(Minghui.org) Greetings Master, and fellow practitioners.
During the last year of my undergraduate study I obtained the Fa in Melbourne in 2018, and had cultivated for one-and-a-half years by May 2020. I am grateful to have obtained the Fa when I am still quite young, and have just started to work. Were it not for the Fa, I would have been clueless as to what the meaning of my life is, and would feel very regretful and sad the moment I pass away.
My cultivation met with a few critical tribulations in 2019. However, the overall external environment was very favorable because my work fitted in well with my university degree, and my colleagues were extremely nice.
More importantly, I was able to attend group Fa study every Saturday, go out to join group exercise in the park on Sunday, and clarify the truth about Dafa face-to-face in Melbourne's Central Business district. I could manage my normal tasks while still doing the three things well. However, when the CCP virus pandemic hit, I was faced with three issues that exposed my longstanding attachments.
Attachment to Comfort and Family Sentimentality
I felt worried about my well-being in Australia, and many airlines had reduced their international routes. This meant that I could not easily buy a ticket to go back home if I found life unbearable in Australia. My family is still in Vietnam, and I am not a permanent resident or citizen of Australia.
The attachment of wanting to go home to reunite with my family has been a major attachment. Therefore, I sometimes went into panic mode and at night it was difficult to go to sleep. I felt as if something was pressing down hard on my neck. It felt like I was being squeezed inside a box without oxygen. When this happened, I reminded myself of Master’s teaching:
““When I come to this ordinary human society, it’s just like checking into a hotel for a few days. Then I leave in a hurry.” Some people are just obsessed with this place and have forgotten their own homes.” (Lecture Nine, Zhuan Falun)
I enlightened that as long as I am still in the human world, there will be suffering. Even though I am not attached to staying in Australia, the desire to go back to Vietnam reflects that I still think the human world is my true home. What is crucial is whether I can overcome this fear. I felt calmer afterwards. I decided to stay in Australia, and will only go back to Vietnam when the time is right.
Attachment to Resentment
Recently, Master arranged for me to encounter a xinxing test to improve my tolerance and compassion. I live with my aunt. One day, I went to the kitchen to make some food. I washed the frying pan that I used, but it was not clean enough. My aunt got so angry that she called my family in Vietnam to complain.
I felt as if I had been mistreated. I had been doing my best to do a lot of housework such as mopping and cleaning the floor every Sunday before I went to the park to do group exercises. I even offered to pay a lot of the household bills and frequently cleaned other parts of the house during the week. As Master let me listen to the words that my aunt used when she complained about the frying pan, I felt very angry. I tried really hard to not interrupt her and remained silent by recalling what Master taught:
“What is a “heart of great forbearance?” As a practitioner, the first thing you should be able to do is to not fight back when you are beaten or sworn at—you must be tolerant. Otherwise, what kind of practitioner will you be? Someone says: “It’s really hard to be tolerant, and I’ve got a bad temper.” If your temper is not good, you should change it, for a practitioner must be tolerant.” (Lecture Nine, Zhuan Falun)
I tried to look inward because Master said that we should examine ourselves first no matter what happened. Then, I enlightened that I was angry because I lacked compassion. If someone mistreated me even once, that incident would overshadow the many times when they treated me well. I think this is a very serious lesson because Master said that when Gods look at human beings, Gods do not only look at their current life, but consider the human’s entire lifespan through many reincarnations.
This also helps me better understand what Master said:
“Thus, the supernormal ability of clairvoyance that some people refer to is to look at things within one’s own dimensional field. When a person practices cultivation in Beyond-Triple-World-Fa, he will no longer look at things this way. He will look at things directly, and that is called the divine power of Buddha Fa. It is something with mighty power.” (Lecture Two, Zhuan Falun)
I understood that as long as I am still a human being, I am not looking at things directly, like in Beyond-Triple-World-Fa. I am not seeing things how Buddhas see things with their divine power. Hence, if I see that someone is doing things that are not to my liking, that is only a tiny part of that person’s entire life experiences that I see, and what I am seeing at that moment is only what is reflected within my field.
Cancellation of Group Activities
I had some inappropriate thoughts when I knew that the physical truth clarification sites had been canceled because of the virus, such as I could relax, and would not have to stress much about clarifying the truth to sentient beings. Luckily, when I joined the group Fa study on Sonant, I was told that the Melbourne Epoch Times office was printing special edition newspapers on the CCP virus. Seeing how other practitioners are quite serious about this project and other projects, this heightened my sense of responsibility. With Master’s assistance, I got to help distribute newspapers in my local neighborhood.
Because I was also given the digital version of the newspaper, I decided tosend this digital version to all of the teaching staff at my former university. With the wisdom given by Master, I wrote a small computing script that enabled me to send out automatic emails with each email customized with the recipient’s name in the greeting. From my position as an alumnus, I sent emails to more than 200 staff in my university to provide them with the truth about COVID19, given how this pandemic has disrupted the way they and the university work. The response was quite positive as I received a few thank you emails from the staff, saying that they would read the material.
When I went out to deliver newspapers in my neighborhood or sent bulk-emails, I tried my best to conform to anti-junk mail and email laws. At first, I felt worried about receiving unwelcome responses from ordinary people. However, my fear itself was not aligned with Dafa. If I were to become an enlightened person, how could I feel fearful even though I am doing a righteous thing? My understanding was that this fear in itself is also a manifestation of how the old universe is at the last stage of destruction. Once Fa rectification ends, in the new universe, righteous thoughts will abound and people in society will say and do righteous things in a very open manner.
I would also like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the practitioners who establish news outlets such as Epoch Times, New Tang Dynasty, and other channels. I enlightened that this is a crucial time when sentient beings have to position themselves righteously in order to be saved.
We, Dafa practitioners, can take advantage of the CCP virus pandemic to reach more everyday people. In addition, I got to see how mainstream social platforms such as Facebook labeled news from Epoch Times as fake news. I realized that this is a battle between good and evil, and the evil will do everything in its capability to wreak havoc on ordinary people. Ordinary people are faced with many negative factors that try to trap them in delusion while simultaneously facing financial and emotional hardship. I feel sorry for their suffering. Master said:
“Shouldn’t we have compassion as cultivators? When our compassion emerges, we will probably see that all living beings are suffering—everyone is suffering. This will happen.” (Lecture Seven, Zhuan Falun)
I hope my experience sharing will help strengthen practitioners’ steadfast faith in Dafa, and not lose focus on our mission during this critical time.
Thank you Master, and fellow practitioners.
(Presented at the 2020 International Falun Dafa Young Practitioners’ Online Fa Conference)
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