(Minghui.org) I am an 80-year-old Dafa disciple. Lately, I have been looking inward to discern what attachments have kept me trapped in prolonged sickness karma, stagnating at one level and hindering my cultivation progress.
Looking back, I embarked on Falun Dafa cultivation with the fundamental aspiration to eliminate illness and strengthen my health. After 31 years of practice, I have come to understand many principles of the Fa and believe my fundamental attachments have long been eliminated.
Yet why, when facing the tribulation of sickness karma, do I constantly fluctuate between improvement and relapse, unable to break free from this state? This directly hinders my cultivation, leaving me feeling inadequate and deeply distressed. I seek Master’s enlightenment.
During a Fa-study session with fellow practitioners, Master’s teachings suddenly awakened me. Looking inward, I realized I had been mistakenly identifying these physical discomforts as sickness without even knowing it. My fixation on “sickness” was too strong, which is why I couldn’t pass the test.
Why is this the case? Upon serious self-reflection, I realized that, besides not studying the Fa thoroughly enough to truly grasp its essence, the more crucial issue was failing to approach problems from the Fa’s standpoint. Instead, I kept acting based on my own human notions of how things should be done. Thus, when the starting point is wrong, everything else follows suit.
The fundamental issue is whether a cultivator can walk the correct path of cultivation. If one views the surface manifestations of illness from a human standpoint, they are simply illnesses. If one views the manifestations of sickness karma from the perspective of the Fa, they are the elimination of karma for cultivators.
Master told us:
“In cultivation one needs to eliminate karma, and that is painful. How can one increase gong comfortably? How can one otherwise remove one’s attachments?” (Lecture Six, Zhuan Falun)
Because I failed to establish a proper way to evaluate the problem, I cultivated for a long time while clinging to attachments, yet still believing my understanding was correct. Consequently, I remained trapped in the fluctuating illusions of sickness karma.
I continued searching inward, carefully recalling my own behavior during the ordeal of sickness karma. I realized that throughout the process, I had been overly preoccupied with the superficial “comfort or discomfort” of my physical state: dizziness, pain, distress, unease.
Some fellow practitioners, when facing illness-karma trials, would say, “Don’t you know that feeling? Of course not—it’s not happening to you!” That visceral experience felt so “real.” When your heart dwells on “that feeling,” you cannot break free from its bondage. When your heart isn’t focused on cultivation, you cannot maintain righteous thoughts and actions.
I suddenly realized that the stumbling block hindering my cultivation is my attachment to the body’s superficial sensations. It is the very root of my fundamental clinging that I cannot let go of—a profoundly intense fixation. The more I care about it and can’t let go, the more I ask for it and want it, and it will keep appearing.
I realized that “sensations” constantly sway my perceptions, serving as both an opening for old forces to exploit and a poison administered by the evil spirit of communism. The indoctrination of empirical science, believing only what can be seen and rejecting what cannot, has seeped into the minds of cultivators, weakening my will and poisoning my body, ultimately aiming to prevent my cultivation from reaching completion.
Because I failed to understand the Fa from the perspective of the Fa, I mistook good deeds for misdeeds, regarded the elimination of karma as an illness stemming from an incorrect state, and took the falsehood as the truth. This led me to remain trapped in the suffering of sickness karma for an extended period.
Only by letting go of it and looking at problems from the perspective of Dafa can we have the power of the Fa and achieve righteous thoughts and righteous actions.
Master told us:
“Some of our practitioners are struggling with passing the tests of sickness karma. Don’t think that it’s necessarily something major [that causes that]. You might think that you haven’t done anything majorly wrong, and that you are very firm in your faith in the Fa. However, you shouldn’t treat the little issues you have like they are nothing. The evil will seize upon any gaps. Many practitioners have even passed away on account of little things; it really was due to something very minor. That’s because cultivation is something serious, and requires having no gaps.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2015 West Coast Fa Conference,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. XIII)
I have come to understand the seriousness of cultivation. What seemed like an insignificant attachment to bodily sensations became the very obstacle that kept me trapped in the life-and-death ordeal of sickness karma for so long. I am deeply grateful for Master’s compassionate guidance.
Master has arranged a path for us in Dafa cultivation, requiring us to understand the Fa from the perspective of the Fa. Therefore, no matter what happens in the future, I must regard everything I encounter in cultivation as a good thing, so that I can better fulfill my mission of saving people.
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Category: Cultivation Insights
