(Minghui.org) My vision became blurry last year, but I was not concerned. I tried to suppress the thought that I was sick. After a while my eyes became dry. I thought it was because I read on the Internet for too long every day, so I shortened the time on websites. I only read the titles and didn’t read the content. But my vision didn’t improve. I even found it difficult to read Dafa books when it got severe.
Why was I unable to see clearly? Was there anything that I shouldn’t see? Did my attachments prevent me from seeing clearly? I looked within and found many attachments – the attachment to the cultivation ending time, fear of being persecuted, seeking comfort, competitiveness, selfishness, resentment, attachment to supernatural abilities, lust and desire, attachment of doing things, impatience and reliance. I also dug out the reasons for those attachments. This tribulation lasted a long time, and I had some xinxing tests during the process. Thanks to Master Li’s (Dafa's founder) strengthening and by constantly looking within and rectifying myself, my eyesight gradually recovered.
Tribulation Due to Attachment to Comfort
I like to live comfortably. This seeking comfort lay like a hard stone across my cultivation path. It hindered me from improving and elevating. Diligent cultivation starts with early morning practice. To practitioners who cultivate diligently, it is not difficult to get up early in the morning and do the exercises. Because of my laziness, I practice the exercises in the morning on and off. I haven’t made a breakthrough so far.
One day Master’s Fa came to my mind: “We stress holistic improvement and holistic upgrade.” (Lecture Two, Zhuan Falun). I realized that I shouldn’t only seek the extraordinary state of my physical body, but my mind had to surpass everyday people’s level. For example, every day people are subject to birth, old age, sickness and death. They have to sleep at least six hours a day. Cultivators are beings beyond the three realms and are not restrained by the time field in this ordinary people’s space. So practitioners can sleep much less.
Pursuit of comfort is an everyday person’s yearning for a better life, while we cultivators talk about “bear the toughest hardships of all” (Chapter I, The Great Way of Spiritual Perfection). They are totally different.
Another attachment that is closely connected to the pursuit of comfort is being afraid of facing hardship. If one wants to be comfortable, he is unwilling to bear hardship and unconsciously opposes hardship. When my eyes couldn’t see clearly, I changed my desk lamp from an incandescent lamp, a fluorescent lamp to a yellow light lamp, so as to make my eyes comfortable.
Master said,
“Let hardship then be treated as your joy” (“Tempering Your Will,” Hong Yin, Translation Version C)
But in my subconscious, I wanted to experience less hardship or no hardship. This notion became a second nature of mine and disturbed my cultivation. When I read sharing articles about sickness karma in recent years, such a thought occasionally flashed through my mind: Going through a tribulation of sickness karma was better than going through persecution. Because I didn’t clearly understand or completely negate this thought, I fell into the trap set up by the old forces without noticing.
Master said,
“When you encounter ordeals during your cultivation, you have got to cultivate yourself and look at yourself--that doesn't mean acknowledging the ordeals arranged by the old forces and trying to do well amidst the ordeals they've arranged, that's not the case. We negate even the very emergence of the old forces and everything that they've arranged; we don't even acknowledge their existence. We're fundamentally negating all of their things, and all of, and only, the things you do while negating and getting rid of them is mighty-virtue. It's not that you're cultivating amidst the ordeals they created. Rather, you are to walk your own path well while not acknowledging them, not even acknowledging the elimination of their ordeals' manifestations. (Applause) So looking at it from this angle, what we need to do is completely negate the old forces. Dafa disciples and I don't even acknowledge the manifestations of their last-ditch efforts.” (“Teaching the Fa at the 2004 Chicago Conference,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. IV)
After I understood the Fa principles, I sent forth strong righteous thoughts: “I’m Li Hongzhi’s disciple, I don’t want other arrangements or acknowledge them.” (Teachings Given on Lantern Festival Day, 2003)
The purpose of going through the process of karma elimination was to elevate. I didn’t acknowledge any forms of persecution. All the evil beings and elements that interrupted my cultivation must be dissolved and eliminated immediately.
The More I Look Outward, the Less I See
For quite some time I always argued with a coordinator. The superficial reason was that he paid less attention to security and installed some software into his computer at will. So, I always kept an eye on him to assure that he didn’t make trouble. The more I did this, the more he did what he wanted to do.
Although I looked within after every argument and was determined to let go of my competitiveness, I quarreled with him when we meet. Then, one day I suddenly realized that behind the competitiveness was my attachment to validating myself. Arguing with him was to prove that I was right and he was wrong. So I stopped looking outwardly at his shortcomings. This put an end to our dispute.
Later on, I shared sincerely with him. He pointed out that I didn’t trust him. I asked him if he knew why I didn’t trust him. He was speechless. I told him that I once stumbled because of him. So I had a mistrust of him and always looked outward. This interfered with our cooperation.
The dispute with him occurred when my eyes were blurry and fuzzy. The vision issue was a hint from Master Li that I shouldn’t look outward. But I didn’t realize that I had a problem with my cultivation. I thought there was a problem with my eyeglasses.
Generally speaking, resin lenses can only last two or three years while mine was six years. When Master saw that I was still not enlightened, Master hinted at me via my mother. At that time, my mother asked me how come rubbish was still all over my room after cleaning it. It indicated that my eyes didn’t see clearly, and I should look within. But, I didn’t take her words seriously and dismissed them with a smile. So my vision dropped significantly and became more blurry. I even had dry eyes.
Resentment Blocks My Vision
My parents didn’t like me since I was a child. I was also brainwashed by the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) indoctrination. I was full of resentment before I practiced Falun Dafa, but my resentment became less as my cultivation state improved. However, the root cause still existed. Sometimes I felt that I had let go of the resentment, but it appeared again when I let down my guard.
Several months ago, a practitioner gave me several pages of phone numbers and asked me to upload them to a website. The writing was unclear. Some of the numbers missed one digit or had one more digit. Some numbers were duplicates. I had to spend a lot of time completing them every time.
When I was uploading the numbers for her for the last time, I had problems with my eyes. I became impatient. My resentment materialized, and I complained about her reliance on me. Practitioners were like a mirror. Actually, I should have looked within, and let go of my impatience. But, I looked outward. This resentment blocked my vision.
Although one problem was not solved, another problem came up. Late last year I went to my sister’s home to teach her how to surf the Internet. We chatted and talked about my family’s apartments.
My parents owned three apartments. The two big ones were given to my brother and sister. They lived in the remaining small one-bedroom apartment. They said that I could have it after they passed away. Once my father was seriously ill, my uncle came to see him from another city.
My uncle said to us three siblings in front of other relatives during lunch that we had to look after our parents because they became old. None of us said anything. My uncle then asked me to look after them.
To be frank, I was not suitable to look after my parents. My apartment was small with only two bedrooms. My parents and I had communication issues as if we came from two different worlds. But thinking that I was a practitioner and had to think of others first, I agreed to look after them unwillingly.
I talked with my parents and suggested that they sell the one-bedroom apartment and buy another one near my home. It would make it easier for me to look after them. They agreed and sold their apartment. However, they didn’t want to buy another one. They moved into my home instead.
My sister said that my parents’ apartment should not be sold because she wanted it but she didn’t have the money. Hearing what she said, I was upset. She also said that she didn’t know how much my parents had given to me. I told her that their pensions added together were less than 7,000 yuan (around $1000) a month. But, my mother was on many kinds of health products, which were costly.
She said to me cynically that she didn’t believe that I was willing to look after our parents without any purpose and that there was no such good person in this world. I didn’t explain more to her and left her home trying to hold back my tears.
I felt that I was greatly wronged afterward. How come she was so unreasonable? She didn’t come to look after our parents but make trouble. When my father was alive, my sister provoked him to make things difficult for me. After he passed away, her attitude worsened.
Master said,
“That is not out of compassion, as one’s attachments to fame and self-interest have not been given up at all. This person is unable to develop this compassion one bit.” (Lecture Two, Zhuan Falun)
Suddenly I was relieved and realized the root cause: when I unwillingly agreed to look after my parents, I wanted to be a “good” person; having their apartment sold was to avoid trouble later.
No wonder I always felt that I was wronged and I was full of resentment. The reason is I didn’t have compassion. Thank you Master for helping me get rid of the root of my resentment.
Dealing with Supernatural Abilities
My third eye has been open since I was a child. I could see my deceased relatives and could communicate with them. When I just started practicing Falun Dafa, I saw some horrible scenes from time to time and pleaded with Master to close my third eye. Then, I could not see with my third eye. Later on, my third eye was opened again, but I rarely used it. I also had another supernatural ability. Occasionally I sensed what was going to happen without intention.
One day I told a practitioner what would happen to him, and reminded him to be careful. He didn’t believe it. The incident did happen one year later. He escaped it. I sensed the future scene intentionally and told him what would happen to him later. He believed me this time.
Before long I had a vivid dream. There were two scenes in my dream. The first scene was that I was selling cashmere sweaters for my friend. I said to a buyer: “You see this cashmere sweater looks beautiful and is cheap. You can buy two pieces here for the same price that you could buy only one elsewhere.” But I didn’t mention the quality of the sweater. She bought two.
The other scene came up then. Two people were selling a shirt on a stage and asked me to buy one. I said I didn’t want it. I opened the shirt and found it was damaged inside.
After I woke up, I pondered what my dream meant. In the first scene, I didn’t tell the buyer the quality. She only saw the surface. In the second scene, the shirt looked nice in the package but was damaged inside. This indicates that what I saw was not necessarily the truth. I understood the dream was a hint from Master.
Master said,
“...if you calmly see things with the Celestial Eye and without using your mind, what you observe is true. If you start to think a little, what you see will be false. This is called demonic interference from one’s own mind, or "transformation follows mind-intent." (Lecture Six, Zhuan Falun)
When I used my mind intent to sense the future, wasn’t it fake? If the practitioner believed me firmly, then I interfered with the path Master had arranged for him. I was very regretful that I did the wrong thing unintentionally. I sent a message to him in which I said not to take my words seriously, and asked him to follow the Fa.
I realized that my attachment to supernatural abilities was one of the reasons for my eye problem. I no longer told any practitioner what I had sensed because everyone had his own path in cultivation.
Troubles Caused By My Attachment to Time
I kept having the same dream for the past two years. In the dream, I was going to retire. Whenever my boss arranged the work for me, I asked him to let other people do it because I was going to retire. I had the same dream eight times. The only difference in the dreams was the time to my retirement ranged from one day to half a year.
I thought that Master Li hinted to me to hurry up and be diligent. During the days I wrote this article, I had the same dream again. After I woke up, I suddenly realized that I had an attachment to time. I didn’t want to do anything closer to my retirement and waited for this day to come.
Looking back on my cultivation journey of the past two years, I found that my attachment to time was strong. Especially when the CCP virus (the coronavirus for COVID-19) spread, I browsed the news on the Dongtai website overseas closely. Superficially, I looked for information for truth-clarification. Actually, I tried to find out the end-time of the persecution.
My heart was moved by the US election. I surfed the Internet for news and prophecies. I spent over two hours on the Internet each day. Sometimes I asked some practitioners to print them out and sent them to my acquaintances to read. Even when my eyes were uncomfortable, I didn’t stop surfing but shortened the time.
I looked within and tried to find out why I was so attached to the end-time of cultivation? Did I still have the hidden fear of being persecuted again? I was persecuted several times before. Every time I was able to escape thanks to Master’s protection and my firm belief in Dafa. My fear of being persecuted again was the fundamental reason for my attachment to time and the pursuit to the end of cultivation.
Master said,
“ If you can let go of life and death, you’re a God; if you can’t let go of life and death, you’re a human—this is the difference.” (“Teaching the Fa in New York City,” Lectures in the United States)
After understanding this, I asked myself: “If I am unable to validate the Fa and cannot complete my mission, why do I still want to have this flesh body?” As soon as I had this thought, I experienced a stir in my body, and my eyes were filled with tears.
One day I said to Master in my heart that I understood from the Fa what Master said, “Anything one encounters in cultivation is a good thing.” (Fa Teaching on World Falun Dafa Day). But, I was not able to become happy. At that moment there was a voice close to my ear: “All accounts have to be settled.”
I was surprised for a moment and then tears covered my face. Accounts were going to be settled, and it was time to go home. My heart was full of joy. Then I saw an extremely sacred scene: There was a path under my feet leading to Heaven and Master was nearby protecting disciples and guiding them to go ahead.
One of the reasons that I had a vision issue was that I didn’t pay attention to sending righteous thoughts. Thus, the demons were nourished. Because I couldn’t calm down, I didn’t pay attention to it. I was in a trance when I sent righteous thoughts on the scheduled four times every day, especially on the one at 6 a.m.
When I sent forth righteous thoughts one day several months ago, I saw with my third eye a giant like a chimpanzee with two bloody eyes staring at me. I was frightened and sent one thought to eliminate it. It disappeared. Soon a little fox head appeared and looked at me cutely. I hesitated a bit and sent out the thought “elimination.” It vanished.
After my vision worsened, I realized that it had something to do with my righteous thoughts. There were too many bad things in my dimensional field. I decided to send forth righteous thoughts more. In addition to the scheduled times of sending righteous thoughts, I added half an hour to clear out the rotten things in my dimensional field.
When I sent forth righteous thoughts at 6 a.m., I reminded myself not to fall into trance again. But within one minute, my palm fell down. I put my palm straight and then it fell down again. I realized that the cute little fox made me fall into trance. I sent this thought out “Eliminate all the evil beings and elements that disturb me when I send righteous thoughts, ‘encompassing everything and leaving out nothing in any dimension.’”
My eyesight improved a lot after I sent forth righteous thoughts like this for a period of time. Though it took me a long time to pass this test, I felt I was a bit closer to my original home.
Master said,
“But precisely because you do cultivate in Dafa, even though the pressure you face is great when the hardships come at you earlier than they would have, and the tests of your xinxing are tough to pass—and sometimes the tests may be huge—when all is said and done, those hardships are all things you need to overcome, they are accounts you need to settle, tabs that you need to pay.” (Teachings at the 2005 Conference in San Francisco)
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