(Clearwisdom.net)
We are cultivating amidst ordinary society, so mornings and evenings are extremely precious to us. They are chunks of time that we have full control over without affecting our daily work and life. Diligent practitioners normally can utilize this time to study the Fa, practice the exercises, and send forth righteous thoughts.
However, the interference during these times is serious and apparent. A practitioner in my area has had many touching experiences on his Fa-rectification journey. However, he is not good at elevating within the Fa, because his Fa-study lags behind. The major reason is that he cannot make the best use of his time in the morning and evening. Not only does he feel sleepy when studying the Fa, but also he spends disproportionately large amounts of time doing small things. Long-term interference must be eliminated.
I am concerned about him. When I clarified the truth to a motorcyclist, he said something thoughtful: "The best time of a day is the morning, isn't it?" I realized that it was Master's hint, for I had often gotten up too late in the morning.
If I do not use well my time in the mornings or the evenings to study the Fa or practice the exercises, my daily schedule will be disrupted. In my cultivation, if I do not study the Fa in the morning, thought karma will bother me seriously and external interference will also increase. It seems that the evil exploits everyone of our shortcomings. In this situation, I cannot do anything well. The only remedy is to focus on studying the Fa, sending forth righteous thoughts, searching inward, and adjusting conditions back to normal as soon as possible. The longer we remain in this condition, the more interference we will encounter.
This really is not a negligible matter, especially at this point in Fa-rectification. Internal and external factors that hinder our complete assimilation to the Fa cause serious interference. The old forces are keen to exploit our shortcomings when we slack off even a little bit. From another point of view, the requirements for our cultivation are getting higher and stricter.
My understanding is that if we want to use well these times in the morning and evening, we should use our righteous thoughts to facilitate it. We should not allow anything to interfere with us. We can use our righteous thoughts to ensure that the time blocks dedicated to studying the Fa and practicing the exercises are fixed. At the same time, we need to treat cultivation as the most important part of our lives.
On the other hand, our main consciousness must be strong, especially against the interference of sleepiness. I realized that the factors behind the demon of sleepiness are very complex. It focuses on interfering with the key point of our cultivation--studying the Fa. It does not want us to reach Consummation. Let's think about those practitioners who have been severely persecuted and lost their lives. Many of them did not have good Fa-study conditions.
If we get interfered with while studying the Fa, can it also mean that we are not diligent enough? Doesn't the existence of the interference question our attitudes toward cultivation and Fa-study? Isn't the attachment to comfort a loophole? The evil will take advantage of our loopholes and add interference to our dimension. I think this is the why, after several hours of napping, I would need a long time to regain my righteous thoughts. Long naps not only waste time but also reveal our lack of righteous thoughts and failure to pass the test. It is not acceptable if we fail the same test day after day. Can our cultivation stop here? We must overcome it.
Master said,
"Forbearance is the key to improving one's xinxing." ("What is Forbearance?" in Essentials for Further Advancement)
"There's a saying, 'the Great Law is boundless'--how your cultivation goes all depends on your mind. The height you can cultivate to depends entirely on your ability to endure and your ability to bear hardships." (Zhuan Falun)
Forbearance is not only the key for our cultivation but also the characteristic that enlightened beings of the new cosmos must have. Many practitioners have already passed many life-and-death tests. I think that we should not neglect this serious problem now. We need to use righteous thoughts to pass the laziness test, because it directly affects the quality and quantity of our Fa-study.
Yesterday I bought a little clock from a supermarket. I remembered that before July 20, 1999, I used three clocks to wake me up in the morning. They really helped me. I fully understand that our righteous thoughts keep us cultivating. We need to search inward. In the current situation, I want to use this method again. This is a re-starting point for me to face this problem again. Today, in the morning, I began to memorize Zhuan Falun again. Today is a new start.
September 7, 2006