(Minghui.org)
Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
Before writing this article, I had a dream that I submitted an application for something important, but one step had a problem and the reviewer said some documentation was missing. I did not know what to do and was very worried.
After waking up, I thought about the dream and wondered what it meant. Many of my dreams, especially those about exams or my omissions, are related to my cultivation. Since I had been debating whether to write this experience-sharing article or not, this dream motivated me to go ahead and write it.
In my local area there is a tourist site and several of us take turns coordinating the exercise demonstration and truth-clarification activities there on weekends. One time it was my turn and, after the event ended, one auntie told me my exercise movements were incorrect. I thanked her, but because it was time to pack up she did not correct my movements.
About one or two weeks later, we were doing the exercises together before a group study. Several practitioners came up to me, one after another, to correct my movements. At first I was patient with a good attitude, but as time passed I became a little annoyed. Some of them said things that did not make sense. I looked around and found my movements were about the same as other practitioners, but I was still corrected by several of them.
This continued into another local outdoor event, and I do not want to talk about the details here. I later talked with a practitioner about it, hoping he would be sympathetic. But he just asked me to look within. I was unconvinced but looked inward anyway.
Several weeks have passed since then, and I am now clearer on why this happened. I am the only practitioner in my family, so there are no opportunities for others to correct my movements at home. The only opportunity is during group exercises. In fact, it does not matter how others behave. As long as someone corrects my movements, helping me improve them, I should just accept it and thank that person.
Something else also happened while this exercise movement correction was happening. Over the past 20+ years, I have lived in a number of places in the U.S. and have always liked to discuss cultivation with other practitioners. I considered myself involved in important projects and even wrote articles of this kind, so I thought my sharing from time to time would help other practitioners.
Starting several months ago, however, a practitioner kept telling me how poorly I had done in personal cultivation. He did that through emails, text messages, and other channels. He said that although I often told others to look within, I was the person who really needed to look inward. I was unconvinced and shared these thoughts with a practitioner. I was once again told to look within.
So I did. Over the past few weeks, I have tried not to judge other practitioners or make comments about others. I have just examined myself and found a lot of problems. For example, I used to make remarks about this or that. Looking back, many of these comments were related to my ego and feeling that I had a better understanding of cultivation. But this is not how a practitioner should be. Another related situation was that upon gaining some understandings, I often wrote them in articles or shared them with other practitioners, thinking that was enough. But I missed the most critical part, which was really cultivating myself in that area.
Master said,
“As practitioners, in the course of cultivation there are so many attachments to be relinquished, such as the mentality of showing off, jealousy, the competitive mentality, and zealotry.” (Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun)
So I started to examine myself about these attachments, one-by-one.
I do have a show-off mentality--from the college I went to, to the company I work for and my son’s performance in school. Jealousy, too, manifests in both my workplace and other circumstances. I may not say it aloud, but if something other than what I expect happens, I might feel disturbed.
As for the competitive mentality, when someone argues with me, I may subconsciously come up with talking points to win that person over. This is the competitive mentality, although very often I did not realize it. Zealotry similarly is a problem of mine. For example, I sometimes felt good about myself when successful at obtaining something.
From the exercise movement corrections and this process of looking within, I was taught to be more humble. From the Fa lectures, we know that our limited skills and talents are from Master for us to validate the Fa and save people. Since these skills are not from me, there is nothing for me to show off about. Master has talked about jealousy many times, it is just that I did not pay enough attention to it.
Here I want to thank Master for these incidents, both the exercise corrections and the feedback about my cultivation. Without them, I would probably still just be commenting about others instead of cultivating myself.
When I was a child, I had many dreams. I wished a great Kung Fu master would teach me the best martial arts skills so I could help people out. I hoped a great physician could keep me away from illness and pain. I dreamed that a great sage would explain the past, current, future, and everything about the world to me.
Back then, I knew they were dreams and did not expect them to come true. Looking back now, I have found that all these dreams have come true with Dafa and Master. From our hearts, we know what is the most precious thing for people in this world, we know how to stay healthy, and we know where we came from and where we are heading to.
These all make it a privilege to work on the Minghui project. I was often in tears while reading articles about how thrilled people were after recovering from fatal illnesses, how broken families were brought back together, how hopeless teenagers became honest, trustworthy, and hardworking.
That is why our work is so important. Many people out there are still suffering miserably and crying for help, but they do not know about Dafa. It is our mission to bring the information to them. The more articles we produce, the higher quality they are, the better chance people will get the message and be blessed.
Once when carpooling to group study, a practitioner said his Fa-study was pretty good, but he was hoping his sending forth of righteous thoughts and truth-clarification could be equally good. After hearing him say that I started to reflect on my situation.
Relatively speaking, my sending forth righteous thoughts is rather poor. Over the years, I have tried to send forth righteous thoughts at least four times per day, but the results were limited. Very often I dozed off. I recently tried to improve that and I also tried to spend more time on Fa study and doing the exercises. The situation has become somewhat better, but I know there is still a gap. Especially during the first five minutes of righteous thoughts. I noticed very often I just sat there quietly, although I was supposed to be actively cleansing my own dimensional field.
Probably because of this gap, I recently experienced intense interference from thought karma. Looking back over the years, I knew it happened because, for quite a long time, my personal cultivation was lacking. Very often, I used projects as an excuse to neglect my personal cultivation. But the reality is that doing projects cannot replace solid Fa study, sending forth righteous thoughts and doing the exercises. At critical moments when Dafa needs us the most, the gaps in my cultivation could surface and cause problems.
This lesson also taught me that cultivation is serious. Just staying at the status quo and hoping things will be fine is not right. Tests, potholes, and various temptations will arise on our cultivation paths. Only by guarding our thoughts and actions, and always striving to do the best can we be considered genuine Dafa practitioners.
I once had a dream in which there was a stage. Several artists and I were preparing to perform in front of the audience. Everyone was ready except for me. Master was watching and the audience was also waiting. In the dream, I was thinking, “How I wish I had prepared earlier!”
Today I am sharing this dream with you. I hope we can remind each other to do well on our remaining cultivation paths.
(Presented at the 2022 Minghui Team's Fa Conference)