(Minghui.org) My cultivation entered a stagnant state around June 2021. I felt that I seemed to make no progress at all. What should I do?
I had wanted to memorize the Fa for a long time, but I always stayed away from doing so because of the Japanese wording. For example, in Japanese “like that” and “like this” means the same thing, but trying to remember all of these differences on every page is tough. So I stayed away from memorizing the Fa.
I felt that memorizing all of the differences in every page of Zhuan Falun would make me feel restrained. I wanted to read the book repeatedly to remember them naturally.
One day in the summer of 2021, I read an experience sharing article on Minghui.org. The practitioner who wrote the article had been reciting “On Dafa” from memory 10 times every day.
I thought that I could memorize “On Dafa” instead of memorizing all of Zhuan Falun. I decided to start memorizing “On Dafa” repeatedly. Ultimately, I did not recite it 10 times every day. I only recited it three times in the morning. But I persisted in reciting “On Dafa” from memory every day.
This continued until August when Minghui.org published another experience sharing article. This practitioner memorized Zhuan Falun in paragraphs and would memorize two to three lines before joining the segments together to form a paragraph. When I read this article, I finally changed my mind and also felt motivated to memorize Zhuan Falun. I started to memorize the First Talk. Prior to this, I had read Zhuan Falun at the rate of one lecture per day.
However, when I started memorizing Zhuan Falun, I started to have some understandings of certain portions of the book. “Oh, so this is what it is all about.” This meant that I had thought that I had read the book before but I actually did not really read the book.
I still persisted in reading one lecture every day, but the speed of my memorizing of the Fa was not fast. I felt that if I decided to memorize one paragraph per day, that might be difficult for me. For those relatively long paragraphs, I needed one week or even longer to finish memorizing them.
Every morning, I try to recite the paragraph that I memorized the day before. If I can recall it, I will start to memorize the next paragraph.
Through memorizing the Fa, I realized that it may not necessarily be difficult to memorize relatively long paragraphs. Instead, some sentences or words may be incredibly difficult to memorize.
Although I just started memorizing the Fa, I feel very happy because I have finally started to memorize it.
I think that most Japanese, including myself, hold ourselves to the perfectionist ideology. When we talk about memorizing the Fa, we think of memorizing every word and sentence of Zhuan Falun completely. When we think in this way, we feel that it is not attainable so we become indecisive about whether to memorize the Fa or not.
The perfectionism of Japanese people is also relatively unique. For example, I take the electric tram to and from work every day. If the tram arrives a few minutes later than scheduled, we will hear an announcement from the tram that says, “We apologize for the delay.” Does this only happen in Japan?
Whenever I hear announcements like that I feel annoyed. I feel that there is no need to apologize every time. When a company or government department makes a mistake, the media will take the lead to attack the relevant personnel. I feel that Japan’s society cannot tolerate imperfections. This causes those people who cannot be perfect to feel discouraged.
I thought that my avoidance of memorizing the Fa before was actually a manifestation of this perfectionist ideology. It may not be a bad thing, but no one can be perfect right from the start. So I thought that it was important that I give it a try first.
If you feel that trying to memorize and recite the whole thing is too hard for you, you can try memorizing “On Dafa”repeatedly. I started by memorizing “On Dafa”. Therefore, the bar for me to start memorizing the Fa was lowered.
I will try my best to improve the speed of my memorizing the Fa bit by bit. I think that I can merge memorizing the Fa into my daily life. For example, I could memorize the Fa as I am walking. If you have not started to memorize the Fa and are thinking of doing so, give it a try.
Lastly, I’d like to add that another shortcoming of this perfectionist ideology is that when I do not complete a certain task or make a mistake, I will feel guilty and incompetence. Actually, this kind of feeling is not necessary because it is not a state to accord with Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.
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Category: Improving Oneself
