(Clearwisdom.net) I was once a young Dafa disciple. However I got lost in the everyday society for quite a few years. It was Master's protection and the calls of fellow practitioners that woke me up to resume my cultivation practice in Dafa a year ago.
I still remember the precious period of time when I once again embraced Dafa. Every time I enlightened to a Fa principle, I was filled with joy, excitement as well as repentance over what I had missed for drifting off my cultivation path while growing up. Every minute, I was immersed in the Fa. I spent all the time I had each day studying the Fa, yet I wanted to study more. After this initial period, I found myself having a hard time to proceeding with solid cultivation. Various attachments started to come out. Whenever I did not keep up with Fa-study, I would not know how to overcome these attachments. Sometimes even when I clearly knew it was something I had to let go, I kept swaying between the path of being a human or attaining godhood. There was one attachment behind these various attachments: my attachment to comfort and ease.
Our generation's parents have suffered the turmoil of years of political movements and struggle. They have poured all their love to us, lest we get hurt in society. It was under this type of indulgence that I grew up, with little hardship. I was inclined to quit given the slightest obstacle. Now I am in college, and dodging hardship has become a habit. In the past, when my mother asked me to study the Fa or do the exercises, my first reaction was that was that it was so hard and tiring. I wasted so much time. Now it was hard to break away from this habit. When it came to doing the exercises, at first I figured I'd better find a fixed time every day. Since my schedule changed every day, I decided on the time right before midnight when I sent righteous thoughts. A few days later, I decided that because my roommates were all studying before midnight, I could not easily calm down. So I tried a few days to do exercises after sending righteous thoughts. Then I thought maybe I could do the exercises when others were out doing their morning exercises, but I could not get up on time. When the alarm went off, I simply turned it off. I even started missing the 6 a.m time slot for sending righteous thoughts. Then I found another excuse: I needed a little more sleep to avoid dozing off in the classroom. In addition, I also found excuses when it was too cold or it was too hot. So skipping all five sets of exercises became my routine, while doing a set of exercises became an exception. In short, my primordial spirit refused to take charge.
This aversion to hardship also encroached on my daily life. For some time, I fell asleep in class. Because my grades were still quite good, I developed an attachment to showing off, saying, “Look, I can score a better grade than others by sleeping in class, and I have been able to do this since I was little.” Now, by looking inside myself, I have realized that the wisdom Dafa has bestowed upon me is meant to validate the Fa and save sentient beings. How far off I was when I showed off my cleverness. This attachment of showing off has mingled with my indulgence in comfort and ease. Sleeping until noon on the weekend, snacking while wasting time watching TV. I even took comfort in the fact that my roommates and schoolmates were all more or less acting like this, so I treated myself as an everyday person. It has been very hard to break away from this state.
Another manifestation of the attachment to comfort and ease was taking shortcuts. I understood that I should sit uptight when studying the Fa out of respect for Master and the Fa, yet I could not keep that position for long. I treated sending righteous thoughts as a burden rather than my duty. When I was late or missed the time slot, I failed to make up the lost time.
I even developed layer after layer of protection over my attachment to comfort and ease. I stopped short of looking inside within myself to face it. I confused my attachment that something needed be cultivated away for part of myself as protection and refuse to discuss it with others.
When I dug further, I found out that my attachment to comfort and ease was caused by my attachment to be human rather than go down the path of a cultivator. I used to admire the ancient people's living in remote mountains, away from worldly conflicts. That was my understanding of cultivation when I walked into Dafa. Now it has become a barrier on my cultivation path. Did I really try to return to my true self? Did I really try to assist Master in Fa rectification? I am afraid not. Because I did not realize the importance of following Master's teachings and treating the three things seriously, factors of the old forces took advantage of my gaps and filled my mind with complaints on each tiny bit of personal hardship along my cultivation path. For a period of time, a voice kept calling out Master's name in my mind. I tried to eliminate it, and it was not successful until I realized it was my own gaps that fostered this type of evil factor. I abused Master's boundless compassion, which is a lack of diligence to say the least. From a more serious perspective, trying to adapt the Fa to my way of comfortable life is trying to alter and oppose the Fa. It was Master's compassion that granted me so many opportunities to behave myself, yet I acted like some people in other religions who would take Dafa as a tool to reach their own goals.
In the past, I never thought I would be of poor enlightenment quality when Master said:
“...in the past it was said that if people did not believe what they could not see, such people would be regarded by the community of cultivators as having poor enlightenment quality, as being deluded by the false impressions of everyday people, and as being lost among everyday people.” (Zhuan Falun)
I thought I believed everything Master has said. Now I realized my slacking off and not fulfilling my share of responsibility is a symptom of my failure to fully believe we are at a time when
“The sky is filled with eyes
As all gods focus in”
(“Look Attentively,” Hong Yin Volume II)
I held too tightly to comfort and ease that I mistook this world as my destiny. When Master talks about the great responsibilities of Dafa disciples, I have time and again failed to shoulder my share for fear of facing the hardship.
Writing this to take a close look at my attachments is my first step in restoring my cultivation state. I will simply follow what Master teaches us, spend more time studying the Fa, and strengthen my righteous thoughts and let them guide me. I will not to seek comfort nor ease and refuse to acknowledge anything that is outside the Fa. I will wake up and shoulder the solemn responsibilities we face and avoid the endless remorse that I would otherwise experience in the future.
March 31, 2011
