(Minghui.org) Recently I attained some understanding from studying Master’s Fa. I would like to share this understanding with fellow practitioners. If there are any mistakes in my understanding, please point them out to me.
Master taught us,
"When a person has cultivated well you can only see, looking at the surface, that the person is quite diligent. Being diligent means that he is able to watch his words and actions closely every moment, pay close attention to his thoughts, and is able to be strict with himself, and is usually able to conduct himself strictly. That describes someone who is diligent in cultivation." ("Teaching the Fa at the Fa Conference at the U.S. Capital")
During our years of cultivation, we often hear fellow practitioners talking about others who have “cultivated well”. Their meaning of “cultivated well” often meant that someone had been cultivating for many years, or that someone was a coordinator of some region or a responsible person for a project. Sometimes it was referring to someone who seemed to have a good understanding about the Fa, or perhaps their celestial eye had opened. Maybe it meant that they had been distributing a lot of materials about Falun Dafa and had succeeded in helping a great number of people withdraw from the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), and sometimes it referred to practitioners who had come out of prison with dignity.
Many practitioners used the above measures to judge whether a practitioner cultivated well and they might even take this practitioner as their role model, instead of regarding the Fa as teacher and looking inside to improve oneself.
Minghui published an article "An Immortal’s View of Dafa Practitioners" some time ago. Some practitioners in our region printed this article and spread it among practitioners. Some new practitioners even considered this article as part of Dafa and read this article over and over again; among their discussions you could hear the words of praise and appreciation. Here I want to raise a question to these practitioners, “Are you walking your cultivation path right?”
As a conclusion to this sharing, Master says,
"With the spreading of Dafa, more and more people are able to understand Dafa. So we must pay attention to one matter: Do not bring the human concepts of caste or hierarchy into Dafa. Both veteran and new students must be mindful of this matter. Anyone who comes to study the Fa—no matter how learned he is, how big his business, how high his rank, what special skills he has, or what supernormal abilities he possesses—must actually practice cultivation. Cultivation practice is magnificent and solemn. Whether you can abandon your particular human notions is a major test that you will have difficulty passing, yet you must pass. After all, as a disciple truly practicing cultivation, you must abandon these attachments since you can never reach Consummation without abandoning these notions.
Veteran disciples should also pay attention to this matter. As more people study the Fa, you should pay more attention to guiding new students to actually practice cultivation. Meanwhile, you yourselves should not slack. If circumstances permit, you can increase the time spent studying the Fa and doing the exercises. Maintaining Dafa’s tradition, upholding Dafa’s cultivation principles, and persevering in true cultivation are long-term tests for every Dafa disciple.” ("Abandon Human Attachments and Continue True Cultivation" from Essentials for Further Advancement)