(Clearwisdom.net) Greetings to Master Li! Greetings to fellow practitioners!
I am a Falun Gong practitioner from Sydney. I obtained Dafa in October 1998 and have cultivated nearly 8 years now. On my path of cultivation, there are many moments when I was filled with the joy of Dafa and was moved by the Buddha Law, and also many painful moments of tribulation. With Master Li's compassionate salvation, I feel the great power, grace and boundlessness of Falun Dafa. "Cultivation depends on one's own efforts, while transformation of gong is done by one's master." (Zhuan Falun, Lecture One) As long as we have the heart to improve and have the courage to face and discard our attachments, then our life can be rectified in Dafa, and then we can benefit ourselves and others and experience Teacher's words: "The Buddha-light illuminates everywhere and rectifies all abnormalities" (Lecture Three of Zhuan Falun).
Today, I would like to share my cultivation experience within my family environment and talk about the close relation between salvation of sentient beings and our personal cultivation.
Master Li told us that if practitioners in one area cultivate well, the promotion of Dafa in that area will have a better effect. Master also told us the principle that as long as students study well, they can be admitted to college. My understanding of the first sentence is that Master Li explains to us the close relationship between personal cultivation and saving sentient beings. The second sentence tells us the principle that we need to be steadfast in cultivation and that there is no shortcut, that more effort will produce more harvest.
I have also experienced this in cultivation, that only when we cultivate ourselves well, will the environment around us be better and more sentient beings will benefit. When we do not do well in our cultivation, no one wants to listen to us clarifying the truth, especially our families. Their attitudes toward Dafa and acceptance of the truth in a large degree depends on my family's impression of my behavior and if my mind-state is compassionate. I have deeply experienced this situation in terms of my husband's changes.
My husband is like a touchstone that Master has arranged for me. From the day when I started cultivation to today, as long as I have something that needs to be discarded in my cultivation, it would first show itself as a tribulation from him. My husband came from a traditional religious family, and as I decided to leave religion and cultivate Dafa, I faced great pressure from him and the church. After the persecution of Falun Gong started, due to the lies and hate-inciting propaganda of the evil, my family environment became even more severe. That period of time was not easy, but with the thought of firmly cultivating, I went through it openly and with dignity. After we started to clarify the truth to people in society, my husband became the first person to clarify the truth to. From him, I not only got practice in clarifying the truth, but after he gradually came to understand the truth, he developed righteous thoughts towards Dafa. At present, he has become a live billboard and helper for me to clarify the truth.
My husband is an outgoing European and he often greets strangers on the street. Especially after he married a Chinese wife, he likes to say hello to Chinese people. When he understood the purpose for us to clarify the truth to the world's people, he became even more actively engaged in talking to Chinese people, "How are you? Are you Chinese? Have you heard about Falun Gong?" No matter who he talks to, he often straightforwardly gets to the topic about Falun Gong, and then he lets me carefully explain the facts to them.
His simple actions, without any preconceived notions, often reminds me of my gaps. I tended to be a shy person, reluctant to casually say hello to people. My husband's outgoing character helped me a lot, as otherwise, many sentient beings may have been missed due to my shy character. Whenever we go out and have chance to talk to Chinese people, we would clarify the truth to them. Several restaurants where we often eat have called us "Falun Gong." Many people understand the truth through chatting with us and reading the truth-clarification materials that we bring. Several people in one restaurant want to learn the practice and read the book ("Zhuan Falun") and one manager even introduced Dafa to his mother.
My husband used to have a problem with foot pain and he could not recover even with medical treatment. He used to have sharp pain for several days. However, he recovered from it later without realizing it. In his workplace, other colleagues seldom got the chance to work extra time, but his boss always gave him the opportunity to make more money. I told him that this was the reward from his truth clarification and he also felt happy about it. Once, he told me that he clarified the truth to the Chinese owner of a shop in a shopping center, but he ran into an employee who said a lot of bad words about Falun Gong. He said that the effect of clarifying the truth was not good that day. I told him that was all right and that he could make up for the loss tomorrow. Even saying so, I didn't expect him to really do so. Unexpectedly, the next day, he told me after coming back from work that he went there again to clarify the truth. I felt that he was remarkable and I told him that now he was as courageous as Dafa practitioners.
One day he asked me to print out some truth clarification materials in his mother's language and quietly put it into his parents' mailbox so that his parents would not know where the truth-clarification materials were from us. The next day, his parents eagerly told me that they read the Falun Gong truth-clarification materials and that Falun Gong practitioners were truly good and remarkable people. They were surprised and couldn't understand how the people who delivered the materials knew their native language.
I know that the reason my husband could do such a good job in clarifying the truth is due to the solid foundation that I laid by clarifying the truth at home, so he understands that Falun Gong practitioners are really good people and should not be persecuted. More importantly, I think it is because I have been carefully harmonizing my family relations. As my husband is busy with work, it is mainly I who takes care of the housework and our home, and sees to it that the children are taken good care of. I am also careful about my children's schoolwork and education. When I run into any conflict, whether small or big within the family, I always try to be tolerant and not overcritical about it, and I help my husband look at question from a cultivator's perspective. Therefore, my husband always praises his wife in front of other people and says that his wife is highly accomplished and is a very good person. Our life is very harmonious. Sometimes I may also get very busy and don't have as much time to take care of the family. At such times, my husband does not complain as before, and of course I also try to arrange my time well to do Dafa work and not affect them, so that my family has a normal living environment.
Teacher said,
"So, wherever Dafa students are, people will all say that, as a person, you're just so wonderful. This is the state that's a reflection of your cultivating while conforming to everyday people's society to the maximum extent. If you can't achieve this, it means that you're not acting according to my words, to Master's requirements." ("Lecture at the Australia Fa Conference" draft translation)
Looking back on my cultivation path, I find that some of the reasons why my husband respects me are due to the principles that I stuck to when my husband made trouble and caused tribulations for me. Dafa has standards and cultivators can only genuinely validate Dafa when we walk our path openly and with dignity. I deeply feel the importance of practical cultivation in the family environment. It is true that only when we do well, can we better promote Dafa. Simply by tending to these seemingly minor things, we change our family and the society and the dimensional field around us, and also positively affect the sentient beings around us.
At the same time, our individual cultivation also affects the overall cohesive force of the whole body of our Dafa practitioners. Master told us that if Dafa practitioners coordinate well as one body, then Dafa can show its magnificent power. If we don't coordinate well, we would cause losses in saving sentient beings. I believe the fundamental problem still lies in personal cultivation. I find that when I have compassion and hope that practitioners do well, my fellow practitioners do better and better. The brilliance of fellow practitioners can be more brightly manifested due to the positive impact of my compassion towards them, which is then reflected as assistance to me. At this time, I truly feel the magnificence of Dafa and the honor it is for us cultivate the righteous Fa. When we all assimilate to Dafa, we become a whole body that cannot be broken. This one body is different from the union of a small group brought together due to sentimentality. Oftentimes, when we feel comfortable staying in a fixed small group, we start to develop a barrier between us and the whole body. If such situation continues, we would behave casually and forget about cultivation of speech and also could easily nourish our demon nature.
Being too rigid in our point of view and notions can also create barriers between practitioners. Master Li told us in Zhuan Falun, "This pair of eyes can stabilize things in this physical dimension of ours to such a state. Besides that, they do not have any other significant capability." Since what we see and hear are not necessarily the truth and things won't stay the same forever, why do I need to be attached to my own perceptions? My own notions and karma sometimes lead to misunderstandings with fellow practitioners and also unconsciously create internal friction.
Fellow practitioners in our area often discuss the question about why practitioners in some countries do such a good job and why their governments behave so well [towards Dafa]. After seeing our gap in comparison to them, we want to change this situation and solve the current problems. I feel that all these problems come back to the fundamental questions in cultivation and cannot be solved by copying other practitioners' methods or by using certain techniques. Just like one teacher teaches the same thing to the whole class, but it is up to each student whether to listen to the teacher and follow the instructions. Several years later, the students who study diligently and solidly have a better and better performance, while those students who don't study diligently accumulate more and more problems and the gap is created in this way. If our area didn't do well, the fundamental reason is that we didn't lay a solid foundation, didn't solidly do three things well. Everyone has a share for today's situation. Especially me, when I ran into some important problems for the whole body but didn't know how to solve it, I often gave up. For example, recently when I didn't see too much achievement or good effect in saving people in some large-scale projects and activities, I became disappointed about the overall coordination and just wanted to do those smaller things that I thought were more solid and practical. My approach was to get around the problems in my cultivation and I was unwilling to think about or face it, which clearly showed I still don't have a clear understanding about this issue.
I also find in my cultivation that many moments in which I feel sacred are not necessarily those moments when I am doing big projects. Sometimes the things that happened were minor things, but since my mind-state met the requirement of Dafa, I treated these minor things as cultivation and the opportunity to look inside. The resultant feelings of relief and of heart feeling lighter were difficult to describe with words. On the other hand, on some more important work, as I haven't always met the requirement of Dafa and was just "busy with doing things," using Dafa work as an excuse to ignore personal cultivation. No matter how sacred that work seemed to be and how steadfast I felt by doing more and more Dafa work, when I am not truly cultivating, I am just like what is described in Master's poem:
"How they busy themselves, building temples, worshiping,
Knowing not their acts are all for naught;
Lost in stupefying illusion, they vainly dream of journeying to the Western Paradise.
Groping blindly, walking in darkness, they try to scoop the moon's reflection from water." ("Acting with Intent," Hong Yin)
I enlightened to the understanding that many times when I feel the sense of sacredness, such sacredness comes from the Fa-rectification's great current. While in the midst of tribulation, when I could overcome my self and my notions and rise above humanness, I could truly cultivate myself and truly feel the sacredness of cultivation.
When practitioners organize large-scale activities to clarify the truth, it creates a social impact and receives media attention, and reinforces the manifestation of the great current of Fa-rectification great. This are necessary activities for Dafa practitioners to keep up with the process of Fa-rectification. However, in order to genuinely enable Dafa to root and grow in people's hearts and achieve the purpose to solidly save sentient beings, in addition to those large-scale activities, every Dafa practitioners should also try to assimilate to Truth-Compassion-Tolerance in our daily life and meet Dafa's different requirements on us. No matter whether in the family, the workplace or in other social environments, people will show kindness and have righteous thoughts towards Dafa due to our pure and righteous energy field. Otherwise, no matter how many activities we participate in, if we don't do it with a practitioners' mind-state but do it with a sense of pursuit, many of those activities will not achieve our expected results. For many activities, if we only pay attention to the participation on the surface and are lacking in compassion to save people, or try to avoid practical cultivation and hard work necessary to solidly clarify the truth, some activities would be only for our self-satisfaction and could not achieve the role of saving sentient beings.
Everything comes back to the fundamental issues. My recent experiences in clarifying the truth to my father helped me more deeply understand the following: cultivation is not to show off or say beautiful words and cannot be used to avoid problems. Cultivation needs to be solid and step by step. Only if we can study the Fa well, look inside ourselves, and have the courage to change ourselves, can we improve ourselves. No matter how well I behave outside and how tolerant I am when clarifying the truth to strangers, no matter how excited I appear to be when sharing experiences, I only meet the requirement of Dafa in my imagination. If I cannot have compassion towards my family members who still have shortcomings, or to my fellow practitioners who still have attachments, and to everyday people, then I am not genuinely cultivating myself.
I hope that through this Fahui, we Australian practitioners can remove our pre-conceived notions towards each other and become the whole body, help and support each other like brothers and sisters, strive forward diligently and follow Master Li to return to our home.
Finally, I would like to share with you one of Master Li's poems, "Solid Cultivation":
"Study the Fa and gain the Fa,
Focus on how you study and cultivate,
Let each and every thing be measured against the Fa.
Only then, with that, is it actually cultivation." (Hong Yin)
Thank you Master Li! Thank you everyone.
