(Minghui.org) A practitioner I am close to recently suggested that I study the Fa more. She is very conscientious when it comes to studying the teachings.
She shared her experience and then asked me, “When something is preventing you from reading the Falun Dafa books, isn’t that a form of tribulation?”
After our conversation, I wanted to improve my Fa study.
I started by memorizing the Fa instead of just reading it. At first, I memorized two pages each day, then just one page per day, and eventually I memorized only one paragraph.
The practitioner later suggested that I first read the Fa, then memorize. I gave it a try that day. I had the same strong momentum as I when I first started to memorize the Fa.
So I decided to read first, then memorize.
Unexpectedly, I faced interference. As soon as I picked up the book, I started to feel tired, uncomfortable, and cold. So I sat in bed under a blanket. I felt sleepy but did not think of sending forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the interference. I could have finished reading in an hour, but it took me two hours instead.
Then, as I was moving on to memorize it, I thought it would be easy. However, I was stopped again. My nose hurt, as if someone had poked it with a needle. I felt uncomfortable and irritable. I was in a bad mood and could not memorize anything.
When I told the practitioner I wanted to make a breakthrough, she wondered if there was something preventing me from reading the book and memorizing the Fa.
Although my celestial eye is not open, I sensed that two wicked beings had poked my nose with a needle and placed a large rock on my heart to make me feel uneasy.
That sensation prompted me to send forth strong righteous thoughts to destroy them and to not accept any foreign substances they imposed on me.
I sent forth righteous thoughts for a while, and something incredible happened. My nose stopped hurting, the feeling of a rock on my heart was gone, and I felt light.
Wasn’t that an illusion? Weren’t they foreign substances? I clearly felt they were hurdles blocking my cultivation path. They were outside elements and not part of me. Once I recognized this and was determined to eradicate them, Master Li, the founder of Falun Dafa, eliminated them for me.
When I had conflicts in the past or when I was going through sickness karma, I treated these things as tribulations. I worked hard to overcome them. However, I did not see it that way when it came to Fa study.
Isn’t interference during Fa study a form of tribulation as well? Had I allowed the pain and the discomfort to take over, I would not have been able to memorize the lectures. In fact, as a veteran practitioner, especially now that we are at the final stage of Fa-rectification, just reading the lectures is not good enough.
Being hindered during Fa study is an obstacle and a test I must pass. It is like the story in Journey to the West, where a Tang dynasty Buddhist monk had to overcome 81 tribulations to obtain the scriptures during his travels to the “Western Region” [Central Asia and India].
As a practitioner, I also must endure numerous hardships to enlighten to the Fa. Thus, problems arise to prevent me from studying the Fa. This is a test to see if I can discern what the wicked specter has prepared for me and if I am determined to remove it.
This experience made me realize that the interference I encounter during Fa study is a form of tribulation.
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Category: Improving Oneself
