Studying the Fa, Improving My Character, and Awakening Sentient Beings

(Minghui.org) I would like to report to Master Li Hongzhi (Falun Dafa’s founder) my experiences of doing the three things over the past year, and also share them with fellow practitioners.

Studying the Fa and Cultivating My Moral Character

Studying the Fa is what a practitioner longs for, just like how we need to drink when thirsty and eat when hungry. If we study the Fa well, even if there are very few people in a region, and there is no one to exchange thoughts with, we will not feel lonely.

Ordinary people feel unhappy when they do not gain satisfaction from reputation, personal interest, and emotion. But Dafa helps practitioners who truly place emphasis on Fa study overcome these restraints. The happiness obtained from the Fa is sufficient to suppress the human attachments so that a cultivator is not enticed by human society.

I enlighten to many points when I study the Fa. I thus not only say that Dafa is good, I also want to achieve the Fa’s requirements to a certain degree.

People who are going through tough times do not feel good and their minds can easily go astray. Why do some people believe in Dafa despite being in a difficult situation? I think it is because these people have a solid foundation in studying the Fa, so they don’t feel scared when they meet with difficulties. I love to study the Fa and am willing to temper my will at critical moments, instead of asking others to conform to my opinions.

Every time I study the Fa, I seem to revisit a principle: Human beings come to this world with a purpose. This is what I learned from studying the Fa. Maybe this understanding makes me always be in high spirits. Dafa enhances my will to withstand human world temptation. 

Group Fa study is a cultivation form that Master has left behind for us. When I participated in a group Fa study one night, I enlightened a little bit of the content of Dafa. A thought came to my mind: If I continue to study the Fa like this without stopping, forgetting the four seasons, how wonderful that would be! I thought Master let me develop this righteous thought. Since then, I have disciplined myself to cultivate diligently, because I experienced the benefit of group Fa study. 

Human society is a dimension of illusion. Only through putting our hearts into studying the Fa will we gain enlightenment and be led out of a lost state.

Improving My Character

In 2020, the pandemic spread around the world, and for many people, it was a dangerous year. However, for me, it seemed to be the year that I had just started to cultivate in Dafa.

For nearly six years, I had almost never backed away from tribulations that I was supposed to go through. 

Master said, 

“Forbearance is the key to improving one’s xinxing.” (“What is Forbearance (Ren)? ,”Essentials for Further Advancement)

When I met with difficulties, I was able to tolerate and cherish the chance to improve my cultivation state. When I felt affected, I would always think, “Why did I encounter such a thing? What attachments have caused me to encounter such a thing and how much can I change?” I always had this correct mindset.

For the last two years, I met with an unprecedentedly large difficulty. I had been studying the Fa happily and would seldom look outwards during conflicts. So this big difficulty indicated I had an incorrect state. In my bewilderment, a practitioner sent me a text message, “You can do it. You definitely can do it. This is because you have an omnipotent Master.”

I recalled that whenever I overcame a tribulation, I would reflect on my righteous thoughts and behavior during the process. I had thus accepted the idea of cultivating in tribulations for a long time in a disguised way. This was equivalent to falling into the old forces’ trap. 

This kind of reflection and self-acknowledgment was like placing myself in an important position, indirectly emphasizing my determination, but actually placing Master and Dafa in a less important position. I had placed too much emphasis on my personal cultivation and had voluntarily separated myself from Dafa. There was no way that Dafa’s power could act on my body. I understood that overcoming a tribulation well is what I should do, so I should never appreciate myself for it. When I was able to place the Fa first I was able to get out of danger.

No one should just focus on doing things and overlook the importance of cultivation, because that is putting the cart before the horse. As long as an attachment still exists, big and small matters will arise. That is why there are no small problems in cultivation. When an attachment is being eliminated, it will naturally not arise anymore and may even resolve a fundamental problem.

I think there are two aspects to getting rid of attachments. The first is to persist in studying the Fa. When one’s mind is full of Dafa, there will be little room for human thoughts. The second aspect is to cherish the conflicts and tribulations that allow you to cultivate yourself.

Master has said, 

“You have to truly temper yourself through real, lived experience if you are to grow and progress. ” (The Fourth Talk, Zhuan Falun)

We should take a look at our first thoughts to see if we remembered Master and Dafa; whether we thought that it happened because others did not do well, or if we were thankful to others for giving us an opportunity to improve in cultivation? 

When we encounter conflicts or someone harms us if we refuse to look inward and hold ourselves to a high standard, even if we call ourselves cultivators, at least on this one issue we are ordinary people. As cultivators, it is extremely important that we keep our thoughts steady at critical moments. We cannot always lose control of ourselves and blame others during conflicts and apologize later. Once we can overcome a large tribulation, we will experience the miraculous nature of cultivation.

The things that I meet in my life and work, as long as they affect my mind, I will catch hold of them and not let even a tiny thought diminish by itself. If we are really able to remain unaffected in a conflict, there is no need to think about it.

A small human thought may be a mass of karma in another dimension. In the end, whenever I trace the source of it, it is always because my personal desires have been affected, and that it is not the fault of the other party. The conflict then disappears.

If a person’s heart is filled with conflicts, how could the person have a vast universal view? Cultivators have no enemies. The most important thing is to let go of our pain, get rid of the barriers between practitioners, and help sentient beings all come to understand the truth.

I once made a certain amount of sacrifice over a matter, but I was still rejected by the other party. This was due to my problem. However, the other party did not talk to me and attacked me indirectly. I could not take it. I dragged my feet to work and did not know how I passed the eight hours that day. I had made use of so many chances to overcome tribulations and improve my cultivation, but I blundered this time. Luckily, I was still willing to look for the answer within myself. I cheered myself up the next day.

It really is not easy to persist in cultivating our every thought and action to the very last second. It would be so relaxing if we could generate selfless thoughts instead of being attached to our own realms when we meet with problems. That is truly cultivating in Dafa. We are already at the last part of the last phase of Fa-rectification. I wish that every Dafa practitioner can find his own stable path to his ultimate consummation.

Clarifying the Truth

If I did not study the Fa or send righteous thoughts, but I still tried my best to clarify the truth, I would still sort of feel that there was some form of improvement in my cultivation. However, if I did not clarify the truth, no matter what effort I put into the other two things, I would not feel much improvement in my cultivation. We cannot overlook any one of the three things, but clarifying the truth is just so important.

In ancient times, cultivators isolated themselves from human society. Their cultivation process was very long and full of hardship. In the end, most of them just grew old in the secluded place they resided and died without attaining consummation. However, during the Fa-rectification period, we have group Fa study and project groups. The regular exchanges among practitioners greatly reduce the difficulty of cultivation and help us maintain our passion for spreading the truth.

The media can spread the truth on a wide scale. Last year, I started participating in a project and realized that there is a vast world out there. It is different from meeting someone with a predestined relationship and clarifying the truth to them directly on the street. At the same time, as I live alone, the group cooperation in the project also helped me overcome some difficulties that I had in human society. 

If the ancient solitary cultivators had met with these difficulties, I guess it would have been very hard for them to overcome them. I am always thinking of doing my job well in the shortest time each week so that the coordinator can feel at ease. It would be best if I could function how the heavenly bodies rotate in motion without stopping every day, every week, and every year.

As a practitioner, I should try to minimize the trouble I cause coordinators. Although I did not tell them, I prefer to be given articles that are detached from worldly affairs. I do not like to translate articles that are closely related to situations in society. However, much to my surprise, the initial job that the coordinator gave me was to translate articles that were totally about current events.

As a disciple of the Fa-rectification period, we must be responsible to all righteous elements. Dafa corrected my thoughts and I quickly got rid of the wrong thinking of not wanting to deal with politics. The lack of interest in current events also disappeared from my mind. I placed my whole mind and body into translating articles that were related to current events.

Apart from doing translation work in the media, I also placed emphasis on direct face-to-face truth clarification. In 2020, after the pandemic outbreak, I got to know a doctor. She seemed to be an intellectual born in the fifties or sixties. The people of that generation all have relatively higher moral integrity. I thought that she would definitely agree that having medical ethics is fundamental. 

“Doctors have the hearts of parents,” I said to her since we need to go along with the other party’s interests when we clarify the truth, “I hear my parents say that doctors in the past were all very careful when they prescribed medications, as all medicines are poisonous if not properly prescribed. But now, some Chinese doctors make their patients go to western pharmacies and then go to traditional Chinese pharmacies to earn as much money from the patients as possible.” She nodded.

“Dae Jang Geum was the most famous doctor in ancient Korea,” I continued. “Why did she not contact the plague despite carrying infected children in her arms?” Much to my surprise, she seemed to agree. She said, “This is possible.” From her facial expression, I felt that she must be someone who placed emphasis on medical ethics. If not, she would not have been able to engage in this conversation. I told her about the initial outbreak and the panacea for it. Before we parted, she said that she would continue to learn more about Dafa later.

Last year, not long after the pandemic outbreak, I made a call to my music teacher in China and told her how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had withheld the news about the pandemic from the people. I became impatient because she kept talking about her family matters, and I did not like to listen to it. As I did not treat her with compassion, she said, “It is OK for you to say all these things on the phone, but I am in China, and I may be in danger.”

The second time, I realized that I must have patience. I thus used a concerned tone to speak to her, “The pandemic has not ended. If it is not necessary, please do not go on any tours.” She accepted what I said. 

During this conversation, she seldom talked about her family matters. Instead, she said in a worried manner, “This year (2020), 27 provinces were flooded.” Following her topic, I said, “The Three Gorges Project harms people. A water conservancy engineering expert said that he could tell people clearly the dangers of this project if he was given 30 minutes. Out of the 12 dangers that he cited, 11 of them have already occurred. The CCP likes to meddle with things that they are not familiar with. They did not even give the expert 30 minutes. This goes to show how arrogant they are.” 

She then started to be concerned about the changes in the climate and rationalized that the Three Gorges Project had altered the ecosystem at the middle and downstream of the Yangtze River. She said, “Chongqing is supposed to be a burning furnace but now it has become warm. This type of weird weather is probably caused by the Three Gorges Project.”

The process is most important when we clarify the truth. If we seek quantity or superficial effects, that is what everyday people do in their realms. My music teacher did not talk about trivial matters but talked about the problems that she should be taking note of. This was the precursor to her accepting the truth and being saved. When we were about to end our conversation, she promised me that we would survive the pandemic together and become witnesses to this calamity.

Conclusion

It is not easy for human beings to live on earth. Sentient beings do not always have a good time, while cultivators do not have a single relaxing day. This kind of situation may not be because a person’s karma is great. It may be because he has the potential to cultivate well and shoulders great responsibilities, so the Buddha Law has bestowed him with benevolence.

Actually, everyone has a great responsibility that the Heavens are waiting to place on him. I hope that every practitioner can complete their historic mission and not let Master and their sentient beings down.

Kindly correct me if there is any room for improvement.