Becoming a Responsible Practitioner

(Clearwisdom.net) I frequently argued with my husband over trivial things in the past. He always criticized me and said, “Why are you not being responsible?” or “You are the most irresponsible person.” At first, I didn't pay much attention to him and thought that a practitioner “...should not fight back when being punched or insulted...” (Zhuan Falun I even comforted myself with pride and thought, “See, I have passed a xinxing test.”

One day when my husband and I were doing the Falun Gong exercises in the morning, I set the pressure cooker to cook rice without checking whether the steam release valve was in the correct position. When we were doing the sitting exercise, the pressure cooker made a loud noise, as if it was about to explode. We could no longer remain tranquil, and my husband got up to check it and fixed the valve. After we finished sending forth righteous thoughts at 6:00 a.m., I had a feeling that I would be criticized. Sure enough, he started, “Why are you always like this? You have no sense of responsibility at all when you do things! I don't know how you manage to be a schoolteacher. If you worked in a factory, you would have been fired a long time ago for safety reasons. You are hopeless...”

I kept doing my things while listening to his criticism. I suddenly realized, “Isn't this Teacher using his words to give me a hint? He has been saying that I am irresponsible for a while. I must have a gap somewhere. Since nothing happens accidentally to a cultivator, I must carefully look within.” That morning, I read “To the European Fa Conference,” in which Teacher said,

“Dafa disciples have a duty and must, no matter what, fulfill the vows that brought them to this world. For it was on that account that you once pledged your life as a god and were thus allowed to become today the most magnificent kind of being in the cosmos—a disciple of Dafa.”

I asked myself, “Am I the most magnificent Dafa disciple in the cosmos? Am I fulfilling my duty? Am I responsible to my things, to friends and relatives? To the sentient beings in my universe? To the mission in assisting Teacher to rectify the Fa?”

As I continued to look within, I found many gaps. I studied the Fa as a formality. I focused on the number of pages that I read, but not on the true quality of study. I sometimes looked at the book, but actually thought about things I needed do after I finished reading. I also thought of many other things when I sent forth righteous thoughts. I was not able to be persistent in sending forth righteous thoughts at the fixed four times each day, especially at midnight. Many times I just did it for the sake of doing it.

I eventually found my real problem. I didn't study the Fa enough. I decided to fix that and recite the Fa in order to improve myself! I wanted every cell in my body to be filled with Dafa and assimilate to the Fa in every moment. After I studied the Fa on a deeper level, I discovered that some of my strong human attachments had disappeared unnoticed. I felt that my body had sloughed off layers upon layers of hard shells and had become increasingly lighter. Most importantly, I reminded myself all the time that I was a cultivator and I have to follow the Fa in order to rectify myself when I run into an incident. Of course, on some occasions, I barely passed a tribulation test and still had a human heart, which I had yet not been able to eliminate. But I truly experienced the wonderfulness of studying the Fa and the boundless power of the Fa.