(Minghui.org) Practitioners in the greater Washington, DC, and surrounding areas held the 2023 Falun Dafa Experience Sharing Conference at the Korean Community Center in Alexandria, Virginia on September 24. Seventeen practitioners spoke of their understandings after reading three articles recently published by the founder, Master Li Hongzhi, as well as how they cultivated solidly in everyday life, at work, and while participating in truth clarification projects.
The 2023 Falun Dafa Experience Sharing Conference for practitioners in the greater Washington DC area at the Korean Community Center in Alexandria on September 24
Being Diligent in Cultivation Again After Studying Master’s Recent Articles
Jamil Lawrence is a lawyer from Virginia who began practicing Falun Dafa in 2000. He said, “I realized the preciousness of Falun Dafa, and of what Master had provided to me. With that realization, I can recall once looking in the mirror and saying something to the effect of, ‘Now that I have been blessed with Falun Dafa, I will devote myself wholeheartedly to cultivation, and be diligent regardless of the tribulations.’”
In the early years of his cultivation, Jamil went through great hardships, including family tribulations, periods of unemployment, and solitude while engaging in a truth clarification project alone for as long as a decade. However, he knew that Master was always at his side.
“Looking back, I know that I have only been able to make it through to today because of steadfast seriousness with regard to doing the three things. However, in recent years, I have seen my will to be diligent in doing the three things weaken over time.”
As his profession requires spending hours writing and doing research, he often works late at night and on weekends. Furthermore, with a busy family life, including his children’s extracurricular activities and so on, Jamil slacked off in cultivation.
He said, “Master’s recent articles spoke directly to me and were a firm, yet compassionate, wake-up call. I read the articles and discussed them with the three young practitioners in my family. We all realized that we had not been taking cultivation as seriously as we did previously, and committed to helping each other become more diligent again.”
Treating Practitioners With Righteous Thoughts
Masooma Haq is a media reporter who began to practice Falun Dafa in late 2001.
She said she realized she handled other practitioners’ attachments incorrectly after reading Master’s recent article “Treat Master’s Family Members Properly.”
She said, “After repeatedly studying this article, I understood that although fellow practitioners and I are not Master’s immediate family members in this life, we have most likely been in many other lifetimes. I was enlightened that the way I often treat other practitioners, seeing them in a hierarchy, is disrespectful and even dangerous. Truly believing in Master and Dafa means remembering my divine origins and remembering there is no hierarchy among practitioners.”
She talked about some lessons she learned regarding this. “In one past instance, when I saw a veteran member of the Falun Dafa Association in another area who was not behaving in line with Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, instead of compassionately pointing out the issue, I used human emotion to evaluate it, putting the practitioner above me, thinking they are in a position of authority, and that it is rude to point out her shortcomings. However, not pointing out the problem to the practitioner was disrespectful to the Fa. If I had shared, perhaps it would have helped prevent interference with the project for saving sentient beings. That practitioner later passed away from severe sickness karma, and I realized then but even more now how important it is to put the Fa above all else and look at fellow practitioners with righteous thoughts.”
Eliminating Attachment to Comfort and Resentment
Tatiana Denning is a family doctor in Virginia. Six years ago, she met a couple from China who told her about Falun Dafa. She began to practice a year later.
After reading Master’s teachings, Tatiana realized that pursuing comfort is a dangerous attachment. “It can easily put a thought into our mind to do this, or not do that, and it seems like a natural thought coming from ourselves. It acts as a warm blanket, wrapping us up inside, making us so relaxed and lulled into laziness that we cannot pull ourselves out of attachments to things like sentiments, fear, fame, and gain. It can keep us from being responsible to ourselves and those we’ve promised to help save—and so we must be ever-mindful of our thoughts and habits throughout the day. In my view, the attachment to comfort is one of the main things the old forces use to ruin practitioners.”
She also shared about how she identified and eliminated resentment. “Resentment comes when we feel we’ve been wronged or treated unfairly. Communism’s egalitarianism says everyone must be treated equally. Yet we cultivators know that everyone cannot possibly be treated the same, and while things may sometimes appear to be unfair, they are, in fact, not unfair.
“This attachment can be easily reinforced by others saying someone has wronged us. We may even want to hold onto resentment since we feel justified in doing so. Yet, we are practitioners. Even if someone has wronged us, and everyone around us says that someone has wronged us, we must look at things as cultivators. Whether I owe a karmic debt, or it’s the old forces' interference, it’s all because of an attachment I must let go of. Isn’t it a chance to raise my xinxing? Therefore, I must sincerely thank that person, for without them creating that situation, I could not improve.”
Tatiana said that now whenever she feels resentment, she can easily detect and eliminate it.
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