The Importance of Righteous Thoughts

(Minghui.org) I was introduced to Falun Dafa in 1996, when I was a teenager. I very much cherished that time when I just focused on personal cultivation. My life changed overnight when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began persecuting Falun Dafa in 1999. Despite the risk of being arrested and tortured, I traveled with my family to Beijing to petition the central government for our right to exercise our freedom of belief.

As time passed I was pulled into society’s downward trend and I pursued a comfortable life. I was lost in the secular world and became less diligent. Eventually, I stopped cultivating.

A few years ago, a series of life-changing events woke me up and I realized how fragile, unpredictable, and painful life really is. I decided to resume practicing Falun Dafa.

Keeping Up with Fa Study

With the help of a local practitioner I joined a Fa study group. The group met at a residential complex adjacent to mine. However, the location became unavailable temporarily as the hosting practitioner dealt with a family emergency. To make sure our meetings continued, I invited the practitioners to meet in my home. Everything felt so natural, I felt that it was all Master’s plan. When a practitioner truly wants to cultivate, Master makes the best arrangement for you. With the group now meeting at my home every night, I benefit tremendously from keeping up with my Fa study and exchanging cultivation experiences with others.

I use all my free time to read the Fa. When it’s slow at work, I read Master’s new lectures online. While waiting to pick my son up from school, I recite poems from Hong Yin. If I’m home alone on the weekends, I spend the morning reading the Fa, and the afternoon either memorizing the Fa or hand copying Zhuan Falun, (the main book of Falun Dafa). I send righteous thoughts every hour and listen to practitioners’ sharing articles on Minghui Radio while cooking and eating. I did not want to waste any time.

I felt more confident as a cultivator, and felt I was assimilating to the Fa.

A family member was recently hospitalized and I spent most of my day at the hospital. I had a little time to myself and I was exhausted. I was tempted to set an alarm and take a nap before picking up my son, but then I thought, “That won’t work. If I take a nap, what time do I have left to study the Fa? How much time have I already wasted?” I took out my book and tried to read the Fa, but it was difficult to keep my eyes open. So I stood up and read while walking around the room. This way I was able to focus.

Rectifying Myself

I didn’t take sending righteous thoughts seriously, and merely went through the motions at the four set times. Through studying the Fa I understood how important it is to send righteous thoughts.

Now, besides the four set times, I send righteous thoughts whenever I have time. I am able to keep a calm mind while sending righteous thoughts, even when I’m driving. If my schedule allows I send righteous thoughts every hour during the week. On weekends or holidays, I try to finish preparing breakfast and doing the chores before eight a.m., so I can send righteous thoughts every hour throughout the day.

I always send righteous thoughts for half-to-one-hour before I go out to clarify the truth about Falun Dafa, or distribute Dafa fliers. I feel that the key to keeping righteous thoughts is to send righteous thoughts as much as possible. When your mind is pure, your righteous thoughts will naturally become stronger. By frequently sending righteous thoughts, I found that many of my notions, negative moods, and bad thoughts that interfere with my Fa study have been reduced and weakened. My energy field has been rectified without my deliberately trying to clear it.

I was out late distributing truth-clarification fliers one night. When I got home, it was past 1 a.m. After taking a shower, I turned off my alarm, thinking if I woke up on my own, I’d do the morning exercises. Secretly, I was hoping to skip it for a day so I could sleep in. The next morning, the alarm I deliberately turned off the night before sounded as usual. I got out of bed quickly and did the morning exercises. Throughout the day, I was energetic even though I barely slept. Since then, I got rid of my notion that lack of sleep affects my energy level. Doing the exercises is the best way to rest and recharge. I believe this happened because my righteous thoughts were stronger.

Fulfilling My Sacred Vows 

Through memorizing Master’s new scripture “How Humankind Came To Be” I became aware of our great responsibility to save sentient beings.

Taking advantage of a long holiday weekend in May, two local practitioners planned a trip to their hometown to distribute truth-clarification informational materials in the neighboring villages. I was assigned to deliver the booklets to the town where they planned to stay. The night before, I went to pick them up at another local practitioner’s house. I arrived on the street where we were to meet and parked on a stretch where there was no street light nor surveillance camera. Before long, the practitioner arrived. He quickly reminded me to send righteous thoughts before we began transferring the boxes into the trunk of my car.

Afterward, I went directly to my son’s school and waited for him to get out of night study. As soon as I parked near the school entrance, two police cars and a SWAT team vehicle pulled over. I was anxious and could feel fear creeping up. So, I sent righteous thoughts to eliminate fear and all evil elements imposed by the old forces and recited “How Humankind Came To Be.” When I opened my eyes, the police cars were gone. The next day, my trip to deliver the material also went smoothly. I thanked Master for strengthening and protecting me.

Before leaving to distribute truth-clarification fliers one night, I sent forth righteous thoughts. I asked Master to help keep the two buildings I was going to cover unlocked. Sure enough, the entrance to the first building was wide open when I got there. I hid the extra bag of fliers in the bushes before I distributed the materials. I sweat profusely climbing up and down the high rise buildings, but I was strengthened, and my heart was filled with gratitude.

Just when I was almost done with the second building, I suddenly missed a step and fell down the stairs. I heard a snap at my ankle but my heart didn’t move. I held strong righteous thoughts and said, “I’m fine. I’m fine. One more floor and I’ll be done.” I didn’t feel any pain or discomfort, and didn’t even spill the bag of materials.

On my way back home, I sent righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil beings which might prevent the residents of those two buildings from reading the materials.

I sent this thought to those who would receive the fliers, “I have cleared out all evil that prevents you from learning the truth. I am talking directly to your knowing side now—having waited hundreds of thousands of years, those who came to this human world for Dafa. Master is most compassionate and wrote, ‘How Humankind Came To Be’ for all beings. Please wake up and read the article carefully, learn the truth and be saved.” As I silently said those words, tears welled up—my heart was filled with compassion for sentient beings and endless gratitude toward Master.

When I got home, I noticed my right pant leg was torn and I remembered falling down the stairs. I checked my leg, it was a little red, but there were no scratches. There was nothing wrong with my foot. I thanked Master.

Looking Inward and Cultivating Myself

Every cultivator has a tribulation or test that is particularly challenging and tough to break through. For me, that test is my son.

My son was well behaved. He was smart, maintained good grades and was praised by everyone. However, after entering high school, he took a 180 degree turn and became rebellious and disrespectful. His grades dropped and he got into all kinds of trouble. I was devastated.

Desperate for a solution, I talked to his homeroom teacher and a relative who works at his school. I consulted experts in the education field and a youth psychologist. Worried that he would fall behind I hired private tutors to help him but he didn’t improve. I talked to him as a parent, his friend, and as an authority figure, but nothing worked. I was heart broken and felt as if I was suffocating.

Almost every time my phone rang, it was his teacher calling with bad news, “Your son is not paying attention in class. He was caught violating the rules.” I was exhausted and I couldn’t focus on anything else. All kinds of negative thoughts kept cropping up, and I speculated about what horrible things he’d do next.

“He must not be paying attention at school. Is he dating?” Unable to suppress these thoughts, I felt like I was dumping negative energy into my son’s field. Sure enough, the next day I found a love letter in his backpack. “He is dating. Just like I thought!” I was upset.

I calmed down, picked up a Dafa book and started reading. The following passage jumped out at me,

“When something upsetting happens, something that angers you occurs, or there is personal gain at stake, or your ego suffers a blow, are you able to look inward and cultivate yourself, searching for your own shortcoming, and even when you find yourself in such a situation and you’re not at fault, are you able to have an attitude of, “Oh, I understand—I must not have done well in some regard. Or if I really didn’t do something wrong, perhaps it’s that I’m paying off karma that I owe. I’m going to handle it well and pay off what I should.”” (“Dafa Disciples Must Study the Fa,” Collected Teachings Given Around the World Volume XI)

It suddenly dawned on me that I did not cultivate myself in the process of dealing with problems regarding my son. He is helping me improve, but I tried to solve the problem as an ordinary person would. I have missed so many opportunities to cultivate myself. Because of my human notions and not being able to treat myself as a cultivator, my son had to keep making trouble until I enlightened.

I started looking inward and carefully examined myself. I was overly concerned about his grades. On the surface, it was my attachment to fame. But when I dug deeper, I found the root cause to be the Communist Party’s atheist ideology. Growing up, we were taught to study hard, get good grades, and get accepted by a good college, so we could have a good career and a happy life. Thinking one can actually control one’s fate, isn’t this atheism fostered by communism?

When my son didn’t measure up to my standards or broke my rules, I reprimanded him and even thought up ways to correct and punish him. I thought I was educating him and doing him a service, but in fact I was indoctrinated by the CCP’s mentality: “If you don’t listen to me, I will punish you.” This was an expression of my selfishness—I wanted my only son to be happy and successful in life. But isn’t one’s happiness determined by his virtue and karma? Hasn’t his life already been arranged by higher beings? How could I alter his life? Did I have faith in Master and the Fa?

Digging further, I found attachments to jealousy, competitiveness, and resentment. I felt it was unfair that I had to deal with so much stress. I looked down on others and felt superior. I was afraid and suspicious. As soon as I got a phone call from my son’s teacher, I would think, “He must have done something wrong.” This became a conditioned reflex—I was anxious whenever the phone rang. My negative thoughts were affecting him. In fact, his rebellious actions were caused by my thoughts. The old forces exploited this loophole, interfered with me and caused me to waste time and energy. I didn’t reject these thoughts they imposed on me, instead accepted them as my own and caused things to happen a certain way.

When I realized all this, I immediately sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate all the wrong and evil thoughts imposed on me by the old forces. I cleared out the evil influence caused by the indoctrination of the Communist Party and my attachment to my son, “None of this is me. I don’t accept this.”

Through sending righteous thoughts, studying the Fa, and continuously looking inward to examine myself, I was able to correct my way of thinking and improve. My attachments and human notions gradually weakened. My attitude towards my son softened and we now have a much better relationship. It’s easy to talk about it in hindsight, but the cultivation process was painful.

My son has since changed his attitude toward Dafa and he’s read Zhuan Falun with me three times. Maybe the predestined relationship I have with him is our sacred relationship with Falun Dafa.

These are some of my recent experience cultivating in Dafa. My only wish is to make up for lost time and become a genuine Fa-rectification period Dafa practitioner.