(Clearwisdom.net) Eleven years ago when I had just started cultivating, Master took me to the Netherworld where I dissolved a great deal of karma. When I returned and looked at my flesh body lying in bed, my thinking changed in an instant, but it took me a long time to come to a clear understanding. That experience was far clearer than any dream I had ever had, and after 11 years I still haven't forgotten a single detail. The method of dissolving karma involved pulling a black rope from inside my body. To the right and left of my chest were two black spools, and after unwinding for a long time they were empty of rope. I asked, "Is it over?" The answer came, "It's over." I stretched out my hand and felt the spools, clasped both in my hands, and saw that both were truly empty. All that was left were two empty spools and a severed tail of black rope. I was one hundred percent clear in my mind that this severed tail was the portion left to me to dissolve on my own.
Over the following eleven years, sometimes I've been diligent and sometimes sluggish as I have stumbled and tripped to stay up with the progress of Fa-rectification. In fact, I often sink into the attachments of surfing the net and looking at comic books. Then, perhaps due to fellow practitioners awakening me, perhaps because of a tribulation, perhaps because sickness karma surfaces, I temporarily put down those attachments, but soon return to my old habits. After a long period of not letting them go, the old forces take advantage of the loophole. The most serious case was a tumor in my womb. It was so painful that I rolled and writhed in bed, bleeding heavily. Whenever I reach this point I become diligent, call to Teacher for help, find fellow practitioners to help by sending righteous thoughts, and study the Fa and do the exercises to make up for not doing them enough. The result, of course, is instant results and the situation becoming fine again. But due to my not fundamentally removing the substance of my attachments, in a short while it all would play out again.
One time when this happened, it was the circumstance I feared most: a state of sickness appearing while I was at work. In my heart I beseeched Teacher, "Teacher, save me, or in any case help me finish my day's work. Then I won't fear returning home to continue dissolving this karma." The result was the opposite of what I wanted, and I lost face in front of my workmates. When I returned home in the evening I went onto the Clearwisdom website and looked up articles related to "passing the barrier of sickness karma." I found that my own circumstance was similar to that expressed by the author of an article titled, "Believing in Master and Believing in the Fa Enables One to Break Through the Test of Life and Death." If that person could pass it, why couldn't I? Not putting down attachments with determination, and instead calling upon Master for help, isn't this taking Master's compassion as if it were child's play? Reading the Fa and doing the exercises in order to dissolve hardship, isn't this a strong heart of pursuit? As soon as the state of sickness passed, I would develop a heart of exultation and forget all my hardships.
As I looked deep within myself, I suddenly discovered to my astonishment that my sickness karma always had a mysterious characteristic: the left and right sides of my chest would hurt in turn. As soon as the pain came up it would alternate from side to side. Wasn't this those severed tails of black rope that were left for me on the two spools 11 years ago? Such a clear phenomenon - how could I not have realized it earlier? I finally enlightened and felt relief: As soon as trouble arrived I had beseeched Teacher for help, always wanting Teacher to shoulder it. I hadn't realized that this was the small amount that Teacher had left for me to dissolve myself after eliminating the whole spool, and it was fundamentally something for me to shoulder myself. But because I wasn't diligent, the old forces took advantage and I was persecuted again and again. I was holding onto my attachments and following the same destructive cycle again and again. I truly wasn't living up to the required expectations. Wanting Teacher to shoulder it for me was really too shameless.
From this experience I enlightened that cultivation is hardship. While we're amidst humans we have to repay karma. Could we truly be comfortable and walk without obstacle or sorrow straight to Consummation? Of course not. So, of course there will be tribulations, and we have to shoulder them with determination, not fear hardship, look within more, and no longer beseech Teacher to shoulder the things that we are supposed to shoulder ourselves.
