(Clearwisdom.net) I read on Clearwisdom.net that "Experience Sharing Conference Held in New York, Revered Master Li Attends to Lecture in Person...Our compassionate and great Master came to the conference and taught the Fa for about one and a half hours. Master Li emphasized the importance of looking within and improving xinxing." I kept thinking about what Master said. In fact, what I remembered most clearly after watching the Fa Lecture to Australian Dafa Practitioners was that Master repeatedly asked us to look inside.
I asked myself, "Could my essential problem be that I haven't truly looked inside?"
I've been in this southern city for over four years. Regularly reading the Clearwisdom website, I have been working on the three things that Master asked us to do. I didn't encounter any danger along the way, but there is one thing that I felt sorry for. I don't have any fellow practitioners around me, and therefore I don't have a Fa study group. I believe that there must be other practitioners here, but I haven't found any, since I hadn't joined the mainstream society in this city. Occasionally, a young fellow practitioner from my family came and helped me with distributing truth-clarification materials. I'd cherish such opportunities dearly. I had a lot of spare time and my financial situation is good too. Therefore, it had been my wish to join together with fellow practitioners so we could better take advantage of my current environment. Master said, "The focus for you right now is simply to find ways to do better, to be more efficient, to have a greater impact, and to save more people" (Fa Teaching at the U.S. Capital).
At the end of last year, a fellow practitioner from my old practice site moved to a nearby city. After the Chinese New Year, his relatives, also Dafa practitioners, moved there too. I was so glad. I believe it was Master's arrangement for us to come together. He was an coordinator before the persecution started, however, he hadn't done much to clarify the truth since then. These practitioners didn't know how to access Clearwisdom.net, and they didn't have the equipment to do so or to make truth-clarification materials. I knew how important it was to read Clearwisdom.net articles for us to find our shortcomings and to catch up with Fa-rectification's progress. I told them, "I have everything." Indeed, I was very "rich."
With Master's protection, I had saved all kinds of video and audio and electronic truth-clarification materials and Fa-lectures on my computer. I also had all the Clearwisdom.net articles and I could always download more. Therefore, I was hoping that this practitioner could come to my place and stay with me for a while to catch up. I also wanted to discuss with him how to do the three things together more efficiently to save more people. But he only came for two days and took a few booklets back with him. He didn't come back again. The fellow practitioners in his family always said they planned to come, but they have not yet. I invited them several times, but they never made it. They said they were busy, and they were so far away from me. But they were running their own business, and their business partners were their relatives. Therefore, they could come here and stay for a while. They were only a two- or three hour drive away from me. I discussed this with them several times. Eventually, I said, "Don't assume it's so hard. Something in your head is stopping you. It is a separation that the old forces created among us. You need to make a breakthrough." They nodded along, but they still didn't come.
It didn't surprise me that the male practitioner behaved like that since I was aware of some his attachments that he wasn't aware of yet. But I couldn't understand why his practitioner relative acted that way too. She had already recited Zhuan Falun over ten times before she moved here. She helped about five hundred people quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliated organizations. She was in a very good cultivation state. But now, they lived in a remote area and didn't interact with many people. She said she felt as if she were imprisoned in a forced labor camp. She said several times that she was anxious and wanted to go back to her hometown. I said, "There are many fellow practitioners back in our hometown. Maybe you are more needed here. Can you find someone to help with your business, so you can have more spare time?" She sent me a name list of about a dozen people who quit the CCP. They were probably all the people that she encountered in her business. There hadn't been any name list from her recently. I called her a few days ago and said, "Why don't you come here? You can find something to do here. You don't have to worry about the business over there." She said, "I still want to go back. I'm going back next month. Why don't I stop by your place before I leave." It appears it was only my own wish to work together with some fellow practitioners in my city. I just couldn't understand why they didn't cherish such a great opportunity, and why they couldn't see what we would be able to do as one body.
I couldn't figure out why. Still, I didn't truly look inside until I watched Master's lecture to Australian practitioners. Master said, "You forgot the most essential thing to look inside." I was embarrassed by my not enlightening to the Fa and ignoring what Master had repeatedly reminded us.
That's right! If I really did so well, did I still need to repeatedly ask others to come? The reason that they didn't come was that they didn't want to. Doesn't it mean that I have issues? I know a fellow practitioner. Many practitioners, including this practitioner who wasn't willing to come to my place, went to talk to him from hundreds of miles away. I realized that it was because that practitioner did very well that he was able to truly help others, whereas I didn't. Instead, I must have some attachments that made others uneasy and therefore they weren't willing to come again!
When I was determined to look inside, I remembered a few things - I pointed to my motorcycle odometer and said to him, "I drove about seven thousand miles last year, mostly for Dafa work." I wanted him to see his gap and feel the urgency, so he could catch up. I knew I should not have shown off, however, wasn't I bragging? I also told him that I had visited almost all the communities in my city. In fact, I'm embarrassed now, when I think about what I said, since I kept running into communities even today that I have never been to. Why did I say so back then? What a strong attachment to showing off! Also, when sharing experiences, I wasn't patient enough to listen to what he said. I kept questioning him. Where was my kindness and compassion? Did I mean to do good to others or did I try to prove that I was superior to my fellow practitioners? When my printer stopped working, I thought it was because he came to my area, when he had issues to work on. I bought a card for him and had the card replaced several times, however, it never worked for him. I thought it was because something was interfering with him. Why did I never look inside? Well, I did, sort of. I said to myself, "I didn't have any issues. It must be him." Didn't I essentially search outside?
I couldn't wait any more. I called him and sincerely told him that I discovered my attachment. He listened to me very carefully. Then he said, "I will come to your place in the next couple of days."
This morning, when I read Fa Teaching at the 2007 New York Fa Conference, the following sentence struck me, "if you are overly attached to his problems, your problems will themselves be exposed through the affair, and you will be made to see your own problems through the affair; and this might lead to his problem not being resolved for the time being as a result of your attachment not having been removed."
Then, could the reason that I couldn't get a hold of fellow practitioners be that I didn't remove my attachments, and therefore I wasn't able to break through the separations that the old forces created? When I continued to look inside, I uncovered another attachment. At the bottom of my heart, I was worried that it would be unsafe to interact with fellow practitioners to create more impact. Wasn't it a selfish attachment to fear? I always say that I should not acknowledge the old force arrangements. But we have to truly look inside to get rid of our various attachments and improve ourselves, so it is a true denial of the old forces!
Master has repeatedly asked us to look inside. I realized that looking inside is actually a powerful Fa tool that Master gave us for our cultivation. We should remember to use this Fa tool when we encounter difficulties. Looking inside also shows our willingness to enlighten to the Fa!
This is my personal understanding at my current level. Please correct me if anything is inappropriate.
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Category: Improving Oneself
