(Clearwisdom.net)
Here, I'd like to share some of my cultivation experiences and understandings on group study and Fa-rectification.
Truly Looking Inside
When I started to practice Falun Dafa in New York City five years ago, I didn't like the cultivation environment there. I would get upset when some of my fellow practitioners would not respond to my emails. This made me look outside of myself and complain about other practitioners, accusing them of being unhelpful.
At the same time I rarely joined group study and group exercise practice, and as a result my fellow practitioners would not see me for months at a time. I experienced a lot of tribulations because of my strong attachments and selfishness.
I was stuck in this state for a long time before I suddenly realized that I should actively join in with my fellow practitioners. I often complained about others not calling me. Yet, how come I didn't make a phone call to them? I decided to participate more with them. My own notion, that I was not important because I was not a coordinator, caused some practitioners to be overly confident and arrogant towards me, and this made me dislike some of my fellow practitioners.
In fact, I knew that the reason I couldn't tolerate some of my fellow practitioners was because of my own attachments. I knew within that my inability to treat all practitioners the same way was due to my lack of compassion. In order to get rid of this attachment, during our meetings I started to intentionally talk to those fellow practitioners that I didn't like. As I started to pay more attention to them I found that my impression towards them was actually prejudiced. This realization alone was not enough for me to get along well with them. Even more opportunities to uncover my attachments came up as I continued communicating with them. How can we improve ourselves if we only pursue comfort? I came to realize that when we have conflicts among fellow practitioners, we should communicate with each other, since the practitioners that we are in conflict with may be able to easily point out our attachments. We have to get rid of our attachments anyway. Why try to avoid the practitioners who can help us get rid our attachments more quickly?
So I began that whenever I felt I offended, I would try to suppress my desire to find excuses for myself or defend myself. Whenever I was criticized, I tried not to fight back. When I was able to do this, eventually, I felt I had advanced a lot on my cultivation path.
No matter how others treat me, I should treat them with compassion. This thought made me more peaceful and harmonious. When something unpleasant happened, instead of thinking about how I should respond, I tried to calm down and listen to others, and look inside instead of blaming others.
When I no longer blamed others or the cultivation environment for my not being able to cultivate myself well enough, things quickly changed. When I wasn't satisfied with our group environment, I tried to help improve it instead of simply complaining about it. I tried to take care of the tasks that were ignored or missed. In this way, I brought about some very good results for Dafa work. For me, my whole cultivation environment became better and better. Of course, it was because of the changes in myself that things around me improved. From my experience, I realized that the only person that I could change during my cultivation was myself. When I changed myself, everything around me would follow and change.
I feel sad for those fellow practitioners that are still looking outward and are unwilling to come to group study for fear of getting hurt. From my experience, I can attest to how beautiful the realm is when getting rid of these kinds of attachments.
Unfortunately, I haven't completely gotten rid of my tendency to search outside of myself. However, I know that whenever I try to blame others, I won't improve myself. I therefore keep trying to look inside. Over the past few days when I was working on a few Dafa projects, I started to search outward again. You could see my attachments in the long emails that I wrote to others. When I realized it and tried to look inside to remove the attachments, I had conflicts in my heart, since the karma controlling the attachments did not want to be removed. It was a difficult and painful process for me. I know very clearly though, that being unwilling to remove attachments is not what a practitioner should be like. Therefore, I tried my best to strengthen my True Self, not the attachments.
Cultivating Ourselves Poorly Negatively Impacts Our Cultivation Environment
Recently, as I was thinking about how to improve the cultivation environment in our local area, I suddenly realized a fact. Since I arrived in Germany, I have caused many losses to the cultivation environment. In other words, I hadn't contributed much to improve the environment. Why? It was because I didn't do well to eliminate my attachments, along with the interfering elements and bad thoughts in my mind. Most of the time I felt lazy and couldn't break through tests. Therefore, I was constantly interfered with, especially by illness karma, which made me exhausted. If I hadn't gotten stuck in this state for the past year, I would have been able to contribute a lot to improve the cultivation environment.
Had I been more responsible for myself in my cultivation, how many more things could I have done to help others, the progress of Fa-rectification, and our group? The Fa's power would have been able to manifest more through me and I would have been able to do a better job in rectifying our local environment. I cried when I thought about the losses that I caused by not being diligent.
Criticizing or blaming others is not something I should do. Even worse is trying to force my ideas or notions onto others when I think it would be better to do something in a certain way. For me, the most important task is to firmly remove my attachments. Only through this can I bring positive impacts to the environment and make the best use of my time to stop the evil's brutal persecution without getting interfered with. In this way, I will be able to whole-heartedly help practitioners in China and take some of the burden off their shoulders.
Doing well is my duty; it is not a selfish pursuit. My doing well will allow me to do a better job at fulfilling my huge historic responsibilities in this Fa-rectification period (like my fellow practitioners have done) and enable me to meet my responsibilities to my fellow practitioners, the cultivation environment and all sentient beings. Let us deny the evil's persecution.
Group Study is a Very Important Base
A few weeks ago we started to hold three group studies every week in Dortmund. Some time back, I couldn't focus while studying the Fa. However, since I joined the group study, I can now enter a very good state for studying the Fa as soon as I open up Zhuan Falun. Now, I feel as if I am melting into the Fa when reading the book, and my understandings of the Fa have improved quickly in a short period of time. Meanwhile, I can feel that I have become stronger, more relaxed, and more peaceful after improving in realm.
I hope more fellow practitioners can realize that a long period of group study with a peaceful heart is the base for forming a good cultivation environment. We should not give up any chances to study the Fa together. After the Fa-study, we should discuss about Dafa projects and our cultivation experiences. If we don't value these opportunities, we might fall behind without realizing it, since we wouldn't realize we have fallen behind without looking at how well the others have done. With group study and studying on our own, I think anyone could catch up with others within a few weeks.
The Fa is boundless. As long as we study the Fa with a respectful heart, we will be able to improve. As long as we take the Fa as Teacher and join the Fa-rectification whole-heartedly, we will be able to experience beauty and peace at higher levels. Only through this, can we become selfless Fa-rectification Dafa disciples. Otherwise, we may lack the heart of concern for other practitioners even when they are facing difficulties.
The above is my personal understandings. Of course, the Fa has deeper meanings. I hope what I said here are not just theoretical things. I will apply them in my daily cultivation. Here I would like to thank all the fellow practitioners who have helped me up to this point.
Views expressed in this article represent the author's own opinions or understandings. All content published on this website are copyrighted by Minghui.org. Minghui will produce compilations of its online content regularly and on special occasions.
Category: Improving Oneself
