(Clearwisdom.net) Once I heard a new practitioner say to a veteran practitioner of 5-6 years that if he had recited one page of Zhuan Falun every day, he could have recited the whole book long ago. After I heard that, I was greatly affected and felt quite ashamed. I had tried to memorize and recite Zhuan Falun before, but I was not able to keep going because my progress was very slow and there was all kinds of interference. When I heard what the practitioner said, I felt it was not accidental that I heard it.
When I read Zhuan Falun through, increasingly I failed to grasp what I read, and I often lost concentration. Some practitioners mentioned that sometimes when we read the book several times we can almost memorize and recite it. So isn't it time to memorize the Fa?
My progress in memorizing the Fa is very slow. On a bad day, I would read a sentence for over a dozen times and my mind would still be blank, and I failed to memorize even one sentence. I felt defeated. Sometimes it took several days to memorize one paragraph. Oftentimes after I recited one paragraph, I almost totally forgot the previous paragraph and that was the reason why I gave it up once before. Now when I see practitioners progress to Lecture 2 and even Lecture 4, and I am still languishing in Lecture 1, I ask myself, "Am I giving up memorizing because of this?" I must not get stuck like this! I should let go of my competitive mentality. I should not keep comparing myself with other practitioners and should just memorize the Fa at my own pace, and as long as I keep at it, I will be able to finish memorizing the whole book sooner or later. Today, if I finish memorizing one paragraph or one lecture, then I am making progress. However much I can memorize and recite, that's how much I can assimilate to the Fa.
When I recite the Fa, I feel that my body is enveloped in an energy field, and it feels wonderful! The more I think about the sentences in the book, I can sense the deeper and broader implications beyond the surface meaning of the words. Sometimes when I recite some sentences, I suddenly feel a warm current in my head, which is an indelible sensation that I had never experienced before with merely reading through the book.
My cultivation state has changed greatly after I started memorizing and reciting the Fa. I had not gotten up early to do the sitting meditation for a long time. One day after I started reciting the Fa, I suddenly was able to get up early, and getting up early is no longer something so difficult for me. Even when I go to bed at 1 a.m. or even 2 a.m., I can still get up shortly after 4 a.m., a feat I could never accomplish before. One time when some practitioners exchanged views on the demon of sleepiness, I suddenly remembered it was mentioned in Zhuan Falun, "You're a practitioner, so if you always think it's a health problem you're actually asking for it--you are asking for that problem, and now it's able to set in." I came to realize that if we always view things with ordinary people's "notions," we will think that we need to have several hours of sleep every day. In that case, aren't we asking for the sleepiness? How can it not come?
In the past when I did the sitting meditation and sent forth righteous thoughts, some unrelenting stray thoughts would always turn up in my mind. After I started reciting the Fa, my mind can now calm down. In the past, though I attended quite a number of group studies, I habitually lost concentration when reading the Fa and at times felt very sleepy. Now, the situation clearly has improved, which is the result of reciting the Fa. I have felt that memorizing the Fa is a process of constantly removing thought karma and purifying myself. In the past I thought only those thoughts that curse Master Li and curse Dafa are thought karma. In fact, aren't those thoughts that cause us not to be able to calm down, make us feel sleepy and lose concentration when studying the Fa and interfere with our Fa study and exercises also thought karma?
Though memorizing the Fa is very time-consuming and my progress is quite slow, I think that I must not use this as the criterion to gauge if I should continue doing it. Reciting the Fa helps me face various tests in life and enables me to see more clearly my hidden attachments. When a thought pops up, I can immediately recognize that it is selfish and I should not have such a thought. When I run into some tribulations and tests, from time to time some sentences of the Fa arise and give me hints. I have read Zhuan Falun many times, but reciting the Fa makes me feel that my Fa study in the past was merely studying the surface. Though now I am still on Lecture 1, I already feel that my overall cultivation state is totally different. I also regret that I did not make up my mind to start memorizing the Fa until this late.
Master Li has taught us this great Fa of the cosmos. If we can memorize it, why do we use all kinds of notions to limit ourselves to merely reading through it?
My level is limited. Fellow practitioners, please kindly point out any shortcomings.