(Minghui.org) It has been 17 years since I began to practice Falun Dafa. During all this time I have not experienced any big tribulations or committed any big mistakes.
Overall, I felt that I walked on the path of cultivation fairly steadily.
Still, after I read Teacher's “Fa Teaching at the 2015 West Coast Fa Conference” a few times, it truly shocked me.
Teacher said:
“The evil will seize upon any gaps. Many practitioners have even passed away on account of little things; it really was due to something very minor. That’s because cultivation is something serious, and requires having no gaps. If for a long time you haven’t dealt with those things through cultivation, small as they may be, if you haven’t taken them seriously for a prolonged period of time, then it is a big issue. Many people have passed away on account of such things.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2015 West Coast Fa Conference”)
Irresponsible Behavior
Teacher's Fa alarmed me, but it took me a while to find my shortcomings. Actually, I was very careless and did not put my heart into the things I did. For example, I often made mistakes when I produced Dafa truth-clarification materials. For example, I put the paper the wrong way into the tray, wasting a lot of paper. When I forgot to refill the ink, I had to constantly clean printer heads, which wasted both paper and my time.
When one practitioner told me to look inward to find the reason I was making mistakes, I was not very happy. I thought that it was just easy to make mistakes when printing, that mistakes were common.
Yet when I ran into something, I did not look inward. Instead, I looked outward. I had a litany of excuses, such as the printer was old or I was preoccupied with other things. I also made a lot of mistakes when I helped practitioners in my Fa-study group.
Excuses Abound
One Fa-study group is held in my home. The practitioners in my group are in their 70s or 80s. I am the youngest, and I am in my 60s.
I have to print the Minghui Journal and Dafa materials and obtain and distribute Dafa books for them. I buy MP3 players, cell phones for truth-clarification phone calls, SIM cards, and other small things for my group members.
I also attend two other Fa-study groups. A practitioner in one of the other groups is blind, so I get the Minghui Journal recordings and take them to her. I also study the Fa with her on a regular basis. Practitioners from another group ask me to deliver the electronic versions of Minghui Journal and truth-clarification materials to them. I also support other projects.
They all know that I am very busy, so they never make a fuss about my mistakes. They've even tried to reassure me and just say to be a bit more careful the next time. Because of that, I never took my mistakes to heart.
Small Things Accumulate Over Time
I often dreamed that I lost my purse. I was worried and looked everywhere for it and even awakened myself. It was so vividly clear, yet I did not realize that Teacher was giving me a hint that I should not be so careless.
It finally dawned on me that, when I was careless, I was not taking things seriously enough. It is of great importance when one does not regard validating the Fa seriously. It is the same as not treating cultivation seriously.
If one has not paid attention or has become more and more careless, these things accumulate over time. It seems like these are all small issues and nothing to make a fuss over. But, in cultivation, there is no such thing as a small thing.
Teacher said:
“You have gone through so much in all these years of cultivation, and yet many people have really done poorly. They constantly make all sorts of mistakes, and have even grown used to it, and consider it nothing; even when ordeals come they don’t realize where the problem lies, as they have become accustomed to it and consider [their attachments] just little things. But it’s cultivation—whatever happened to being 'free of gaps' (wu-lou)? There are no little things.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2015 West Coast Fa Conference”)
The above Fa was an eye-opener, and yet it took me so long to enlighten to it.
Reluctant to Reason Things Out
Since my childhood, I did not want to think things over--I just wanted to go with the flow and take things easy. As a practitioner, I thought this was a good way to be, just as Teacher mentioned in terms of “following the course of nature.” (Zhuan Falun)
In my mind, I was a simple person because I never thought about anything. I believed that if one studied the Fa and did the exercises, one could reach consummation. Sometimes when I came across a hint from Teacher, I wanted to understand it in a deeper context, but I just could not figure it out, or I was too lazy to try to enlighten to it. Then, over time, I forgot about it.
In time, I formed the habit of being reluctant to think about or enlighten to things. Having cultivated for 17 years, I had not learned how to cultivate.
Teacher said:
“Even when an ordinary person goes through something he will draw a lesson from it, and give it some thought. So, all the more so should a cultivator try to figure out why the old forces exploited his gaps. You have got to figure out what your problem is.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2013 Greater New York Fa Conference”)
Concern Over Dafa's Reputation
The old forces took advantage of my loopholes. I was careless, did not look inward, and was casual about my mistakes.
I developed a physical problem, which had actually started about seven or eight years back. However, I did not pay attention to it.
I thought that practitioners should not have any illness, that we are immune, so I did not realize that this was because my cultivation was off.
Teacher said:
“Some of our practitioners are struggling with passing the tests of sickness karma. Don’t think that it’s necessarily something major [that causes that]. You might think that you haven’t done anything majorly wrong, and that you are very firm in your faith in the Fa. However, you shouldn’t treat the little issues you have like they are nothing.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2015 West Coast Fa Conference”)
Ordinary people saw that I had a physical problem, and they talked about me behind my back. They said that, because I practiced Falun Gong, I refused to go to the hospital.
Friends of mine have quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliates, and they had heard the facts about Dafa. For them to think that way about me damaged Dafa's reputation. I was very worried, but I could not figure out what I did wrong.
No Small Things in Cultivation
When another practitioner learned about my situation, she came to my home and spent a lot of time studying the Fa with me. We studied at least three chapters, and sometimes six, a day. She stayed for a few days every time she came.
At the beginning I had to force myself to study the Fa for a long time. In the past, I had not put my heart into Fa-study, so I did not feel like studying more. We studied the Fa, did the exercises, and shared cultivation experiences whenever we were awake, and we slept no more than four hours a night at that time.
It has now been a month since I again began to feel that I could take into my heart what I study. I have begun to see the inner meanings of the Fa, use the Fa standards in my daily life, and look inward with more diligence and willfullness.
I wrote this article to engrave this lesson in my heart and mind. I also want to remind fellow practitioners: There are no small things in cultivation.
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Category: Improving Oneself
