Improving by Looking Inward

(Minghui.org) In the past, I would point out others’ shortcomings for what I believed was their own good. That meant I would speak up pretty loudly when I saw that fellow practitioners were not, to my mind, following the Fa teachings. Another practitioner once said that I would cultivate well if I could tone it down and speak more softly.

After practicing Falun Dafa for more than 20 years, I have become calmer and have learned to cultivate myself. In particular, memorizing and copying the Fa over the past few years has helped me overcome persecution and other hardships. I’ve realized that the only way to truly cultivate is to study the Fa more and to look inward at all times to make solid improvements. I know that there is no shortcut in cultivation.

Copying the Fa to Get Rid of Impatience

When my elder and younger sisters, both practitioners, started copying the Fa, I didn’t take it seriously. I thought that copying it was too slow and memorizing it would be good enough. But given their influence, I changed my mind and decided to try it. My sister bought me a loose-leaf notebook and encouraged me.

Given the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) indoctrination and my modern consciousness and behavior, I thought that I should start with Hong Yin V. This was because the sentences were short, and it would be easy to avoid making mistakes. To my surprise, I made all sorts of errors and could not even copy a single poem well.

I wasted a lot of paper because I wasn’t able to start the paragraphs evenly. Why was was something so simple to do so difficult? I realized that this was cultivation! We were not copying the Fa for the sake of copying it. During the process, many attachments were exposed, such as showing off, comparing myself with others, doing things hastily, not being serious, and so on. Wasn’t my behavior disrespectful to the Fa? I arranged a set time, cleared my mind before before I began, and finally started to make fewer mistakes.

Before I finished copying the first lecture of Zhuan Falun, my mother passed away. At the end of the year, Master published a new article, “How Humankind Came to Be.” I got busy clarifying the facts about Dafa to people so I stopped copying the Fa. A few days later, a fellow practitioner told me that copying the Fa should be done until one finished all of Zhuan Falun. So, I started to copy the Fa faster whenever I had time, focusing on progress rather than sincerity. Why did I always go from one extreme to another? Would gods and Buddhas be so flustered?

On New Year’s Day, my son and I went to a Buddhist temple, and I saw a lengthy inscription on a stone. How amazing that our ancestors were able to endure and carve words into a stone, something that can only be done slowly. I must be respectful when I copy the Fa. What a great honor for a practitioner to copy the Fa, because it is the universe’s Great Law! A we left the temple, I wanted to take the left path, where it was quieter and there were fewer people. My son reminded me to take the middle path, not a side road. It dawned on me what this represented—that I should take the middle path when I had a choice in how to do things. I learned a lot on that trip.

The next few times I copied the Fa, I seemed to have entered a spectacular and extraordinary world of gods and Buddhas. With a calm mind and no concept of time, I slowly and carefully described the images of gods and Buddhas. From then on, I paid less attention to speed and dialed down my eagerness to complete the task. Over time, we will achieve the results naturally, without pursuit. I also eliminated many bad habits from being indoctrinated by the CCP.

Remove Personal Emotion and Communicate Rationally

Some things were harder than I thought. I felt that I had few emotions for my children. But when I heard that my second son lost more than 100,000 yuan on his mobile phone, my heart pounded and I really worried about him from time to time. Dafa gave me the wisdom to realize my weakness—my love for my children. I felt better after trying to break away from the emotion to return to my true self. I started to look inward and wondered what went wrong, because there are no accidents in cultivation.

I also had sentimentality when it came to my second son. I was concerned that he would never recover after losing so much money. I first complained about his behavior to myself and blamed him, worried that he might take more chances after the loss and end up losing more. In short, I still had my selfish interests and feared that I would be implicated. This was not the attitude of a cultivator! I should wake up! So, I put aside my selfishness and emotions and used the wisdom I’d gained from practicing Dafa to write my son a letter. In it, I quoted Master’s teachings respectfully on how to stay kind and accumulate virtue.

At the same time, my daughter wanted to buy a house and asked us to assist her financially. Just before that, my eldest son had asked us to to help him buy a house. Could these be coincidental? After calming down to think, I realized that my attachment was attracting evil. I was worried, like an ordinary person, about how my money might depreciate and so on. The old forces saw my attachments and found a way to persecute me. Dafa practitioners are all under Master’s care. Our financial resources belong to Dafa and cannot be depleted by the old forces.

After I changed my mindset, I talked to my eldest son and daughter about the current chaos in society, pointing out that they already had places to live so they should take their time to buy a house. My daughter had been ready to make a down payment. The day after we talked, she told me that she wouldn’t buy the house. She was glad that she didn’t put a down payment and avoided a long-term mortgage.

Cultivating Tolerance and Generosity

After a heavy rain a month ago, the fields and roads in our village were flooded. There was nowhere for the water to go. Some people pumped water from their fields to the road, not considering where it would end up. The water started to flood my land, as it was lower ground. My neighbor came to me to tell me what was going on so that I could take care of it. I thanked her for her kindness, got on my bike calmly, and took a shovel to try to divert the water. Before I reached the field, however, I slid, fell off the bike onto my back, and hit my head on the pavement. I went home without complaining to anyone but thought: “This is how people are nowadays. Everyone only cares for themselves.”

Later, three more people came to tell me what was going on, but I just responded that there was nothing I could do. In the past, I would have worried about my loss and about losing face. I would be concerned that people might perceive me as weak and easy to bully. However, I realized that a Buddha can give up everything for all sentient beings. This was a truly trivial incident. How could we not be tolerant while carrying the title of Dafa practitioners? Isn’t maintaining calm amidst everyday intrigues also validating the wonder of Dafa? If it weren’t for the mighty virtue of Dafa, it would be difficult for anyone to handle such disputes peacefully in today’s world.

Epilogue

During the ups and downs of over 20 years of cultivation, we have experienced joy after obtaining the Fa, heart-wrenching difficulties, contentment after assimilating to the Fa, helplessness when we cannot let go of human emotions, and the fears of being persecuted and suffering. Looking back, weren’t all these good things? Fa-rectification cultivation is almost over, and we are becoming more and more rational and peaceful.

I am grateful to the Master for his compassion and feel extremely fortunate to be able to return to my true self guided by Dafa.