(Clearwisdom.net) Studying Teacher's article "Sickness Karma," I recently came to a better understanding of it. When I'd just begun to practice Dafa, I was confident that I understood how to break through sickness karma. Whenever there was sickness karma, I would just tell myself that there was nothing wrong with me, that it was just Teacher eliminating my karma, and it was a good thing. I was able to handle sickness karma with a practitioner's righteous thoughts, and I was therefore able to break through the karma very quickly.
However, as I've been cultivating over the last three plus years, I've often had conflicts with my family, especially with my daughter. That's the part that pains my heart the most. At those times I would completely forget the "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance" that a practitioner should possess. The evil part of me was winning, and I missed many chances to improve my xinxing. Whenever I had a disagreement with my daughter, I would always act from humanness. For instance, I would look for someone close to my daughter to help me. I would ask them to advise my daughter to listen to me and not disturb my cultivation. Because these conflicts arose so often, I felt helpless. I knew that I was falling short in cultivation. I was unknowingly trapped in the state of everyday people, and it was time for me to improve my xinxing and eliminate my attachments.
Nothing happens to a cultivator by coincidence, and my long-term conflicts meant that my xinxing hadn't reached the level that the Fa required of me. I hadn't passed a test before the next one arose, and I was stuck at my level and unable to improve.
A few days ago, when I was reading Teacher's article "Sickness Karma," I suddenly enlightened to the realization that it's not only caused by the karma we've accumulated over the course of many lives, there are also underlying causes involving many other beings. Some of them require benevolent solutions, and some of the problems I faced are this type of karma. Since we are cultivators, our compassionate Teacher may use those underlying causes to not only help us eliminate our karma, but also help us improve our xinxing. However, during the process, a crucial factor is whether we believe in Teacher and the Fa or not, and whether we use righteous thoughts or not, as a single thought can distinguish the difference between a human and a god.
In Zhuan Falun (2003 version), Teacher said,
"I'll give you an example. In Buddhism they say that everything in the world is an illusion, that it's not real. But how's it an illusion? Who'd say those real, material things right there in front of you are fake, right? The form that material things exist in is one way, while the form they manifest in, it turns out, is different. And our eyes have an ability: they can fix the material things in our material dimension so that they appear to be in the state we now see. But actually, that's not their state. That's not even their state in our dimension."
If we cannot use righteous thoughts to judge things as we cultivate, then our understanding can only be that of an everyday human being; what we see at the surface is false, and not the genuine reality.
Teacher also said,
"I'm not going to talk about doing healing here. We don't do healing. But if you want to do true cultivation, and you've come here with an ailing body, then you can't cultivate yet. So I have to purify your body. I only purify the body for people who've truly come here to learn the practice, who truly come to learn the Law. There's one thing we stress: if you can't set aside those thoughts of yours, if you can't set aside that health problem, then there's nothing we can do and we can't help you. And why is that? Because there's a truth in this universe: the things that happen to ordinary people, as Buddhists put it, all have underlying causes, and for ordinary people things like birth, aging, sickness, and death are just a fact of life. People only have health problems and suffering because they did bad things in the past and made karma. When they go through hard times they are paying off a karmic debt, so nobody can just go and change that at will. If it's changed, that's like letting somebody who's in debt get off without paying it back, and you can't just go and do that on a whim. That's the same as doing something bad." (Zhuan Falun, 2003 version)
If we can't see through the underlying causes and don't believe that Teacher is helping us to peacefully resolve them, and see these illusory temporary conditions as suffering, then we have admitted that we are sick. If we do that how can Teacher help us? It's because we didn't treat ourselves as cultivators, and see ourselves as ordinary human beings with illnesses.
Reflecting back on those years of cultivation, besides the long-term conflicts with my daughter, there were other instances when I consistently failed to react with a cultivator's righteous thoughts, and was therefore stuck in the suffering that I had created for myself. In "Lecture at the First Conference in North America" Teacher said,
"Actually, if you really lose something, it's only caused by your unwillingness to let go of that attachment. Your attachment is always being rubbed in order to have you break it. If a crisis really occurs for you, it aims at having you eliminate your attachment. So what will happen if you insist on not eliminating it and still cling to it? A deadlock will result. The more persistent you are, the worse your situation and living environment might become. When you truly let go of the attachment, you might find that things turn around immediately, that your mind is suddenly relaxed, and that your body has changed and become altogether light. Looking back, you'll find that you've lost nothing. It's just like the Chinese saying, 'After passing the shady willow trees there will be bright flowers and another village ahead.' Good things will suddenly come your way again."
A cultivator can only look inside when conflicts occur, and correct himself. If he just looks for exterior solutions, and relies on ordinary people to solve his problems, he is far from the cultivation state a Dafa practitioner should have. I'm ashamed as I reflect on my course of cultivation, Dafa practitioners must cultivate themselves and save sentient beings, so diligent Fa study is a must, it's essential to solidify one's righteous thoughts. With righteous thoughts and behavior, we can to do the three things Teacher had told us to do, and do them well. The time for validating the Fa will end, so we must quickly put down our ordinary human hearts, and measure at every moment our cultivation state using the Fa as a guide, which is not only being responsible to ourselves, but to sentient beings as well.
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