(Clearwisdom.net) I am a practitioner who started practicing Falun Gong before the persecution began in 1999. During this period of personal cultivation, studying the Fa was almost effortless, and sleepiness was seldom a problem and easily overcome. I never fell asleep while holding the book, and having the book drop from my hand was unimaginable. However, during the past two years, I have been severely interfered with by the demon of weariness. I believe that this happened because I was not diligent, my jobs were too tiring, and I did not practice the exercises enough. But, in fact, I have just been tolerating the persecution by the old forces. It was not until I fell asleep and the book fell out of my hands that I realized how serious this situation had become, and I began to look at the situation anew.
I began to be consistent in doing the exercises every day. I then did not feel tired at work or in my other daily activities, but I still felt bone-weary when I tried to study the Fa. I felt that no matter how hard I tried, I still could not see clearly the characters in the book. One day, through the blurriness, I saw many short, thin, red lines that were thickly dotted, covering the characters. What was the matter? I suddenly became clear-headed and realized that it was the interference of the evil specter of the Communist Party. They were blocking me from studying the "Fa." I felt very relieved when I suddenly enlightened to what was really blocking me from my studying. After coming to this realization, I was no longer willing to allow this interference.
I recalled that when we had intensively sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the dark minions not long before, I was so sleepy that I dozed off while listening to the Fa during the interval between the two periods of sending forth righteous thoughts. In a trance-like state, I noticed that there appeared a layer of small, shining dots on my tape recorder. I suddenly realized that those small, shining dots were actually the dark minions. This led me to think about other interference that I had experienced. I had always thought that the interference in my Fa study was because I was not able to eliminate my attachments. As a result, I thought that in order to study the Fa well I had to eliminate my attachments, and felt that I could not cultivate well no matter how hard I tried. As a matter of fact, it was because I did not fully realize that our cultivation is no longer personal cultivation. For that reason, the evil forces can make use of the loopholes in our Fa understandings to create for us the tests and hardships that should otherwise not exist.
In general, I know that Fa rectification cultivation is not personal cultivation, but oftentimes I am interfered with again and again by small things because I do not have a clear understanding from the Fa. In fact, to passively endure adversity is to follow the path arranged by the old forces. Hence, the old forces arrange our paths according to the paths used in personal cultivation. I feel that similar situations happen to many of the practitioners around me. Facing certain tribulations that we fail to overcome, we tend to think it is because of our own attachments. Sometimes, even though we know it is interference by the evil forces, we do not fully realize it clearly in our minds, and thus we remain trapped in a hardship for a long time.
I recommend that fellow practitioners who have experienced similar problems review and study more deeply Teacher's article "Expounding on the Fa" and to generally study the Fa as much as possible, melt ourselves into the Fa rectification, and eliminate the final sources of interference.
