(Clearwisdom.net)
While I was at my workplace last night, a fellow practitioner who had not stayed in frequent contact with me sent me an unexpected text message stating that his son had a high fever, and he asked me to send forth righteous thoughts to help the boy.
I pondered whether or not it was appropriate to send forth righteous thoughts on such an occasion. Then it occurred to me that the situation was intended to cause interference for the fellow practitioner's cultivation, and thus I should help. However, since I was at work, I telephoned my mother, who is also a practitioner, and told her about the situation. She was busy with other things at that moment and did not focus on sending forth righteous thoughts. It was not until after I left work around 9:30 p.m. that we started to send forth righteous thoughts formally and whole-heartedly. Since it was late at night, I sent a text message to another practitioner and asked him to join in our efforts, but he did not reply.
At 10 p.m. we sent forth righteous thoughts for 30 minutes and then studied the Fa for 30 minutes. At 11 p.m. we sent forth righteous thoughts again. However, we were very sleepy, and we fell asleep during the process. At 11:30 p.m., the fellow practitioner called me and told me that his son's state was better, he could sleep for a while, but the child's body continued to twitch. I knew our sending forth righteous thoughts had worked, but we did not persevere long enough, and the evil pushed back. When I asked him how severe the child's disease was, he replied that he had already been notified by the hospital that his child was critically ill and on the verge of death. After comforting him a little, I started to send forth righteous thoughts and continued until 2:30 a.m. At that point, I was too sleepy to continue. I sent a text message asking about the child's situation and received a reply that the child was doing much better and could sleep. I sent a text message stating, "I will go to bed for a while. If your son's situation worsens, call me right away." I and my mother then went to sleep.
Around 5 a.m., the follow practitioner called and told me that the child had started to twitch again. I was still very sleepy and struggled to get up and send forth righteous thoughts. However, my main consciousness was not fully awake, and I fell asleep again. So did my mother. I had a dream in which there was hint from Teacher that helped me enlighten that I should call upon the strength and power of the whole body. Thus, I called several fellow practitioners for help. Around 10 a.m., I sent another text message in which I asked about the situation. The reply was that the child was much better and was conscious. I felt a little bit relieved.
Before I sent forth righteous thoughts the night before, I had burned some incense for Teacher and in front of Teacher's photo, I made a plea to Teacher for help. I felt the situation would eventually be okay, although it seemed dangerous when I saw the benevolent smile on the photograph of Teacher. I still had the question, "Why did this happen?" I thought that Teacher was using this situation to give me some hint about my cultivation. The occurrence was a big shock for me, but I suddenly enlightened that the amount of time left is too limited for practitioners to indulge in comfort. If we slack off in our cultivation, the consequences would be much worse than I ever could imagine.
The practitioner whose son had the incident had initially been a local practitioner. He moved out of town due to his work and had not been in contact with local practitioners since then. In addition to the lack of being in a group cultivation environment, his family members opposed him practicing Falun Gong. He started to slack off in his cultivation. He told me that he was almost an ordinary person. In fact, he was depressed about his own situation and was trying to change. Although we had not frequently kept in contact, I could sense that he was not having any breakthroughs in his cultivation. So, his tribulations were not surprising. My understanding is that if my own cultivation state is not good, I will have much unexpected trouble in my daily life.
There are other examples in my local practice group. An aged practitioner was doing the three things. He was in a good state during Fa study and the exercises, but he had some attachment of fear. Later, another fellow practitioner was arrested and sentenced to prison. He become very attached to fear and did not even dare to read the book. He moved soon afterwards, and we did not have much communication with him. Then, I heard his family kept having misfortunes, such as family members becoming ill, a family member committing suicide, and yet another family member being abducted. He was busy dealing with all the trouble in his family.
You may have observed that diligent practitioners usually do not have much trouble, nor do their family members. Generally speaking, ordinary people have their karma and predestined life arrangements. However, because we are practitioners, if our families were to be involved in significant troubles, we would be negatively affected too, with constraints imposed on our time and energy. Now is the Fa-rectification period, and everything must give way to the Fa-rectification.
So practitioners' lives are usually very smooth or even boring in ordinary people's eyes. We should understand that in cases where family members are ordinary people, their smooth lives are due to their kinship with practitioners and not due to their own blessings. If we cultivate well, Teacher can create the best cultivation environments and paths for us since our environments are for us to assist Teacher in Fa-rectification and not for us to live ordinary lives. If we indulge in daily comforts and become attached to them, we will not advance diligently in cultivation, and our good environments could be lost at any time.
Recently, I have been busy at work and have slacked off in my Fa study and the exercises. Our cultivation paths have been arranged already, and we must advance diligently in order not to be left behind. If we become stuck at any step along the path, the Fa-rectification will not stop and wait for us. And the next tribulation may come as pre-arranged on top of the current one that we have not yet resolved. In the end, all tribulations could pile up, and it would be a complex set of problems to resolve. Realizing all this, how can we slack off and indulge in everyday comfort?
Let us all not indulge in comfort anymore! I especially remind those practitioners who have slacked off in your cultivation that if you continue like this, you and your family could incur troubles. Your family members' knowing sides will resent you. If you want to be truly good to them, you should cultivate diligently and follow Teacher's words and the paths arranged by Him. Only by doing this can practitioners obtain the best, which was what we wanted before we descended to the human world.
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