A Recent Lesson

(Clearwisdom.net) Recently my daughter returned to my home. She goes to school here. Suddenly my schedule became very tight, as it takes me over two hours on a bus to take her to school and bring her back home. My housework has also increased. I no longer have the relaxed schedule that I had when I was alone. The time for doing the three things has obviously become less.

One time I read an online article by a practitioner who maintains a materials site. She said that she got up at 3:00 a.m., then practiced the five sets of exercises, worked at the materials site in the morning and studied the Fa in the afternoon. At that time my heart was moved, but I did not give it too much thought due to my attachment of fearing hardships.

Several days later, I woke up at 3:00 a.m. and could not fall back to sleep again. Later, in the state of being half-sleep and half-awake, I heard "ordinary people have to fundamentally change their way of thinking." I immediately thought of Teacher's words in Lunyu, "To open up this field, ordinary people have to fundamentally change their way of thinking."

I came to enlighten that Teacher was asking me to eliminate the heart of seeking comfort in ordinary society. I knew that I had an attachment regarding sleep but I had been avoiding this problem. When I discussed with fellow practitioners last week, I said, "Practitioners overseas sleep very little because they do not have the conditions. Therefore, we should not follow them." Now I must face this problem and let go of this attachment. I need to try my best in this precious period of time. I decided to change the next day.

The next day I made it. I was very happy about this breakthrough.

On the third day, I woke up at 3:00 a.m. But as soon as I thought of sitting on a cold carpet in the early morning before the heat was turned on, I had fear. I asked myself, "Can I stay in bed?" I felt it was not appropriate because practitioners said that it was disrespectful to Teacher when someone practices the exercises when improperly dressed. In addition, how can I go back to my old habit right after I got rid of it? But the other side of me defended, that now is special period (before the heat was provided). Furthermore, in book Zhuan Falun, Teacher also mentioned a case in which a grandmother meditated in bed. It should be fine if I put on pants. I finally yielded to the fear of hardship.

However, as soon as I entered tranquility when doing the meditation, I experienced something unusual. First I saw some staining spots in a white background. Then some evil signals appeared and I knew what they represented using the forms that I was familiar with.

I immediately knew that I was wrong.

I came to enlighten that the staining spots in the white background was Teaching telling me that cultivating in the righteous Fa is sacred and serious. Any impure notions and deeds will be fully exposed in the face of Fa. The signals were interference from evil beings taking advantage of the loophole of my mistake.

Teacher said,

"All sentient beings are closely watching everything we're doing. There are eyes everywhere in this cosmos, and both the beings that have been rectified and the beings that haven't been are watching."

"Everything that Dafa disciples do is clearly displayed before the eyes of higher beings. So be sure to do well and win their admiration." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Boston")

"Your path is, and I think you've all seen this now, actually very narrow. If you deviate just a little bit you won't measure up to the standard of a Dafa disciple. There's only one very righteous path we can walk on, and we can't deviate even just a little bit, because this is required by history, and required by the lives of sentient beings in the future cosmos. The cosmos in the future can't have any deviation or errors due to your having omissions during the Fa-rectification, so it's important for you to walk each and every step well during your own validating the Fa." ("Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference")

This recent incident led me to a deeper understanding of the profound meaning of Teacher's Fa.

November 1, 2006