(Cearwisdom.net)
I have studied the Fa for a few years now, but I often could not understand the deeper meanings of the Fa. I knew I should look inside. I did find a bunch of things, such as, I treated studying the Fa as a task; in reading Teacher's different Fa-lectures at conferences where He emphasizes reading the books more and studying the Fa more, I would understand it too extremely, consequently, I was trying to improve for the sake of improvement and trying to study the Fa for the sake of catching up to the standard. I was studying the Fa with the goal of solving those problems of mine. After looking at fellow practitioners who were very diligent, I then forced myself to study the Fa harder in order not to lag behind. Realizing that I could not study the Fa well while I was reading alone, I then invited fellow practitioners to study the Fa together. Although, in group study the effect of my studying the Fa improved a bit, it still did not solve the fundamental issue. My fellow practitioner reminded me, "When you are reading the Fa, your voice sounded really good, but it seems your heart is not into it; if you don't change from inside, then, nothing will happen."
Yes, I must have had fundamental problems inside my heart. But for a long time, I still did not address the critical issue. Then recently, I was deeply touched after reading several articles on the Internet, which talked about the issue of taking advantage of Dafa. It suddenly dawned on me: After all this time, I had always been taking advantage of Dafa for my own personal gain.
I truly see vividly those dirty, deviated thoughts of mine:
- Dafa brings a wonderful future to sentient beings. I stayed in Dafa because I was pursuing and imagining the good life of the here and now and of the future, and I was bent on enjoying the comforts of the human world.
- I thought, since the evil's persecution of Dafa has not yet ended, in order to reduce damage and not be persecuted, I have to study the Fa more diligently.
- I studied the Fa in order to protect myself and my interests and to make sure I myself and sentient beings in my own world wouldn't be eliminated by the Fa-rectification and would successfully enter the future.
- I studied the Fa with the attachment of envy. I saw some practitioners talk about their understandings of the Fa so well and some new practitioners made great progress in cultivation in short periods of time, while my own progress in studying the Fa was so slow. I studied the Fa not only to make speedy progress, but primarily, to do better in cultivation than my fellow practitioners.
- I studied the Fa with the attachment of reputation and fame. Inadvertently, I overheard a practitioner comment on my behaving poorly as a cultivator. In order not to hear this kind of comment again, I tried hard to force myself to study the Fa even late into the night.
This strong deviated attachment of selfishness and "self" separated me from Dafa for a long time. It made me unable to see the deeper meanings of Dafa no matter how hard I tried or what means I used. Although I could manage to find time to read the Fa no matter how busy I was or how many things I had to do, I still could not achieve good results and could not solve some of those fundamental issues of mine.
During the last stage of the Dharma-ending period, I could have such an honor to enter Dafa, yet I did not treasure this precious opportunity, which is unprecedented since the beginning of the Cosmos. I missed opportunities again and again. I looked at Dafa as a tool to realize my personal plans and goals. I was so disrespectful to Teacher and Dafa. I could not calm down when looking at such dirty, deviated thoughts of mine.
In fact, my inborn nature of pure kindness wouldn't pursue anything; it would just assimilate to Dafa unconditionally. It was those human thoughts and various attachments that I still had not let go of that had to be satisfied. They were taking advantage of me to nourish themselves, so that they could live in me. All these bad things were thus exposed in front of me. I thought that I should quickly eliminate these exposed thoughts, not acknowledging them, and not allowing them to exist any longer.
For many days, I would send righteous thoughts to eliminate these bad things. Then my heart was getting more tranquil and stable. Then, when I studied the Fa, I found that every word of Dafa was full of power that shot straight into my most microscopic level, and when I listened to Teacher's nine lecture audio tapes, every sentence of Teacher's seemed to resound across layers upon layers of space and time. I was deeply touched. The true "me" had been buried by the mentalities of ordinary human society, was swayed by those fundamental attachments that I still had not let go of, and was disturbed by postnatally acquired deviated, selfish thoughts. In my thinking, I had dangerously stepped out into thin air, and was not solidly grounded. Today I feel very happy to be able to rectify myself and to assimilate to Dafa with a pure heart.
Yes, if we can purify our hearts fundamentally from the root and study the Fa while totally immersed within the Fa, we will be able to truly enlighten to the profound deeper meanings at different levels within Dafa.
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