(Clearwisdom.net) Some time ago, a friend who lived outside China came here for a visit and told me about the wonderful and romantic style of life overseas. That was exactly what I had been dreaming of. More than ten years ago, I tried to go abroad but couldn't make it. In my mind, the world outside China was the free world, and China was the dark society behind an iron curtain. I thought it was better for me to practice Falun Dafa abroad, because I could fully utilize my skills to validate the Fa there.
Though I had been cultivating for ten years and experienced many tribulations, my heart was still stirred up during those few days my friend visited me. I kept complaining about my husband and envying my friend. One night when I went to sleep, I heard a voice in my consciousness, "Living abroad is like staying in the open. Living in China is staying in the dark. For you, it's safer to stay in the dark. It is better to harmonize your family and other things in this way." When I woke up, I was very ashamed of myself. I understood completely why I was in China. I let go of my over ten-year-old attachment to going abroad and felt there was nothing to bother me anymore. I was sorry I had not considered Teacher's careful arrangement.
Practitioners overseas are in the open on the battlefield between the righteous and the evil. Though there are free societies overseas, the freedom people have is still relative. Although they are overseas, they still face being shot or beaten by villains sent by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Their cultivation path is not smooth either, but also comes with danger and pain. Practitioners in China are in the dark on the battlefield. Though the evil is openly bullying us, as long as practitioners have righteous thoughts and pay attention to safety, they will be safe. For practitioners, whether the environment is dangerous or safe, it pretty much depends on their cultivation state instead of how sinister the evil is. Whether cultivating overseas or in China, each environment has its own challenges. Cultivation is enduring hardship. The forms of hardship might be different in China or abroad, but the essence is the same. Wanting to have a wonderful life and avoid hardship is a human attachment.
Farmers want to go to the cities, city residents want to go abroad, single people want to get married, and the married want someone else's spouse or child. All these are attachments to greed, desire for change and something new, and the jealousy of thinking the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Only when we rid ourselves of the human attachment and sentiment of enjoying or resenting, and care less about everything in the human world, can we calm down and cultivate. Maybe when you jump out of the human level you will discover that wherever you stay, you are still on the earth; whoever you marry, it is a marriage in the human world; all the good or bad are the good and bad in the human world, not a bit like those in the heavens. Therefore, we should focus on cultivation and let go of attachments. We should live with whatever we get in the human world and focus on cultivating diligently; then can we leave the Three Realms and reach consummation to become a god.
Non-cultivators live in sadness and loss by thinking that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. For cultivators, cherishing what you have right now and focusing on diligent cultivation is what's really important.
Every cultivator has shouldered a sacred mission and responsibility. No matter where we live and what we do, it may be the arrangement that we have been awaiting for thousands of years. Teacher has thoroughly arranged everything for us already. Not being satisfied with what we have is the attachment of greed and desire; and our hearts deviate from the Fa to the pursuit of a "good life" in the human world. Therefore, staying where we are and accepting our responsibility is what we should do, so as to not disappoint the expectations of sentient beings.
