(Minghui.org) I am 70 years old and only attended school through 4th grade. Fellow practitioners have shared their understanding that transcribing Falun Dafa’s teachings, the Fa, helps one study them more in-depth.
I decided to give it a try. My hand began to tremble shortly after I began. I kept writing characters incorrectly and sometimes I put characters on the wrong line. My writing was not neat and the characters were not lined up horizontally or vertically, and they looked unattractive. I thought that my haphazard transcriptions were disrespectful to Master Li, the founder of Falun Dafa.
Master said,
“... this book looks very colorful, golden, and shiny. Each word bears the image of my fashen.” (Lecture Nine, Zhuan Falun)
I know that I must be in the right frame of mind and transcribe the Fa calmly, and that I must take it seriously. Studying the Fa and cultivation are serious matters.
I began to sit upright with my legs crossed in the full lotus position while transcribing the Fa. I did it from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and from 1:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. I felt really great. Sometimes I felt as if my legs disappeared. At the beginning, a lot of distracting thoughts kept churning in my mind along with external disturbances. I tried to eliminate them while transcribing the Fa, but it was difficult because my mind wasn’t pure enough due to my plethora of human attachments.
How could I transcribe the Fa well with such a mind?
I recited the Fa in my mind while transcribing it, but distracting thoughts and thought karma still interfered with me. Sometimes the interference was intense. The moment I eliminated one distracting thought, another one popped up. My mind was not able to calm down.
I then began to read aloud while transcribing the Fa. Dafa immediately revealed its enormous power to me, and my human attachments and distracting and bad thoughts were all driven away. Those interfering substances could no longer get into my mind. I could transcribe the Fa with a steady mind.
“Cultivation depends on one’s own efforts, while the transformation of gong is done by one’s master.” (Lecture One, Zhuan Falun)
The process of transcribing the Fa is also a process of cultivating one’s mind. With an impatient heart, one cannot transcribe the Fa well. Every word and every sentence must be transcribed with patience, and every punctuation mark must also be copied carefully.
One day when I was about to finish transcribing a lecture, I found that I missed one line. I wondered what I should do. I didn’t want to transcribe the lecture all over again and wanted to find a shortcut.
I suddenly remembered Buddha Milarepa, whose master asked him to build a house on a mountain. Buddha Milarepa had to carry stones and wood up from the bottom of the mountain. After the house was built, Milarepa’s master asked him to tear it down and build it again. After it was built again, his master asked him to tear it down and rebuild it once more. So he kept building a house, tearing it down, and re-building it, again and again. He was made to constantly suffer and his heart was forged. Milarepa had no complaints or regrets. He simply followed his master.
Thinking of this, I no longer hesitated and decided to transcribe the lecture again from the beginning. From that point on, I would transcribe a lecture again from the start even if I did something as small as not writing a comma or a period well.
Master saw my heart to transcribe the Fa well. He has been encouraging me and strengthening my righteous thoughts. I’ve never worn glasses. Sometimes I kept transcribing the Fa when the sun was setting and it got dark, but my eyes didn’t get blurry or tired. My arm doesn’t hurt although I transcribe the Fa every day. My hand that I used to transcribe the Fa even looks transparent. Sometimes the edges of the notebook I was writing on changed colors, turning from white to red, then to yellow, blue and purple; sometimes the edges look silver-white and transparent. The grid on the notebook enlarged one moment, then shrunk another moment.
Sometimes I felt that Master was by my side watching me transcribe the Fa. He would immediately show me if I wrote a character incorrectly or missed a line. I checked it out and found that I indeed made a mistake. Sometimes I saw a small gold or silver star at a certain line or certain point; when I checked it, it turned out to be a typo or characters placed on the wrong line. Master is merciful and has made an orderly arrangement for every disciple and gives the best for His disciples. Thank you, Master, for your great compassion!
The characters I wrote with my greatest effort still don’t meet my requirements. I will just try my best to write them well. I memorize the Fa while transcribing it. I see a lot of my human attachments, notions, attachments to fame, profit, and sentimentality during this process. I immediately eliminate them when I see them!
Master saw my heart to cultivate and helped me remove a lot of bad things. My body and mind have changed much during the whole process of transcribing the Fa. In the past, sometimes my body displayed incorrect states, which have now completely disappeared. Master removed them for me from the root. I walk lightly now and I don’t get tired no matter how much work I do.
The above is a bit of my experience of transcribing the Fa and cultivating my mind. Please kindly correct me if there is anything that is not aligned with the Fa.
Heshi.