(Clearwisdom.net)
Today my computer malfunctioned. I could not open any document or get on the Internet. The whole computer was down. I started to sweat since I had quite a few projects that I needed to complete, yet I could do nothing. It ended up the harder I tried to revive it, the worse it got, and finally I could not even shut off the computer.
With a situation like this, I started to settle down, sending forth righteous thoughts and examining myself.
I told myself that I would not acknowledge any interference forced upon me since I am doing something very righteous. Anyone that committed interference is committing a sin. After I finished sending righteous thoughts, somehow I still did not feel right. I realized that there must be some omission of my own that the evil exploited, resulting in the interference. Repudiating old forces' interference is not done through paying lip service; it must be rebutted with righteous thoughts, accompanied by righteous actions. Only then will the evil self-destruct. I must never overlook self-cultivation during Fa-rectification. Even when I was doing Fa-rectification projects, I could easily be disrupted if my mindset were not pure, resulting in a less than pure accomplishment.
So I continued to examine myself, noticing that my attachment to accomplishing more projects had reared its ugly head. Recently I was very busily involved in numerous Fa-rectification projects, and especially when numerous projects piled together and all required urgent attention. In the end I did not study the Fa with a dedicated and tranquil mind. Thoughts in my head were all jumbled during sending righteous thoughts, and I kept thinking of how to proceed with projects that were on hand. This is just like ordinary people doing Dafa projects. I did not realize there was such a huge gap.
I further discovered that whenever there were problems, the basis of our very first thought when facing such problems was very important. That first thought will manifest whether our assumptions are righteous. Do we have a practitioner's mindset? Do our thoughts embody ourselves as Dafa practitioners?
When my computer malfunctioned, my first reaction was not to send righteous thoughts, look within, and examine if I had some attachment. Rather, the immediate notions in my head were, "Uh oh, could it be that my computer got infected with a virus? Could it be that the operating system was getting corrupted?" Worse yet, I even wondered whether some emails that I received contained a virus? The more I worried, the more it appeared to be like that. Then I would try to use ordinary human methods to take care of the problem. I would contemplate whether I needed to reinstall the operating system again. Should I reinstall the anti-virus software? I even entertained the idea of asking someone to come to my house to help me repair the computer by a certain time the next day. I never thought that Teacher's Fashen was next to me, guarding me. I did not think that a Dafa practitioner's righteous thoughts were powerful. I did not think of myself as a true Dafa practitioner at that very moment, I did not have any righteous thoughts, so naturally I could not demonstrate the divine and supernatural power.
I suddenly recalled that two days ago a fellow practitioner reminded me of a statement from Teacher, "What's not a right mind? It refers to a person's inability to always treat himself as a practitioner." (Zhuan Falun") Although it appeared that it was a minor problem with the computer, the root cause was that I did not keep in mind that I was a practitioner, and I did not clearly recognize what I was really doing. We all know we are participating in Fa-rectification. We easily utter the words "saving sentient beings," yet do we keep our mindset pure and keep every thought on the Fa in each and every task that we perform?
Once I realized this, my computer started to partially recover. The first document that I could open again was precisely the article that I promised to translate for another fellow practitioner that day. And even though my email was still not working well, it nevertheless sent out my finished translation.
That evening was our group's Fa study time. I turned on my computer once more, and I still could not connect to the Internet as I used to. The speed was extremely slow, and I could barely log on to the Internet to study the Fa. I still could not open and close regular documents, but there was one that I could open: it was the English Zhuan Falun that I saved the day before, and it was the one I need for that evening's Fa study. I realized that it was because I did not study the Fa sufficiently most recently, this was reminding me to drop some of the projects at hand and study the Fa with a tranquil mind.
Even though I enlightened to it, I could not do it well. While I was studying the Fa, my mind started to wonder, "Well, today I wasted the whole day and did not accomplish much. Could I do some project quietly while others are reading the Fa over the Internet?" I thought about it and figured that no one would know, so I tried to open a document.
What do you know: I could not open that document. Even worse, the Fa study document also closed by itself, and I could not open it again. Without the document to study, all I could do was to send an instant message to another practitioner, asking him to paste the particular paragraph that I should read via the instant messenger. But he did not even respond to my request as though he did not know what I was talking about. Soon after, I was unable to connect to the Internet Fa study platform.
This time I finally got a wake up call, realizing that I was facing some very serious issues. I did not study the Fa sufficiently and with dedication. I put the project ahead of the Fa study. Fa study is something dispensable. Teacher told us again and again that we must study the Fa, yet I was still not taking it seriously. How could I really treat myself as a true Dafa practitioner? I did not learn my lesson until I stumbled hard.
As soon as I understood better this time, it was time for global sending righteous thoughts. I settled down and concentrated my attention. I said in my heart to the evil, "I am Teacher's disciple during Fa-rectification. I do not recognize anything arranged by you. I will follow the path arranged by Teacher. I will cultivate myself at all times, and walk the most righteous path in the middle. I will repudiate your arrangement by cultivating myself well, firmly believe in Teacher, validate the Fa, save sentient beings, and accomplish well every task that a Dafa practitioner should do.
I checked the computer after sending righteous thoughts, and everything was operating normally.