(Clearwisdom.net) I have stumbled enough times on my cultivation path to realize that pursuing comfort is a tribulation for Dafa cultivators. In the past, the police in my hometown went to our homes to harass our family members and tried hard to find our work phone numbers. When we learned this, we felt a great pressure. After a brief period of panic, our enlightened sides allowed us to understand that we should negate the old forces' arrangements and not allow the evil to persecute Dafa practitioners. In the meantime, we started to search inward and tried to find the loopholes that had been exploited by the evil. We had thus found many attachments such as slacking off, dropping our guards, becoming indifferent, wanting to avoid conflict, having unrighteous thoughts, as well as the attachment to lust and desire, and so on. While looking inward, we also spent more time sending forth righteous thoughts. After a period of sending righteous thoughts, we felt that the pressure had gradually disappeared, and that the substance which caused us to be afraid had also gradually disintegrated.
During that period of time, I did not dare to slack off, so I appeared to be relatively diligent. I could basically get up at around 3:50 am every day to practice the exercises, and as a result, my cultivation state also started to improve. I also felt that my righteous thoughts got stronger. Because of this, the many human thoughts of mine also did not manifest themselves as much. For example, I felt that my attachment to lust and desire had lessened. Therefore, in my mind, I sometimes had the feeling of wanting to relax; I felt that I could take a break and catch my breath.
However, for several days in row, I failed to get up in the morning to practice the exercises. After I got up, I could not recall if the alarm clock had rang, and how I had unknowingly fallen asleep again. In this way, I wasted a lot of time every day. Today when I got up, it was almost 6:00 am. I felt quite upset. I did not want to act that way, but I felt that the obstacle was too huge to break through.
Today at noon, I practiced the exercises that I had missed. Before I began, a thought came to my mind, which interfered with my completing the exercises, and it made me feel very upset. But from the bottom of my heart, I felt that I could not let it continue this way. So I made up my mind to practice the exercises. After I started, that uneasy feeling quickly disappeared. When I practiced the second set of exercises, I suddenly came to understand an issue: My pursuing comfort was actually a reflection of my going through a tribulation. When the evil comes to interfere and persecute us, we know that it is a kind of tribulation. However, is it possible that this state of letting us slack off is also a kind of tribulation? When a demon comes to frighten us, we know that we need to resist and repel it; however, when the demon transforms itself into a beauty, and then comes to seduce us, we fall for it.
When I looked further within myself, I found that, under pressure, my human mindset did not come to the surface. In order to avoid persecution, I appeared to be very "diligent," but when I felt that the danger had disappeared, when I felt that the pressure was relatively minor, and the environment had become relaxed, my human mentality started to manifest itself. Several days ago, when I came back from a meeting in my company, my attachment to fame and personal gain were triggered again, so I again wanted to accomplish something important so as to show off in front of my supervisor. My attachment to lust and desire also started to surface. When studying the Fa, I became muddleheaded. When I recalled the times I have done well, I found that some of my ordinary people's troubles were quickly resolved as I diligently studied the Fa. As a result, I had more leisure time and a feeling of "having nothing to do." The following thought kept coming to my mind: The danger has gone, and I can take a break, do something else, spend more time collecting materials (that is, going to the Internet café), and finish an ordinary people's project (which I did not have to finish), and so on. My mind had been interfered with by various things. I allowed these thoughts to continue for quite a while before I finally came to my senses.
I suddenly realized that this was essentially a trap. After I had gone through many tribulations and endured the pressure, and when the environment became relaxed, I always wanted to "take a break" and "find relaxation," and my attachment to lust and desire and so on became magnified. As a result, the old forces easily manipulated me, and in this way, I stumbled here and there, and I was "forced" to become diligent again. As I further looked into myself, I found that what was behind all these attachments was my pursuit of comfort.
Ordinary people want to be comfortable above all else. The ordinary people's concept of "working hard" is also for the purpose of attaining future "comfort," clearly a human notion. When I wrote out this understanding, I found that for a very long time, this notion of mine had not changed at all. Why have I encountered so much interference? Why have I had so many attachments that I have not let go of? Why have I always been so passive in my cultivation journey? It turns out that I have always had the pursuit for comfort deeply in my mind; it even seemed that I had taken my pursuit of comfort as my cultivation goal. As a result, it was always the case that I became diligent again only when I got to know that tribulations were surfacing. What has been hidden behind this "diligence" was my goal of wanting to escape from an unpleasant tribulation, my wanting to eliminate my ordinary people's troubles, and my wanting to keep this comfortable state. In a severe sense, I have been exploiting Dafa by using my cultivation to achieve goals in ordinary society. This is just like the thought: "As I cultivate, Master will take my illnesses away..." My basis for cultivation was wrong, and my cultivation objectives were wrong. This does not amount to genuine cultivation.
Today I deeply feel that the attachment to comfort is an insidious tribulation. People have difficulty recognizing it, and they get attached to it, want it, and pursue it. This attachment to comfort has been hindering our doing well with the three things that Master has required us to do. It has prevented us from cultivating ourselves diligently, made us unaware of the danger that we are in, and caused us to be unable to break free from the attachments that we have had. It can ruin a cultivator without him even realizing it.
When one is surrounded by hardships and in a difficult environment, he knows to be diligent. There is an old Chinese saying, "Worries and suffering make one live, while comfort and delight make one die." Of course, we will never acknowledge the old forces' using our attachment to comfort to create another kind of tribulation to force us to be diligent. The dangerous environment arranged by the old forces does not help us in offering salvation to sentient beings, and it can ruin their opportunity. So in a more relaxed environment, we should even more realize the seriousness of this tribulation and become more diligent, because it is most difficult for us to be diligent in such a state. I believe that what is most important is that we completely change our human notions and come to understand that our pursuing comfort is, in fact, a very big tribulation. We should know that pursuing comfort, like jealousy, competitiveness, lust and desire, is also an attachment, and we should be even more wary of it. Master said,
"In fact, let me tell you that they do not have correct thoughts to guide themselves, and it will not be easy for them to quit that way. As a practitioner, why don't you take it as an attachment to be abandoned, and see if you can quit." ("Lecture Seven," Zhuan Falun)
I feel that when we truly realize that pursuing comfort is a tribulation and a huge attachment, we can then eliminate it, cherish the normal cultivation environment, and become truly diligent while studying the Fa more and doing well with Fa-validation work.
I now understand that diligence is not an abstract concept, and it means being consistent with starting the exercises a little after 3:00 a.m. every day. I have noticed that some practitioners cannot persist in doing the exercises in the morning. I feel that if one cannot practice the exercises in the morning, then this couldn't be a reflection of diligent cultivation. I have deeply realized that when I could not persist in practicing the exercises every morning, my cultivation state would become worse and worse. The same held true for the effects it had on my Fa study. Dafa cultivation requires us to work hard. "Working hard" is the basis of diligent cultivation.
Let us, from now on, be determined to get rid of the attachment to comfort, and always stay vigilant.
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