Solidly Cultivating and Becoming a True Disciple

(Minghui.org) I started practicing Falun Dafa with my parents when I was a teenager, and have continued through to this day. Under Master’s compassionate protection, I have continued to mature in the Fa.

Master said:

“Some people hold that a person only needs to have faith in order to go to Heaven. Having faith is only a foundation. Many people’s understanding stops at the superficial meaning of the words. They say, “As long as I have faith, I’ll surely go to Heaven after I die.” Let me tell you that you won’t be able to go there. Why not? Think about it. What is true faith? You’re merely saying with your mouth that you have faith, but in your heart you don’t actually have faith. Why do I say that? Because when you truly have faith your actions match your words.” (Teachings at the Conference in Europe)

Although I had studied this lecture many times before, I didn’t really have it in my heart. When I was studying the Fa recently, this passage caught my attention. It suddenly occurred to me that I had the same thoughts as religious believers here, thinking that if you believed in it, you will be able to go to heaven. I thus had the idea that cultivating Dafa was like having insurance. I thought that I had been practicing for many years, and I had risen from a superficial understanding to a rational understanding. However, if I only knew the Fa principles, but did not follow the teachings, I actually didn’t have faith in it.

When I could follow the teachings, it was only because I accepted that part of the teachings. That is because my attachments had hindered me from improving. I realized that it would be a waste of precious cultivation time if I was not able to unify the study with my actions. After studying the Fa for a long time, I still acted my own way, which was not a sign of diligence. Since understanding this I’ve constantly reminded myself to be consistent with my words and actions.

I recently had a xinxing test. The professor for one of my courses graduated from a famous overseas university, and she took up most of the time chatting about her study in a foreign country The time spent on the course content was very little, and because of the chaotic organization of the classroom activities, we could not learn much. The first two weeks were like this. I thought I would wait for the third week to see how it would go, but the third week was still like this, and I didn’t learn anything.

When I had to do the after-class test questions and saw my grades, I started to get anxious. If I hadn’t learned what I should have learned in the class, I needed to find time to learn by myself after class. I was very angry while looking for a tutorial to learn by myself. I complained to my husband (a fellow practitioner) constantly. One day, a voice came into my head and said, “Why can’t you understand the professor?” I immediately thought yes, why am I looking outward? Why am I blaming the professor? Didn’t Master ask us to look inward? Now that I think about it, Master must have enlightened me.

I began to think along these lines, thinking that the professor definitely didn’t want to cause chaos, that she might not have teaching experience, or that she was someone with that kind of personality, and so on. The anger in my heart gradually subsided by about 80 percent. I wondered what the reason for my anger was. Because she wasted my time? Because she didn’t give systematic lectures as I thought she should, I didn’t learn anything? But these thoughts were all starting from the word “I” and I should consider others before myself in any situation! This was selfishness. The principles of the old universe are selfish. By the time I realized this, all my anger was gone. Yes, if I had been able to deal with this matter with kindness and forbearance in the first class, without looking outward and without getting carried away by anger, maybe I would have taken the initiative to find a tutorial to learn after the first class.

Although I found this problem and learned that I was looking outward and being selfish, I felt that the cause of this incident seemed to be something else. I had an attachment that I didn’t want to admit. As I continued to dig deeper, I saw my jealousy. Because this professor got a PhD at a school I really wanted to go to, she said a lot in the first class about how good that school was, how wealthy the school was, etc., and it was this that had disgusted me, and I began to pick on her questions, that is, to look outside. This resentment was because of my jealousy. I realized that this was the root of the whole problem. Thanks to Master’s enlightenment, a lot of my attachments were exposed.

When I found my jealousy and thought of Master’s teachings, these bad thoughts never came to my mind again. I took the time to follow the tutorial and studied on my own. This week, there were some small problems in the professor’s class, but this time I didn’t have negative thoughts about the professor and waited patiently for her to finish. I actively participated in the class activities.

After looking inward to improve my xinxing, I finally passed the xinxing test successfully.

Cultivators will encounter all kinds of troubles, but as long as they truly believe in Master and Dafa, and truly do what Master asks them to do, they will be able to solve anything that comes their way, and bad things can eventually become good things. So as a cultivator, being able to obtain Dafa is really, really fortunate.

At the beginning of my cultivation, I didn’t understand the importance of cultivating xinxing, so my family relationships were strained. I gradually came to understand what Master said about looking inward, and began asking myself to do a good job. When I thought about others in advance, my family became harmonious, and there were no more conflicts. All of this was because we shouldn’t just focus on studying the Fa, we must be able to put it into action, and that is true belief and cultivation.

Although there are still many things that I have not done well, in the future I will strive to follow the Fa taught by Master to improve my xinxing, cultivate myself, validate Dafa with my actions, and tell more people about the beauty of Dafa.