(Clearwisdom.net) Because I indulged myself in leisure, I became slack in doing the three things well. When I realized it, I had already lost lots of precious time. Now, I want to write down my experience so that our fellow practitioners who have similar attachments will wake up and not have regrets about the past.
I always seemed to have a very lax mindset and treated Dafa work as everyday people's work and only did it superficially. The longer I practiced cultivation, the lazier I became. I could not do the three things well, nor could I even decide to do them well.
I tried to memorized the Fa rather than read the Fa (actually, I didn't memorize even one paragraph of the Fa well). I read Teacher's new articles, but I didn't study Teacher's former articles. I would get very sleepy when I studied the Fa and I would take a rest as an excuse not to study. I thought I would be able to be more alert after sleeping. I didn't consider it as thought karma, but as a need to sleep. But the more I slept, the more I wanted to sleep. I regretted it when I was awake. But this cycle still went round and round. My energy was lost day after day. My practice was also deferred day by day. Or I did some of three things and comforted myself: I already did the three things and I should be OK. If one slacks off in cultivation, thought karma can take advantage of him. My every attachment became more severe. My righteous thoughts became so weak that I could not control myself. It was very dangerous.
Compassionate Teacher watched over me in my dreams: I dreamed that I failed an exam or I fell down from a hill. I didn't pay attention to the dreams until I dreamed that I was seated in a boat which was capsized, and I was dropped onto a very cold beach. I was awake and realized that I had deviated from the Fa so far. I decided to read Zhuan Falun. I read seven lectures in one day. I completed the whole book in two days. While studying the Fa, Teacher helped me and I reviewed why I slacked off so much. I concluded that there were four major reasons:
1. My bad habits interfered with me
I always deferred doing the "three things" day after day. As a result, I still couldn't do them even when I wanted to. The habit became natural. My own righteous thoughts were not strong. My thought karma became strong and made this habit grow. As time went by, I forgot what I should do. Even though I remembered it, I still didn't do the three things.
2. I though it was OK to be attached to leisure and to be less vigilant in cultivation practice
I had the attachment to complacency when I was in a good environment to practice. I thought I could take a break, so at that time, my everyday person's thoughts came out. Thought karma came out. I didn't send righteous thought to eliminate it but thought it was OK and put down my guard.
3. I was not strict with myself and let the demon of lust take over my mind
I didn't judge my thoughts based on Dafa. I knew my thoughts were not right but I still took it lightly. I thought I would eliminate a light attachment in the future. "Having humanly fostered the evil demons, you allow them to capitalize on the loopholes in the Fa." (Essentials for Further Advancement, "Expounding on the Fa"). I humanly fostered the evil demons, so I then deviated from the Fa.
4 Considering myself always right, not being diligent in cultivation.
I was self-righteous when I did something for Dafa. I didn't appreciate that Teacher lifted us up from hell and is saving sentient beings. All we do for the Fa is actually good for ourselves, establishing our mighty virtue. What we do is to assist Teacher's Fa-rectification. In fact, what we do is far from the standard of the Fa's requirement at different levels.
Teacher talked about the Fa being pure gold. The gold will be not pure if there is a tiny particle that is impure (paraphrase of Teacher's original words). As the old saying goes, "A wave can destroy 50,000 miles of seawalls." We really can't slack off. Cultivation is like sailing against the current. If one is not careful, one can fall back many yards to the beginning. We should pay attention to our every thought and judge it based on the Fa. Eliminate every thought which is not based on the Fa's requirements. Assimilate to Dafa. If we neglect any attachment, the attachment will be strong enough to interfere with our righteous thoughts. We should find it immediately and rip it out from its root, thereby eliminating the root of the problem. Strictly take the Fa as teacher, and deter interference. Let's make our cultivation state truly pure gold, as one practitioner not doing well could allow many sentient beings to suffer. Finally, I want to share Teacher's poem, "Solid Cultivation" to encourage each other:
"Study Fa, obtain Fa,
Compare in studying, compare in cultivating,
Examine each and every deed,
Accomplishing is cultivating."
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