Learn to Cultivate Amid Hardships

(Minghui.org) My life has not been easy the last few years; I have had many hardships. My house renovation project had to stop due to complicated government inspections. The noisy issue with my car could not be resolved after a few repairs. School tuition consumed almost all of our family savings, resulting in the whole family living on a tight budget. I was near the verge of collapse.

Hardships – Opportunities for Cultivation

My car underwent a major repair last year. After the work was completed, I had to take a bus to pick it up. The bus was just leaving as I approached the stop. I waved at the driver, but he ignored me, driving away with a smile. I hoped that it might not be the right bus line.

The next bus on the schedule didn’t show up after I waited a long time so I called the bus company and found out that the driver skipped my stop. After nearly two hours of waiting, I became frustrated and called the bus company again to ask for the driver’s name so I could file a complaint.

When the bus finally came after another hour of waiting, I confirmed that it was the same bus line as the one I missed when I first arrived. The smiling face of that driver seemed to mock me back then. I became infuriated and vented my anger at the driver.

A year passed, and I had to take the bus again to go to work while my car was being repaired. After waiting at the bus stop for more than an hour, I realized that the driver had skipped my stop again. Though feeling a bit frustrated and upset, I realized that I was swayed by emotion. I told myself to ignore it and not to become angry, as it was not a big deal. I could just go home, eat, and come back for the next bus.

I was aware that I had missed many opportunities to improve my character in the past, and that I did not hold myself to the standard of a practitioner amid sufferings in life or in Dafa projects. Rather, I had treated them with emotion and viewed them like ordinary people, feeling helpless and bitter.

Eliminating Low-Level Thoughts

I also enlightened that our innate nature is kind, in line with Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. But subject to the law of formation-stasis-degeneration-destruction, plus the process of descending layers of dimensions to come here and the sentiments in the human world, we are full of low-level thoughts.

Various low-level thoughts, be it selfishness, attachments, sentiments, desires, or thought karma, are all illusions formed in our minds, contrary to Dafa. Selfishness won’t bring you more gain; rather makes you accrue karma; sentiments can’t change the karmic retribution, but bring trouble to yourself. Traditionally, society is not maintained by sentiments, but by virtue and propriety, with emphasis on loyalty and righteousness.

When we encounter various situations in our cultivation, we have the tendency to deal with them with low-level thinking: happy for good things, sad with bad things; frustrated at setbacks; angry at facing injustice; or afraid of dangers. In fact, these situations are opportunities for cultivators to get rid of low-level thoughts and to view and deal with them with the innate nature conforming to Dafa, so as to elevate in cultivation.

Things Turn Around

With this understanding, when I was in trouble, I used my innate good nature to handle them instead of being swayed by human notions, especially not the sentiments. Then I could not believe this happened shortly afterward.

I planned to sell my noisy car because I had not been able to have it fixed for a couple of years, and I was concerned that it could have safety issues. When I asked my friend to help me find another car, he wanted to take a final look at it. As a cultivator, I really didn’t want to get rid of it and hoped to keep it as long as it was safe.

With his knowledge of working at a garage, he discovered that I just needed to replace a part on the wheels. So I took it to a garage where the fix only took about an hour. Sitting in the car, I was overwhelmed with gratitude and couldn’t help but hold my hands in front of my chest to thank Master. I knew that Master fixed it for me after I improved.

Guided by the universal Dafa, Dafa disciples’ cultivation does not focus on paying back karma via suffering, but rather improving through it is the key. The accumulation of my tribulations over the years was because I failed to improve myself through them. Master could do anything for me after I improved.