The Importance of Doing the Exercises

(Minghui.org) I was discussing with a few practitioners several days ago about how to be better at clarifying the truth of Falun Dafa, and awakening the conscience of sentient beings. 

One practitioner suggested that we first help out practitioner Ai, because Ai’s memory had been declining recently. She couldn’t remember things that just happened. She couldn’t read the Fa independently either. It could take her an hour to read five pages even with fellow practitioners, and she read many words wrong. 

Ai wasn’t like that before. She used to be very diligent in talking to people about Dafa. Her change shocked us. Why did this happen to her? Our intention wasn't to criticize Ai, but to bring awareness to her of her shortcomings. 

We noticed that Ai hadn’t done the exercises for a long time, even though she was diligently clarifying the truth. She also didn’t send righteous thoughts at 12 p.m., and she dozed off while sending righteous thoughts at times. We believe that this is a problem, since Master required us to do the three things well. There are also three practitioners who were going through tribulations, and we realized that they also did the exercises on and off. 

Fellow practitioner Wong told us that she started practicing Dafa after 1999. She didn’t know how to cultivate her heart or xinxing, but she was very diligent and active in doing the exercises. However, she got more and more upset because she couldn’t improve her xinxing. Eventually, she didn’t want to get up early for the exercises any more. 

About two months ago, Wong had a dream that awakened her about the importance of doing the exercises. In her dream, she didn’t want to get up for the exercises. Then, a group of Falun Dafa practitioners came to her room, telling her that they were in a hurry to get back home, and then they left. She got up, and tried to wake up her roommate, also a practitioner, who also didn’t get up for the exercises. When she got back and looked for the group of practitioners, they were gone. She wondered if they were already home now, and how she could get back home too.

She suddenly woke up, and it was half an hour past the exercises time. She believed that it was Master trying to enlighten her through the dream. Without doing the exercises, how could she be a practitioner? From then on, she treated doing the exercises seriously, and has persisted in doing them every day. 

After listening to Wong’s sharing, I was very moved. I, too, couldn’t do all five sets of exercises every day. I’ve wasted so much time, which I regret a lot. We all agreed that not being able to do the exercises is a serious issue. 

Master once said, 

“All of you sitting here, listen up. Did you all hear that? You must do well the three things that Dafa disciples should do well. You need to do the exercises. As long as the day of Consummation hasn't arrived you need to do the exercises, you need to study the Fa, and you need to do the Dafa disciples' three things. Definitely.” (“Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. III) 

I hope that our experience can alert fellow practitioners about the importance of doing the exercises.