(Minghui.org) I am a Chinese practitioner who resides in New York. I am very honored to be able to share my cultivation experience with everyone.
I bought a precious book Zhuan Falun from a bookshop in China’s Nanjing City in 1996. That’s when I started my more than 20 years of cultivation. Looking back, no words can describe my gratitude to Master Li Hongzhi (Falun Dafa’s founder). Originally, I thought of using this opportunity, to sum up my over 20 years of cultivation, and my understandings of cultivation and its principles. However, I realized that if I were to really attempt that I would need tens of thousands of words, and it would be rather complicated. Therefore, I decided to talk about one cultivation subject – studying and memorizing the Fa.
Limited Understanding of Studying the Fa Well
Through my years of cultivation, I was very lucky. More importantly, I always emphasized studying the Fa. During different phases, I had different levels of understandings about the importance of studying the Fa.
Only By Studying the Fa Well Will We Be Able to Cultivate Rationally
When I first started cultivating, my understanding was that I must study the Fa well so that I know rationally how to cultivate. Thus, I would be able to understand the content of Dafa and the Fa-principles. Therefore, I seriously studied Zhuan Falun and the lectures that Master gave before the onset of the persecution in 1999. Through my understanding of the Fa-principles, I learned how to cultivate, how to look inward, and how to get rid of attachments when faced with different types of conflicts.
Studying the Fa Itself Is Improvement in Cultivation
Master said,
“So I’ll tell you this principle: Make sure you don’t think that it’s enough to have read the book Zhuan Falun and to know the exercises, or that it’s sufficient to think it’s good and to just practice along. If you want to improve yourself, you rely entirely on this book. So you should read it over and over again. As you read the book you are understanding more and improving. Add to that the supplementary means to Consummation—the exercises—and you’ll continually raise your level.” (“Teaching the Fa in San Francisco,” Lectures in the United States)
Studying Master’s lectures deepened my understanding of studying the Fa, which is improving one’s cultivation state. Anyway, among cultivators, who does not want to improve as quickly as possible? Therefore, before 1999, although I was busier with work, whenever I had time, I would study and assimilate into the Fa. During those few years when I concentrated on cultivating myself, the improvement in my cultivation was really like a rocket shooting upwards as I experienced changes every day. My mind grew broader and became more peaceful, and I also became increasingly persistent in studying the Fa.
Master said,
“I have opened an enormous door and embarked on a greater task—I have explained all of the principles of cultivation and the factors related to reaching spiritual perfection. And I have explained them very systematically. This is why high-level gods have said, “You have left humans with a ladder to heaven—Zhuan Falun."” (Fa-Teaching Given At the Conference in Sydney)
The Gods said that Master gave us a ladder. What is a "ladder?" My understanding is that as long as you persist to climb it, you will ascend to higher levels. If Zhuan Falun is a ladder, then we should study it every day. Studying the Fa is elevating ourselves in our cultivation.
Studying the Fa Well Saves Sentient Beings in Our World
After the start of the Fa-rectification in 1999, I had a new understanding of studying the Fa. Through studying “Teachings From a Tour of North America,” I understood that studying the Fa well is not only for my own improvement in cultivation. The deeper content is to save my own world, or my own celestial body, and the sentient beings in the vast universe.
During the personal cultivation phase, studying the Fa and improving in one’s cultivation is all for one’s own consummation. But, when we enter the Fa-rectification cultivation phase, the term ‘studying the Fa’ carries a broader and deeper meaning. I am studying the Fa for the beings in my world. If I do not persist, there will be a great loss among the beings that belong to my world. It will be difficult for my celestial body or the beings in the vast universe to be saved. This is something that I would not dare to imagine in my personal cultivation. I also learned how solemn and grand cultivation is, so I cannot let up studying it.
Only By Studying the Fa Well Can We Break Away from the Old Forces’ Arrangements, and Do Well in Life-Saving Projects
Master said,
“If you, as a student [of Dafa], do not follow Master’s requirements, it is definitely no simple thing. The old forces have arranged for all Dafa disciples a set of their things, so if a Dafa disciple doesn’t follow Master’s requirements, he must be following the old forces’ arrangements. The old forces are in essence gigantic trials and tribulations that accompany you at all times, focused on whether in Fa-rectification Dafa disciples are able to step forward.” (“Be Clearheaded,” The Essentials of Diligent Progress III)
Every Dafa practitioner faces the same problem – how can we reject the arrangements made by the old forces, and take the path Master has arranged for us? While cultivating I gradually came to understand that studying the Fa well is the fundamental key to breaking away from the arrangements of the old forces.
Actually, benevolent Master has already told us the answer in his lectures long ago. There were many times when I felt that Master is really too benevolent towards us. There were many Fa-principles which he explained very clearly and thoroughly. What is left is whether we put our heart into studying these lectures.
My understanding is that in the above two paragraphs of Master’s lectures, he spoke of the relationship between studying the Fa and doing well in the life-saving projects. If, when studying the Fa, one is not able to catch up with the requirement, it will be very easy for the old forces to find loopholes, interfere, and even make us take the path full of tests and tribulations that have been arranged by the old forces. We will then face many troubles in our projects. For those practitioners in China, if they are involved in life-saving projects, but their studying of the Fa cannot meet the requirement, they will often face persecution.
Overcoming Difficulties: Memorizing the Fa
I was arrested and taken to brainwashing centers and labor camps many times between 2001 and 2004. After experiencing the persecution, I calmed my heart down and looked within. I discovered the fundamental problem was my attachment to time. I felt that the cultivation in the Fa-rectification period is going to end soon, thus I relaxed in my Fa-study. I could not maintain a balanced mentality and all sorts of attachments surfaced, causing me to be arrested and persecuted many times. After having learned a painful lesson since 2004, I started to do more Fa-study, and at the same time, persisted in sending forth righteous thoughts regularly. After that, I felt that the evil was distancing himself away from me. I no longer had the feeling of being watched by the evil every day. Furthermore, during sensitive dates, the evil people also no longer came to look for me. They just asked my family if I was doing well. My family would always reply that I was doing well.
After coming overseas in January 2014, I joined the media projects. I realized that in media projects everyone is immersing himself or herself in doing practical work. Furthermore, if we do not really place studying the Fa as the utmost priority, it is very easy to be disturbed – we do not have the time, or even cannot remember to study the Fa.
To maintain my Fa-study, I developed a plan: First, I studied two lectures of Zhuan Falun every day. Secondly, I also set up a fixed Fa-study regime and a given time for Fa-study. I decided to join a Fa-study group in the morning and read one lecture of Zhuan Falun every morning before work. At night, after 9.30 p.m., I read one more lecture of Zhuan Falun by myself. On weekends, apart from studying Zhuan Falun, I also study the lectures that Master gave in different countries and regions. As I set up this plan, I would not arrange anything else during these times. I would also add righteous thoughts at a given time, so I would maintain my Fa-study time and regime. Although it has been more than six years since I moved overseas, apart from unique situations, I persisted in studying two lectures of Zhuan Falun every day.
Setting up my Fa-study time allowed me to concentrate on my work in the media projects without having to worry about it. When working on the projects, I would often have to take up many jobs. When I was involved in the New Tang Dynasty Television project, the norm was that one producer is responsible for one program. However, I was put in charge of three programs, and I also had to be responsible for the creativity support in promotional advertisements, media news, television choreographer, as well as for the training of media managers. In 2016, after leaving the New Tang Dynasty Television, I quickly produced two truth-clarifying films. In November 2017, after joining Sound of Hope, while I was working for the news center and producing the YouTube video segments, I also produced another documentary that exposed the ‘Tiananmen Self-Immolation’ hoax incident. These films are currently widely shared by people both in China and overseas. Some even had a few million views on the overseas website.
During the process of advancing in these projects, maintaining my Fa-study is my greatest guarantee. Whenever my attitude starts to become unstable or when the disturbances get a bit overwhelming, I will start to increase the amount of my Fa-study and the time that I send forth righteous thoughts. Every time troubles will turn into a good thing, and every time my persistence in the Fa will also get rooted deeper and deeper in my soul.
Although I place great emphasis on Fa-study, I felt that the requirement from the Fa gets higher and higher as the Fa-rectification process advances. At the same time, I also faced a serious problem which is that the disturbances to my Fa-study are increasing.
This was especially true after 2019 when I obviously felt that two problems are becoming more and more significant during my Fa-study. The first problem was that I could no longer concentrate that well. For the first problem, I tried many methods, including letting myself quiet down before studying the Fa and slowing down in my Fa-study speed.
However, these methods could not resolve the problem of me losing my concentration during Fa-study. The second problem was that I could not get the Fa into my head when I was studying it. When I was studying the Fa, often after reading one paragraph, although I did not lose my concentration, I did not know what I had just read. Sometimes, I must read that paragraph repeatedly.
Not being able to study the Fa well caused some interference in 2019. ‘Illness symptoms’ like feeling weak, pain, and difficulties in breathing gave me trouble. Through large amounts of Fa study and continuously sending forth righteous thoughts for a few hours alternately, the ‘symptoms’ disappeared. However, my cultivation state did not fundamentally change.
Thus, I began to self-reflect, and look within. I first had some sort of enlightenment. It was that I have already cultivated to the very surface. The more I got closer to the surface, the more difficult it was to calm my mind and study the Fa. It becomes difficult to get the Fa into my head. On the other hand, the part of me that has completed cultivating has already been separated from me. I am not sure if this is a phenomenon that is meant to occur when one’s cultivation reaches the surface.
I wondered if I should memorize the Fa. Memorizing the Fa will not have the problem of losing concentration, nor not being able to get the Fa into my head. I tried to memorize the Fa in the past but I had always found it difficult to persist. At the same time, I always had this non-righteous thought that I am very busy with media projects. Memorizing the Fa requires a lot of time, so it is impossible for me to have so much time to memorize the Fa. Furthermore, it is really difficult to memorize the whole book. I felt that all these are actually the barriers to memorizing the Fa, which I set up for myself. Later, I attended a cultivation experience exchange in which one of the practitioners shared his three-year experience in a Fa-memorizing group. This sharing inspired me greatly. Thus, I decided to join their Fa-memorizing group.
I felt that following this Fa-memorizing group every day brought very big benefits. First, the two big problems of losing my concentration and not being able to get the Fa into my head were resolved. I would not be able to memorize the Fa if I lose my concentration. Therefore, when I read the texts every sentence gets into my head and I feel that I am continuously being assimilated to the Fa. It is a very good feeling. On the other hand, when my familiarity of the texts reaches a certain standard, more of the inner content of the Fa starts to naturally appear before my eyes. Of course, I cannot harbor any thoughts of seeking to see more or understand more when I memorize the Fa. I just memorize the Fa and many deeper meanings appear before me. This is something that I had never expected to happen.
In the past, I had a thought that through reading Master’s lectures from different countries and regions could help me to understand more Fa-principles. Now, that I have already been memorizing the Fa for more than a year, I no longer think like that. I realized that the content of Zhuan Falun actually has very profound meanings.
Master said, “The higher one’s level, the greater the microscopic level one can see.”(Lecture Eight, Zhuan Falun).
Once when I was memorizing the Fa, I suddenly understood the other layers of meaning of this phrase. I suddenly understood the way Gods look at this universe. It is just amazing. In the past, I felt that the second lecture of Zhuan Falun is generally talking about the inert abilities that one possesses. Now, I discovered that the second lecture actually talked a lot about the universe, realms, and time. It is really rich in content. In this way, my understanding of the Fa really grew deeper and deeper.
I also want to suggest to practitioners who do not have a very strong main consciousness to repeatedly memorize the chapter “Your Main Consciousness Should Dominate” in Zhuan Falun as that would help strengthen your main consciousness and avoid disturbances from external factors. Sometimes, when I feel that my self-centredness is starting to grow, and I do not think much about the feelings of others, I will repeatedly memorize a sentence from the chapter “Improving Xinxing” in Zhuan Falun.
Master said,
“You should always be benevolent and kind to others, and consider others when doing anything. Whenever you encounter a problem, you should first consider whether others can put up with this matter or if it will hurt anyone. In doing so, there will not be any problems. Therefore, in cultivation, you should follow a higher and higher standard for yourself.” (Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun).
After memorizing this sentence repeatedly, I realized that I can think of others’ needs first when I am thinking about things.
The above are my few understandings about studying and memorizing the Fa. Due to my limited cultivation level, my understanding is very limited. If there is any room for improvement, I hope that practitioners can point them out to me.
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Category: Improving Oneself
