Eliminate My Notions and Become a True Practitioner

(Minghui.org) I was born in China in the early 1980s, and began practicing Falun Dafa ten years ago. I’d like to share some of my recent understandings in cultivation.

There are no practitioners among my relatives and friends, and the few practitioners I know are elderly ladies who have been practicing for more than twenty years. During my ten years of cultivation practice, I never wavered in my steadfast belief in Falun Dafa. I always felt that I could give up everything, including my life to uphold Dafa.

For the past ten years, I read the Fa every day. After the pandemic began in 2020, I began to memorize Zhuan Falun. I’ve recited it from memory once, and have memorized the first three lectures on my second time around.

Possibly because I thought I was very diligent and could relax, I gradually paid more attention to news on social media, and watched TV dramas. I told myself that in order to clarify the truth to people, I had to know what they were interested in. Because I usually did not pay attention to events in society, when people talked about something, I didn’t know what it was about and I felt I sounded out of tune with others. I thought this was the reason my truth clarification was not effective.

Cultivation is like sailing against the wind, if you don’t move forward, you will fall back. I began to feel like an ordinary person, often thinking about things from an everyday person’s point of view. Even my body felt tired. I really wanted to be diligent, but for some reason, it wasn’t the same as before. I think this may be because cultivation is getting closer to the surface. But there must be other major reasons.

Master talked about young people in China and said,

“I feel sorry for this entire generation of Chinese” (“Fa Teaching Given at the 2014 San Francisco Fa Conference,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. XIII).

His words were engraved in my mind, and I sometimes wondered why we were so pitiable. I know that we haven’t been systematically educated in the 5,000 years of Chinese traditional culture. But I am still practicing cultivation and I’m also very firm on the Fa. So what was missing?

At my current level, I realized that the deeper concepts behind China’s ancient culture were distorted by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party). The concepts taught in modern times have been twisted, and are not really traditional human concepts. But whole generations of Chinese grew up with these distorted concepts that were instilled in us by the Party. One may be a good and kind person, but may not necessarily have the ability to resist bad things, instead unconsciously rejecting mankind’s orthodox culture.

Identifying My Notions

For example, lustful thoughts are something that I can’t seem to get rid of. Although I have made great efforts to eliminate them, I have not changed. It seems that my notions can’t be changed. Two days ago, I suddenly realized that it is because my notions have not yet been rectified, and they are still distorted human notions, making it very difficult to eliminate attachments and desires. The superficial things have been removed, but the roots are still there. These notions are part of the root, a substance that exists in a very deep dimension.

Looking at the elderly practitioners around me who have been practicing for more than 20 years, I always felt that the words they spoke and the truth-clarifying information they forwarded to non-practitioners to read were not suitable. I didn’t think those things could save people. In fact, I was blocked by my human notions. So the effectiveness of truth-clarification has nothing to do with not understanding ordinary peoples’ attachments. People will listen to a practitioner who doesn’t have distorted notions. Our notions are blocking us from saving people.

I have cultivated for ten years, I have memorized Zhuan Falun and read all Master’s other books more than twenty times, but I only just realized that what was blocking my cultivation was distorted notions. But why do I seem to have regressed in my cultivation? In fact, if you think about it, isn’t the real difficulty removing human attachments, desires, and notions?

I saw articles on the Minghui website mentioning that for elderly practitioners who have been practicing for many years, they need to change the notion that they are old and not as capable. For young practitioners born in the 1980s, 1990s or 2000s, we don’t have to deal with old age, but what we face are a variety of notions that have been formed since birth. Those notions are even more distorted than those formed by older people, because the moral values of the world are declining day by day and getting worse and worse. Many young practitioners live around the world in all kinds of environments, and they have formed all kinds of notions.

I’d like to tell young practitioners that although notions are hard to eliminate, continuous Fa study is most effective. In the process of continuing to read the Fa, although it seems that the human surface has not changed, in fact, in other dimensions, in more microscopic places, the Fa is changing us, washing away the things that have deviated in the human body, and saving the sentient beings there. Over time, as we continue to study the Fa the changes will eventually manifest on the surface of the human body.

In addition to studying the Fa, I try my best not to look at everyday people’s things. We can read Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, The Ultimate Goal of Communism, and How the Specter of Communism is Ruling Our World. In addition to books, we can also watch movies, TV programs and other audio-visual products produced by Dafa disciples, which help us learn about traditional culture and remove the Party culture and deviated thoughts.

At the 2019 New York Fa conference, a practitioner involved in Minghui asked Master,

“With twenty years having passed, some practitioners who are involved are now in their eighties. (Master: Indeed, they have aged.) And those who began when they were young are now middle-aged. I’d like to ask Master, when is the younger generation of Dafa disciples going to follow in our footsteps and take on the responsibilities at Minghui.org the way we did back in the day?” (“Fa Teaching at the 2019 New York Fa Conference,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. XV)

When I read this question at the time, I asked myself: When will I be able to take on the responsibilities of a Dafa disciple? I wasn’t sure.

I now feel that I have to become a real practitioner on the human surface as well, and be a genuine Fa-rectification period Dafa disciple. I need to change my distorted notions, and take on the responsibility of being a Dafa disciple.

In the opening program of this year’s Shen Yun, when the Creator appeared he said, “Enter the Three Realms and fulfill God’s vows!” I thought, I should not give up, nor should I be depressed, nor should I care about my previous lack of diligence. I just need to be as diligent as when I first obtained the Fa, cultivate myself well, and fulfill my vows!

When one’s notion changes, everything changes!

Editor’s note: This article only represents the author’s understanding in their current cultivation state meant for sharing among practitioners so that we can “Compare with one another in study, in cultivation.” (“Solid Cultivation,” Hong Yin)