(Clearwisdom.net) Teacher said in "Lunyu:"
"'The Buddha Fa' is most profound; among all the theories in the world, it is the most intricate and extraordinary science. In order to explore this domain, humankind must fundamentally change its conventional thinking. Otherwise, the truth of the universe will forever remain a mystery to humankind, and everyday people will forever crawl within the boundary delimited by their own ignorance." (Zhuan Falun)
In my own cultivation, I have found that even though I know Dafa's principles are upright and good, I still find myself stubbornly clinging to notions that were formed over a span of thousands of years of being in the human world. My immediate reaction in some situations is often based on human thinking.
For example, when fellow practitioners experience symptoms of a headache, cough, or cold, I find myself thinking they had just caught the flu. I know at some level that it isn't just an ordinary person's illness. But subconsciously I still have thoughts that the sickness is caused by catching the flu, since this is how everyday people think. We all understand from the Fa that karma is the real root cause of any discomfort. But how could catching the flu cause additional karma? Many of our habitual notions have actually been formed while living in the human world and are the opposite of the Fa's principles. We should follow what the Fa teaches us.
Looking inside ourselves while cultivating, we can find many more examples where we consider things using our human notions.
When fellow practitioners doze off or their hands fall while sending forth righteous thoughts, they may believe this is due to lack of rest. They may even think that the reason they feel sleepy while studying the Fa is because they didn't sleep well. This is natural for everyday people. But cultivating Dafa is beyond the ordinary, and practitioners should measure everything against the Fa. In fact, as long as we study the Fa with focused attention, we won't feel sleepy regardless of whether we've had enough sleep. If we realize that sending forth righteous thoughts is not only a sacred battle between good and evil, but also the best opportunity to eliminate the evil, and a special honor bestowed only upon Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples, then our hands won't fall no matter how little sleep we've had.
I remember how weak I felt immediately after returning home from forced detention. My family, who are also fellow practitioners, said, “You have been detained for so long. You haven't been eating fruits or vegetables, and you weren't getting sufficient nutrition, so you need to make up for it now.” I didn't think too deeply about this in the beginning. I just went along with the thinking that I needed good nutrition to make up for losses suffered while in detention. But my health continued to worsen. I realized that my discomfort was fundamentally due to karma or interference. How could any amount of human nutrition eliminate karma or subdue interference? Teacher taught us,
“With every bit of improvement in your state of mind, some bad things will be eliminated from your body.” (Zhuan Falun)
He also said,
“This directly involves our own minds. In order to eliminate this negative thing, you must first change your mind.” (Zhuan Falun)
My own state of mind was at the level of an everyday person, so my health was like an everyday person's. How can everyday people's nutrition increase our gong? In the remote past, when Milerepa (founder of the White Sect of Tibetan Buddhism according to “The Buddha Fa and Buddhism” in Essentials for Further Advancement) was cultivating, he only ate about ten kilograms of food in an entire year, yet his gong was never hindered.
Teacher said,
“Indestructible righteous faith in the cosmos’s Truth forms benevolent Dafa disciples’ rock-solid, Diamond-Like Bodies, it frightens all evil, and the light of Truth it emanates makes the unrighteous elements in all beings’ thoughts disintegrate.” (“Also in a Few Words,” Essentials for Further Advancement II)
Yet, because I let my thoughts be influenced by notions such as “seeing is believing,” I question the power of my own righteous thoughts. I use my human thinking to understand the effect of sending forth righteous thoughts, with the result being that my mind sometimes drifts off into wild fantasies while sending forth righteous thoughts. Our human notions are formed from experience in the human world and are obstacles to our progress on the path of cultivation. Only when we use the Fa to gauge everything will we catch up with the progress of Fa-rectification and do better in saving sentient beings.
The above is my limited understanding. I hope fellow practitioners can point out anything inappropriate.
Views expressed in this article represent the author's own opinions or understandings. All content published on this website are copyrighted by Minghui.org. Minghui will produce compilations of its online content regularly and on special occasions.
