that they left behind? They prophesied that all of the Dafa disciples who would be left in the end would be those who had maintained their purity along these lines. In other words, these things are extremely serious to them. So the old forces and all of the gods in that cosmos will not defend anyone who violates the prohibition on this, anyone who doesn't do well in this regard; in fact they will push you downwards. They know [and think to themselves], 'Li Hongzhi, you won't abandon your disciples, so we will make you abandon them.' That's why they have the students who have made mistakes make more mistakes, over and over, and in the end do wicked things and go to the opposite side. 'We will fill his head with crooked understandings and make him damage Dafa. Then we will see if you still keep him.' And you know, that is what they have done. Do you think all those who have 'enlightened' along an evil path really wanted to go toward evilness? There are reasons behind all of that.” (Teaching the Fa in the City of Los Angeles)

I was filled with gratitude: Master will not give up on me! I need to pick myself up quickly and correct my mistake. That was when I became a genuine practitioner. My mind was set, and I was able to control my thoughts in this matter.

Again, the evil changed its trick. I started to watch anime[a Japanese film and television animation]. Entire days were wasted watching this. I was mentally tired and my thoughts were all about those cartoon characters. This addiction was harder to break when compared to gaming. I constantly reminded myself that I am a cultivator.

Master strengthened my righteous thoughts when I was about to give it up.

Master said:

“… your main consciousness has to be aware” (Chapter Three, The Great Way of Spiritual Perfection)

If a cultivator cannot control him/herself, is it because his/her main consciousness is too weak? After some mental struggles, I eventually eliminated this addiction.

Looking back, I now can see how degenerate my morality was. I was watching the worst thing possible on the internet and thought it was OK to do so.

If it were not for Master giving me chances to correct myself, I cannot imagine the kind of person I would have turned into.

I can finally control my behavior. However, undesirable thoughts still appear in my mind and in my dreams, namely lust.

I want to expose it in this article to completely purge this evil attachment.

Dafa Gives Me Wisdom

I was in the “gifted class” in high school. Most of the concepts were easy for me but I still struggled with minor details.

Studying more did not yield any improvement. From studying the Fa, I enlightened that human knowledge is merely at an elementary level compared to what is in the vast universe; so are test questions.

I stopped focusing on strategies targeting every question, and instead I looked at the concept of each subject.

Math and science are used for studying the universe, which was already planned out by higher beings. Language and literature are made to communicate and share knowledge.

The key to a high score is to detect what the test maker wants to see. Once the nature of these subjects was clear, I no longer focused on any particular question. Instead, I viewed the questions more from a “bird's eye” view.

The key is to stay calm. Regardless of how hard they studied, many students failed to do well on the exam due to anxiety. The ability to keep a steady mind is not easily obtained. As a Dafa disciple, I told myself, I would just go into the testing room like a Dafa practitioner, calm and undisturbed.

As a result, my test scores went up dramatically. During the last stretch of my senior year in high school, I was physically and mentally exhausted by the amount of study. I knew I should not feel like that but did not know how to correct it.

Once during Fa study, I read:

“However advanced people’s means of exploring space and probing life may be, the knowledge gained is limited to certain parts of this one dimension, where human beings reside, at a low plane of the universe.” (“On Dafa (Lunyu)” from Essentials for Further Advancement)

It was like a light bulb turned on in my head. Looking down on the earth, aren't people busy living their lives just like little ants?

Why do I have an attachment to a life like this? My mind was centered.

My days were just as busy as any other student, but I looked at it as no more than my cultivation environment.

http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2019/10/12/青年弟子-大法帮我走出网络泥潭-394470.html