(Clearwisdom.net) With a hint from our benevolent Master, I wrote this article. I hope that Dafa practitioners who are in the professions of art and music can use it to better understand how to balance the time spent on professional training and time spent studying the Fa and practicing the exercises. This will allow them to do the three things even better.
There are several practitioners in our region who are professional artists and musicians. I will just take the two practitioners who are closest to me as examples. Practitioner A is a student majoring in piano, and practitioner B is majoring in art. Owing to the special requirements in their majors, they have to spend a lot of time practicing in order to improve their skills in music and art. As a result, they, unlike other practitioners, are rarely able to spend a lot of time doing the three things required by Master.
Of course, I am not saying that they do not study the Fa and cultivate themselves when they are busy. It is just that they have not truly achieved the state of cultivating themselves diligently, and they have not positioned well the relationship between studying their subjects and studying the Fa and practicing the exercises. In the end, they do not have much time to wholeheartedly study the Fa and practice the exercises.
I discussed this issue with practitioners A and B. They said, "Master has said that we need to maximally conform to the state of ordinary society in our cultivation. Students should take their major course of study as their priority, and they should learn their subject well. Their subject and cultivation are equally important, not to mention that music and art are also things passed down by the gods of certain cosmic systems. So learning one’s major subject well also means that one is validating the Fa as well as saving the sentient beings in those cosmic systems." Of course, it was not wrong to have such an understanding at that level.
I also know practitioner C, who majors in Guzheng, an ancient Chinese musical instrument. Why does she have more time to do the three things?
Let’s re-study the following Fa from Master: "Question: As a PhD student, doing my scientific research well requires that I’m completely committed to it, but I also need to study the Fa, clarify the facts, and do the exercises. I always feel like I don’t have enough time.
Teacher: There are still people who ask this question. Master has answered it for you many times. I think that as cultivators, you should put Dafa first, but you should also do your job well. You should try your best to do things well. As far as how to balance this, when it comes to the specifics you still need to prioritize things yourself. If you say, 'I’m too busy, so I won’t read,' then that’s equivalent to not cultivating. Say, 'I’ll just completely devote myself to my job,' and then you’ll just be an ordinary person. Could it just be that you’re not balancing these things well? Then just prioritize and plan things well. It’s really simple. Actually, I’ve already discussed this very clearly in Zhuan Falun. Studying the Fa well definitely won’t affect anything of yours in your cultivation, and on the contrary, it will help you get twice the results at your job or with your schoolwork with half the effort." ("Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference")
It is simply because practitioner C has correctly positioned the relationship between learning her subject and studying the Fa and practicing the exercises that she has done well not only in studying the Fa, but also in doing the three things. Furthermore, she gets twice the results with half the effort in perfecting her skills. As long as one has based oneself correctly and has the correct direction, the tribulations that one may experience will be small. Master also recently said,
"You do have to do everything well, but you can't go overboard; when you go overboard it's another attachment. Also, you need to have the right attitude toward Dafa and truly regard yourself as a cultivator. How you try to be diligent, how you regard the Fa, and how you cultivate--including the length and priority of your Fa study--you can't neglect any of these things, and they are actually more important, for this is your path, the path that you are to take." (Teaching the Fa in Canada, 2006")
In the following, I will share my views from the perspective of the Fa, and I hope it can be of some help to practitioners who are facing the same issue.
In "Teaching the Fa in San Francisco, 2005," Master has talked about the issue of how Dafa has chosen the form for cultivation. Why hasn’t Master chosen a cultivation way among those many cultivation forms that are from the beings in the cosmos? It is because "the Great Way has no form." It is because Dafa is huge, and it is because it is the law of the whole cosmos that is directly saving the Dafa disciples. For all beings and all things in the cosmos, whether they have or do not have shapes, as long as they are inside the cosmos, everything is created by Dafa. So everything, including music and art, is encompassed in the Fa.
Superficially, it appears that practitioner C’s skills in Guzheng have become better and better. So, according to ordinary notions, someone may say, "She is a very gifted person, and it is the result of her hard training. To play music well, one must spend a lot of time practicing. Otherwise, how could she have improved? Only diligent practice can bring about good results." Isn’t this exactly an ordinary notion that we need to let go of through cultivation? Those practitioners who have based their views on the Fa will have a different opinion. That is, she is "talented" because she is a good person, has studied the Fa well, and has elevated her xinxing and morality as well as her realm. The higher gods in her cosmic system have opened up her wisdom and let her make these accomplishments, creations, and elevations. How could ordinary people know this? But we practitioners should know this point!
To truly improve one’s skills, one must put one’s Fa study and cultivation first. Only by studying the Fa well can one validate the Fa well. One should not seek to validate the Fa by learning one’s major subject well. Of course, I do not mean that you should slack-off in learning your major well. If you do that, you will have gone to another extreme and developed a new attachment. One has his major to study, and one has his path to follow. However, one needs to be more aware of the importance of studying the Fa and practicing the exercises. So one’s time to learn a subject is extracted from the time for studying the Fa and practicing the exercises, instead of extracting time from studying a subject to study the Fa and practice the exercises.
If one cannot understand the Fa from the Fa and this state has lasted a long time, the old forces will exploit this loophole. Because you believe that you need to spend a lot of time, as ordinary people do, in practicing to improve your skills, the old cosmic forces will create even more false impressions and cause you to spend even more time practicing. The end result will not be satisfactory because you will not have studied the Fa well, your realm will not have elevated, and the higher gods in your cosmic system will not have opened your wisdom and let you accomplish, create, or elevate. In the end, you will "voluntarily" spend even more time practicing your skills while overlooking your Fa study and practicing the exercises. In this way, you have fallen into the old forces’ trap!
Let’s remember Master’s Fa,
"Studying the Fa well definitely won’t affect anything of yours in your cultivation, and on the contrary, it will help you get twice the results at your job or with your schoolwork with half the effort." ("Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference")
This is my understanding at my level. Please kindly point out anything that is not right.