(Clearwisdom.net) During the last six years, under the Teacher's compassionate protection, I have endured the persecution with relative ease. Today I would like to write about my shortcomings in the cultivation process, that I found in the last year, so that I can expose the evil factors in my dimensions and eliminate them quickly. I also hope that fellow practitioners can learn from my example. I can now immediately see where the problem is whenever I encounter a conflict or fail a test. I have not however always looked deeply inside.
I am a coordinator for a local area. In the last year, my state has not been consistent. Mostly this was demonstrated in occasional conflicts with one particular practitioner. At first when a conflict occurred, I was able to look inward according to the Fa and find some attachments and feel changes in myself from eliminating the attachments or notions. However, because I did not dig deep inside for the root cause of the conflicts, the problems escalated over time, and often it was only a few minutes before we would get into an argument. Almost every time we talked, we would argue so hard that our faces turned red. We often ended up leaving without solving the problem. Afterwards, I felt I had looked inside but did not accomplish a lot. The situation became worse and worse and had a very negative impact on our entire area's work in validating the Fa. For example, when I was coordinating the promotion of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, it was very difficult. This other practitioner was reluctant to work on it. Actually, the main reason wasn't because he didn't want to do it, but because we did not cooperate well. Our discussion on rescuing the jailed practitioners also did not go smoothly. In about six months, more than 20 practitioners from our area were arrested. Some were clarifying the facts when they were informed on by malicious people, some were arrested when posting banners, some were arrested at home when sharing their experiences on cultivation and truth clarification, and some were informed on by other practitioners. Most of them were town or area coordinators or practitioners who were in charge of receiving and distributing materials. One of them was a practitioner in charge of a home-based materials center.
I think these problems are directly related to not studying the Fa well, to the lack of cooperation, and particularly related to my own inadequacies. After stagnating in this state for a while, I started to feel helpless and to have unrighteous thoughts. I thought, "So be it. We don't need to cooperate anymore. You can do your thing, and I'll do mine." I was no longer interested in organizing group sharing. I thought I would just go look for a job and clarify the truth by myself. I wanted to calm down and study the Fa to adjust my mentality, but despite reading the book, the Fa did not enter my mind. Studying the Fa seemed useless to me. Other times I would feel sleepy. Sometimes when sending righteous thoughts, I also felt sleepy. Three nights in a row, I missed waking up to send righteous thoughts at midnight.
Just when I was feeling lost, on October 9, 2005, I read Teacher's new article, "The Closer to the End, the More Diligent You Should Be." The first time I read it, I was deeply touched by the Teacher's paramount compassion. My mind became immediately clear. Wasn't Teacher talking about me? From the bottom of my heart, I said, "Thank you, Teacher." Tears rolled down my face. I felt that I had no words to describe Teacher's great compassion.
In "The Closer to the End, the More Diligent You Should Be," Teacher said,
"Because pain is hard on people, they try to, consciously or unconsciously, ward off suffering in hopes of leading a more pleasant life. And so it is that in the pursuit of happiness people form ideas about how to avoid harm, how to live well, how to get ahead in society and achieve fame and success, how to acquire more for themselves, how to come out on top, and so on. To this end, as they gain experience people come to form notions about life; and those experiences, in turn, come to fortify these notions as people live out their lives."
"But as cultivation is lived out, when the suffering bears down on you and conflicts come up that hit upon the deepest part of you-and especially when it rattles the rigid notions you have-the test is really hard to pass. It can even be to the point that you know full well it's a test but still can't let go of your attachments."
The wicked party's factors, evil spirits and rotten demons took advantage of my long-established, stubborn notions and caused many conflicts between fellow practitioners and me and within my family. In "The Closer to the End, the More Diligent You Should Be," Teacher also said,
"The cultivation environment and the perceptions people have are both undergoing changes on a fundamental level. This phenomenon indicates that Fa-rectification and Dafa disciples' cultivation are in their final stages. And yet a small number of students-veteran students, even-have to differing degrees exhibited a despondent state and slackened in their resolve to be diligent. They haven't realized that this is an attachment to the duration of Fa-rectification, or is caused by interference from incorrect, acquired notions, which results in their gaps being exploited by interfering factors that the old forces left behind early on in the surface of the human dimension, wicked specters, or rotten demons-things that have magnified and strengthened those attachments and human notions-all of which has brought about this despondent state."
I was a part of this "small number of students." I was truly grateful for Teacher's great compassion in pointing out our mistakes just in time, letting me know the key reason why I could not be diligent as a disciple. It was an urgently needed rain after a long drought.
If I become despondent and not diligent during cultivation and have difficulty eliminating my own inadequacies because of other shortcomings demonstrated by others, doesn't it show that I have not fully understood certain Fa principles and need improvement? In the middle of a conflict, even if the other party does make a mistake, we still have to cultivate ourselves. Only when we improve ourselves can we truly play a positive role in improving the environment, complementing others, and minimizing the loss to the entire body of practitioners.
In "The Closer to the End, the More Diligent You Should Be," Teacher asked,
"For cultivators traveling a divine path, is it really that hard to get rid of those attachments that arise from human thinking and to change those notions?"
I declare with a firm determination from the bottom of my heart, "Teacher, it's not that hard. As your disciple, I will definitely eliminate these attachments and notions." As Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples, we must have righteous thoughts as solid as granite.
Through studying the Fa, I have come to find in myself a lack of diligence, stubborn notions, despondency, and failed tests. These mental states that don't meet the requirement of the Fa are also huge roadblocks in my cultivation. I looked inside and found their true roots, which I believe was my notion that I did fairly well in the earlier years and had a good foundation, since I studied the Fa a lot. For example, I stepped forward on the April 25 event and right after July 20, 1999. I have been to Tiananmen Square a number of times to validate the Fa. In the last few years, I have also done a great deal of Dafa work. The desire to do more projects and do them well also triggered my attachments to showing off and zealotry, leading up to the arguments between other practitioners and me. I was often attached to my own opinion, thinking that I had done so much work and was quite good. I was unable to listen to others' advice or complaints and rarely looked inside. Instead, I often told others to look inside. In 2001, the police raided a materials center in my area. I was arrested along with other practitioners. In six months, I was taken to a detention center twice and was sent to a forced labor camp once. With Teacher's protection, I was able maintain righteous thoughts, overcome the circumstances and walk out with dignity. At that time, the practitioners in my area were generally in a poor state. In addition, the practitioners had relatively shallow understandings of the Fa and had many fears. The evil factors were also quite rampant. The environment was one of terror, and many practitioners were anxious. At that time, I voluntarily took over the responsibility of distributing Teacher's articles and sharing articles, truth clarification materials, and other supplies needed for the projects to clarify the truth and save sentient beings. To keep up with the Fa-rectification process, I often organized the practitioners to share our understandings. When I saw an announcement on Clearwisdom or found a shortcoming that was common to the practitioners as a whole, I would organize the practitioners to meet and share in a timely manner, so that we would not stray from the Fa. This also improved the overall coordination and cooperation among the practitioners. Teacher said,
"On important matters, practitioners must watch the position of Minghui Net." (from Clearwisdom.net article, "On Important Matters, Practitioners Must Pay Attention to the Attitude of Minghui Net")
Following a suggestion on the Minghui (Clearwisdom) website, we also established local materials centers. In the beginning, we had to get all the materials from another area hundreds of miles away. Eventually we not only met the materials needs for our own area, but also helped the practitioners in an adjacent area set up a materials center that operates independently. In our area, we have established many scattered materials centers. Although I worked on many Dafa projects, I was not cultivating myself. Sometimes when the work became busy, I skipped studying the Fa for one whole day at a time.
In "Teaching the Fa at the Washington, D.C. International Fa Conference" in 2001, Teacher said,
"Under any circumstance, in any period, and no matter how busy you are with your work, you can't stray from your Fa-study, as this is what fundamentally ensures that you will improve and reach Consummation. You can't do Dafa work without studying the Fa, or it would be an everyday person doing Dafa work. It has to be Dafa disciples who do Dafa work--this is the requirement for you."
In "Fa-Lecture at the Conference in Florida, U.S.A.," Teacher also said,
"When a cultivator's mind departs from the Fa, the evil will find its way in."
Although on the surface, it looked like I had not lagged behind during the past year, my xinxing was actually quite far from the requirement for a Fa-rectification Dafa practitioner. Subconsciously I felt that I had contributed a lot, and when a problem occurred, I could not look inside, but complained that other practitioners weren't diligent. I thought I understood the Fa better and had a higher understanding than fellow practitioners, yet I did not realize this as an attachment. When others criticized me, I would find excuses for myself. After a while, the problems accumulated and grew in magnitude. Actually it was all a matter of human attachments. I was controlled by demons without knowing it. Instead, I thought I had righteous thoughts and righteous actions, and other people had the attachment of fear. After realizing my problem, my heart became very light. I felt as though I had just shed a shell and again found my way home.
On the path of cultivation, my understanding is that we should truly listen to Teacher's teachings and not leave ourselves regrets. Solidify our righteous thoughts and try our best to do the three things the Teacher asked. Let's cherish this extremely precious opportunity.