(Clearwisdom.net) The evil has two ways to persecute practitioners. One is the "hard" method that makes you afraid and scared; the other is a "soft" approach that causes you become attached to comfort and ease. Using these two tactics, the evil interferes with and tests practitioners' xinxing.
Facing the hard method, practitioners can usually manage to keep their main consciousness aware and use righteous thoughts to pass the tests. However, while in comfortable circumstances, practitioners easily become relaxed and their righteous thoughts are weakened, which means their loopholes can be taken advantage of. Who would see enjoying a life of comfort as suffering? It is hard to handle yourself well when your circumstances are pleasant and comfortable. Pleasant and comfortable circumstances may cause practitioners to become unsteady in their cultivation and unable to suffer. The evil uses this tactic to make practitioners lose patience with suffering and practicing cultivation and finally destroys them.
It is not easy to eliminate karma in nice and comfortable circumstances and surroundings. The attachment of comfort causes practitioners to become lazy and to generate fear, the attachment of sentimentality, the competitive mentality, zealotry, the attachment to seeking fame and self-interest, and other attachments. Unlike physical and mental torture, this type of persecution is quiet and clandestine. Since this form of persecution is usually difficult for practitioners to detect, it is the most dangerous. The reason that many people practice cultivation on and off--or finally leave cultivation altogether--is that they fear losing their easy and comfortable life. The attachment to comfort and ease should be a danger signal for practitioners. If anyone really stops practicing cultivation because they are attached to comfort and ease, he or she will most certainly regret it.
So should we get rid of pleasant and comfortable circumstances and surroundings? No. However, we should see our comfortable environment as something that heaven has bestowed upon us and make a good use of it to validate the Fa and do well the three things. We shouldn't waste any resources or opportunities, because everything comes for Dafa. In addition, we shouldn't seek to suffer hardship in order to avoid being destroyed by the attachment of comfort and ease. Instead, we should just discipline ourselves and keep a good and diligent cultivation state while living in pleasant and comfortable circumstances. If we are not attached to enjoying comfort and ease while in this comfortable environment, we will handle ourselves well.
As long as we truly practice cultivation according to the Fa, we can succeed in consummation in any circumstance. No matter what kind of human thoughts or form of persecution attempts to interfere, nothing can prevent practitioners from succeeding in consummation.
