Late Awakening in My Cultivation

(Minghui.org) I have had many large and small tribulations in my more than 20 years of cultivation in Falun Dafa, and I have improved my xinxing to some extent. But when I am being maligned, humiliated, or when people have a bad attitude toward me, I struggle to face things with a calm heart.

I had this problem before I started cultivating. If I was wrong, anyone could tell me I was wrong, but if I was not in the wrong and someone blamed me, I would have to justify myself to that person. If I was being maligned or humiliated, all the more would I need to reason it out with that person. If the issue came to no conclusion, I would not let the matter rest. I was the kind of person that people would say to “argue to the point of death.”

After cultivating for so many years, I have already eliminated many attachments, like speaking carelessly, not bothering with trivial things, placing importance on not losing face and reputation, being presumptuous, being selfish, and placing myself before others, but I still have not eliminated these attachments completely.

During the last phase of Fa-rectification, benevolent Master Li (Dafa’s founder) helped me by arranging environments for me to get rid of these attachments. I have a cleaning job at a school and I rented a house with two bedrooms with another practitioner. Each of us had our own bedroom and we shared the kitchen and bathroom. The practitioner did not work, so our schedules were different and we did the three things at different times. I did the three things basically every day. I would go to work, return home and then go out to do face-to-face truth clarification.

Neither of us knew how to use a computer, so I relied on this practitioner to go out and get the Minghui Weekly every week and the materials that we used for truth clarification, such as booklets and stickers. I just used whatever this practitioner got. This practitioner was over 60. She did not have any income and only had a small amount of savings. Aside from the rent and her daily living expenses, she had to pay the transport fees incurred every week from retrieving these materials. She would sometimes need to take two buses, and the trip to and from would cost her eight yuan (a little over one dollar). If she had used that eight yuan sparingly, it could pay for her living expenses for a whole day.

The practitioner said to me one day, “I'm not going to get the stickers you are asking for. You can go and get them yourself.” I really couldn't understand why she said this. I hadn't considered her ability to afford the trip, and I misunderstood and thought she was moody, so I became dissatisfied with this practitioner. Later, another practitioner brought me some stickers and resolved my urgent issue of a lack of truth-clarification stickers.

A few days passed and the practitioner went out to get some stickers and then brought them to my room. I thoughtlessly said to her, “I don't need them anymore. I have enough.” After I said those words, I knew that I held a grudge and had already deviated from the Fa. However, the words were already out. This grudge, which I could not suppress, created a barrier between us and our relationship became tense. The problem gradually became more serious. The practitioner said that she lost some money, and I became a suspect. In all fairness, I am a cultivator so I definitely would not have taken a fellow practitioner’s money, but this matter must have happened for a reason. The practitioner of course did not ask me to return the money to her. But we were living under the same roof, so she could not keep quiet when she lost money in the house.

This series of events must have happened due to my attachments. Although I had not found the root cause, I saw my attachment to bearing grudges, personal gain and not wanting to be maligned by others.

I later recalled a story that I had read on Minghui.org. The general outline of the story was that a patient had invited a doctor to his house to treat his illness. After the doctor left, the patient discovered that the money he kept under his bed was missing. The patient suspected that the doctor had taken the money and asked his son to go to the doctor’s house to ask for it. The doctor gave money to the patient’s son without attempting to explain anything. Sometime later, the patient was tidying up under his bed and found that the money had been wrapped up in the blankets. The patient sent his son back to the doctor’s house to return the money. When the patient’s son asked the doctor why he had not attempted to explain himself the first time, the doctor replied, “I knew that your father was gravely ill. If you had returned empty-handed, your father might have gotten angry and that would have aggravated his condition.” The patient’s son was touched and knelt before the doctor.

In the past, even an average doctor could take it lightly when he was being wronged by others. He could think for his patient and be willing to sacrifice his money. I cultivate Dafa, so all the more so should I be in such a realm. I decided to fork out the money and give it to the practitioner. But the practitioner refused to accept it and looked unhappy. I wondered why she was still unhappy when I had done what I should.

I had wanted to go to the practitioner many times to share my thoughts with an open heart to eliminate the barrier between us. But I didn't want to lose face, and I was afraid that the practitioner might make me look bad, so I didn't attempt to share with her. I once walked over to the practitioner’s door and was about to knock, but I just retracted my hand. I figured that since we were living under the same roof, I could just find another chance to talk to her about it another day. I went to work and clarified the truth during the day and came home from work very late each night. So this matter just dragged on until school ended for the summer break.

I decided that I should not rush to find the practitioner to exchange thoughts. Instead, I should calm down and spend a large amount of time studying the Fa, reading Master’s lectures from different regions, and reading Minghui Weekly. Through more Fa study and exchanging thoughts with other practitioners, I calmed down and looked within. I found that I had many attachments which were not easy to find and I had not realized I had them. I found the root cause that had created the barrier between us. The practitioner did things with a serious and meticulous attitude and paid attention to details. I do things roughly with a casual attitude. I do not concern myself with details.

I only practiced the first, third, fourth, and fifth sets of exercises during my morning exercises, and spent the rest of the time studying the Fa. I practiced the second set of exercises at night. I liked to open the kitchen window in the morning to allow air to circulate. The practitioner completed all five sets of exercises in the morning. Since her exercise duration was longer, she might have felt a bit cold and would close the window. But I would open the window again without thinking much. Sometimes after I left for work, the window would be open the whole day and a layer of dust would collect on top of the gas stove. That practitioner would usually be the one who cleaned the kitchen and the toilet. I used to run a fashion boutique, so earning money to feed our family was my responsibility, while my husband took care of the housework and other small matters. I didn’t even know how to use a gas stove because my husband had never let me cook a meal. I had gotten into the habit of being unfamiliar with and having no concept of doing housework or maintaining a house.

I also had an attachment to looking down on the practitioner. I go out to clarify the truth face-to-face every day and I thought that the practitioner had a loophole in her cultivation because she did not go out to clarify the truth very often. When the practitioner focused on matters that I would not pay much attention to, I would think that she was bothersome and hard to live with. When I had no fear, I would not care about the safety of the practitioners with me. When my lifestyle was simple and crude, I would overlook the practitioner’s merits of caring about details and thinking of others. This was actually a loophole in my cultivation. The reason we lived in conflict was right there.

I found that the root cause of our unhappiness and the conflict between us was totally because of the attachments that I had not gotten rid of. My failure to cultivate well had caused the practitioner to suffer so much, but I still thought highly of myself and thought that I was right. This was a typical self-centered, selfish behavior, which is totally the opposite of Master's requirements, to put others before ourselves when we do things. How could the practitioner be happy living with a person like me? Even if the practitioner was happy, Master had me see her in an unhappy state. How else could I get rid of my attachments?

Nothing is trivial in cultivation, but I actually had a great fall over this seemingly trivial matter. When I did not care to cultivate through small matters, the problems accumulated and the attachments became larger, deepening the conflict. Dafa got rid of the attachments in my heart and helped me find the crux, something that I had not been able to discover during my cultivation. I finally understood the matter at my cultivation level. But just when I improved my xinxing according to the Fa, the practitioner moved away. I did not help the practitioner at all and did not even speak a sentence of well wishes. I felt regretful and ashamed, so I sent out a thought from the bottom of my heart: Apologies to the practitioner! I send you my deepest well-wishes!

Improving Further in My Physical and Mental State

Master saw that I had the heart to cultivate myself well and do the three things well, so he arranged a job for me with quite flexible hours. I just needed to work full days on the weekends and work afternoon shifts during weekdays. I do cleaning in a school, so we have public holidays off. I cherish these precious minutes and seconds to strengthen my Fa study. During my afternoon shifts, when we are not working, the other colleagues will all be looking at their mobile phones while I will be studying the Fa. Through Fa study, I can send forth righteous thoughts and practice the exercises with full concentration without any wild thoughts. I am sometimes able to get into a calm state very quickly when I do the second and fifth sets of exercises. When I send righteous thoughts, I feel like I am being surrounded by energy and my face and back are warm. On top of that, by doing the five sets of exercises every day, my body has gone through supernatural changes.

When I was informed that my elderly father was gravely ill, I decided to take care of him during his final days. My brothers were all very tired after looking after him for so many days, so I should let them rest. I watched over my father from his beside for seven days and nights without much sleep. I finished settling all the funeral matters, and I did not feel any discomfort or tiredness. When relatives from our village went to attend the funeral, they saw my amazing physical and mental state from practicing Dafa. A few relatives who had not quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliated organizations agreed to. I have an uncle who is a Communist Party member. Since the publication of The Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, whenever I saw him, I would clarify the truth to him and encourage him to quit the CCP. But he had always shook his head. But this time, when I just looked at him and had yet to open my mouth, he walked over to me, patted me on the shoulder, gave me the thumbs up, and said loudly, “Falun Dafa is good! I quit the Party!”

After getting home after the funeral, I went to work without resting for a day. When my colleagues heard about what had happened and saw that I did not show any signs of fatigue, they all said, “People who practice Falun Dafa are really different. The government really should not bother persecuting it anymore!”

Through more Fa study, the serious pharyngitis, which I had suffered from for more than 20 years, fully disappeared. When I had gone out to clarify the truth in the mornings in the past, I had always had to bring a bottle of water along with me and my throat would still feel dry and painful when I returned in the afternoon. This year, I would sometimes bring a bottle of water along, but my throat did not feel any discomfort anymore.

With the summer break around the corner, the school asked us to do large-scale cleaning in groups of two per session. Because I am a practitioner, I volunteered to do the early duty. I always work diligently, arriving early and leaving late. My partner and I did two-thirds of the total amount of cleaning work, and we received praise from the school leaders and the group head. On the last day, they asked that two people do the morning shift and two people do the afternoon shift. We again volunteered to do the morning shift, because more work needs to be done during the morning shift. Half an hour before the end of the shift, the group head came over. She had yet to reach the break room when she excitedly shouted in the corridor for us both to get changed and go home. We both said we would leave when the time was up. But the group head urged us to go. We thought that since there was not much work left to do and the group head had told us to leave, we should leave. We got changed and went home.

The next day some of our colleagues told us, “Yesterday, the group head came and saw that both of you had left. She got really angry and listed off a load of our shortcomings in front of several people.” The group head then walked into the break room and banged on the table and scolded us loudly, saying that both of us were really out of hand and too much. She said she was too kind and that both of us had taken advantage of her kindness. She said that we left our workplace without informing her. I kept apologizing, but the group head shouted loudly at me, “Especially you, you repeatedly make these kinds of mistakes!”

I was a bit caught off-guard and felt maligned. She had asked us to go early, so why was she saying this now? Since the day I started working there, I had volunteered to do all the dirty and heavy jobs and I had never come late or left early. I wanted to argue and explain myself, but I recalled that I am a cultivator, so I stopped myself from rebutting her. I quickly looked within and I recalled that I had not maintained my xinxing when I was being misunderstood by the practitioner. This time, I must pass this test well, so I cannot talk back.

With this thought, my heart became calm. Without saying more, both of us rushed off to work and we completed the work that was meant for almost four people. The group head was happy. She walked over to me, called out my name in a friendly manner, pointed to the fruit on the table, and said, “Wash your hands. The two fruits here are for you.” I knew that Master had seen that I had done the right thing and maintained my xinxing so he was encouraging me.

I truly experienced that studying the Fa more and well is the fundamental guarantee to cultivating myself well and doing everything well.