(Minghui.org) I would like to share some of my cultivation experiences in two areas: studying the Fa and looking within.
My main approach to studying the Fa was memorization. Shortly after I began practicing Dafa in 2004, I spent six months memorizing Zhuan Falun. Afterwards, I memorized Essentials for Further Advancement and Hong Yin several times. Many passages from these books became deeply engraved in my mind. During several instances of being illegally abducted and persecuted, my solid foundation in memorizing the Fa enabled me to quickly leave those dark dens of persecution by refusing to cooperate, reciting the Fa, looking within, and sending strong righteous thoughts.
Starting in 2018, my daily Fa study routine was to memorize one lecture of Zhuan Falun each day, followed by reading Master’s other teachings. However, as I became more familiar with Zhuan Falun, there were times the Fa did not truly enter my heart during memorization.
Therefore, since the end of the year before last, I have been listening to one lecture as an audio recording each day, followed by memorizing Master’s other lectures. So far, except for three books, I have memorized all of the teachings once, in addition to Zhuan Falun, which has had a profound effect on me.
While listening to the Fa, I require myself to take in every single word with my heart. Sometimes I feel as though my being inside my body is listening, while the physical body is merely a shell.
Once, while sitting in the full lotus position listening to the teachings on the Heavenly Circuit (Zhou Tian), I perceived the energy flow like a small stream winding through a valley. It gradually grew wider, pushing aside rocks. The river broadened, showing tremendous and magnificent force. It was indescribably profound.
While memorizing the Fa, I often find myself in tears. To ensure that worthy sentient beings can all be saved, Master extended the end time, bearing enormous karmic debts for sentient beings repeatedly. He sacrifices everything for sentient beings. I was deeply shaken by the magnificence of the Fa-rectification. With boundless power, immeasurable wisdom, and infinite mercy, Master has forged a new, better future and unparalleled glory for all beings in the cosmos. This is an opportunity that all beings should treasure beyond measure. We should receive the grace that Master has bestowed upon us with the utmost reverence and awe.
In recent years, I have mainly focused my cultivation of looking within around three areas.
Finding My Own Problems Whenever Conflicts Arise
With a practitioner I interact with frequently, I often focused on her shortcomings in cultivation. When measuring myself with the Fa, “Who’s Right, Who’s Wrong.” (Hong Yin III), I realized that the issue was not her cultivation, but my own tendency to fixate on the flaws of others. It was a mentality of looking down on others, that is, the attachment of jealousy, which hindered her improvement—so the fault lay with me.
On one occasion, she shared with me that she didn’t feel like doing the exercises, struggled with an attachment to comfort, and had fear when distributing truth-clarification materials. The next day during meditation, I recalled our conversation and thought, “Why does she still have so much fear and such an attachment to comfort?” Catching myself, I immediately thought, “Why am I looking at a fellow practitioner’s flaws again? I must eliminate this thought.” Just as I eliminated the thought, a concept entered my mind: Although she has fear and an attachment to comfort, she still persists in doing the exercises and distributing materials. This is truly precious, truly precious. The phrase “truly precious” echoed twice. I felt this thought was quite righteous. I thought that Master was teaching me how to view things with righteous thoughts.
Another time, the practitioner and I had planned to clarify the truth to people from another area, however, she arrived too late to help save them. I complained to myself: Saving people is so important. Why couldn’t she do it first? Although I reminded myself to look within, I struggled for a long time to identify any fault in myself. Finally, I realized that I hadn’t considered her situation, revealing my own selfishness. I resolved to let go and stopped dwelling on the incident.
However, the practitioner kept bringing it up several times. I said, “What’s done is done. Let’s stop talking about it and simply learn from the experience.”
Later, the practitioner mentioned it again. This time I responded in a harsh tone, “Whose responsibility was it!” I immediately perceived I was wrong.
The practitioner said that I had the attachment of resentment, but I denied it, saying I was simply sad because we hadn’t saved those people.
After the practitioner left, I reflected on our conversation and realized that I did have resentment. So I sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate it. But the attachment was cunning and only seemed to be gone.
Only then did I understand that I hadn’t truly eliminated the resentment before, but had tried to hide it by only thinking about letting go of it. Master arranged for the practitioner to bring up the incident repeatedly for me to recognize this attachment and truly eliminate it.
The following day, when the resentment surfaced again, it was weaker. I sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate it. By the third day, it had become very weak. So I then eliminated it completely with a single thought.
At the very instant it was removed, I felt Master powerfully lift me to a higher level and into a much broader realm. There I came to understand higher principles of the Fa and realized that my previous understanding had been quite low.
In the past, I diligently searched for my attachments and rejected them one by one. But now I have realized that all my attachments, human notions, and karma were imposed by the old forces. As long as our righteous thoughts are strong, we can eliminate them.
Therefore, when facing fellow practitioners’ problems, we should no longer focus on who has shortcomings, who has loopholes, who has many human attachments, or whom we look down upon, and so on. Such thoughts display the old forces’ jealousy toward Dafa disciples.
Master never dwells on what we have done poorly. He only remembers what we have done well.
At that moment, my mind became very pure, without a single stray thought. While sending forth righteous thoughts, I saw my energy was like white mist sweeping across a vast plain. The insects and other rotten entities on the field were instantly cleared away, and the entire plain became quite clean.
How Internal Cultivation Transforms the External Environment
Through studying the Fa, I came to realize that if people around us have incorrect thoughts, words, actions, and even abnormal physical conditions, it’s all related to our own cultivation state.
After 2018, I lived with my parents for several years and noticed that my cultivation state directly impacted them. Whenever I identified and eliminated my own attachments, their behavior and health improved remarkably:
Overcoming Competitiveness:My mother used to argue constantly in her sleep. Realizing this reflected my own attachment to competitiveness, I worked to eliminate it. Soon after, her sleep-talking stopped entirely.
Letting Go of Personal Gain:After removing my attachment to personal gain, I had a dream about wiping excrement off my mother. The very next evening, I overheard her regretfully telling my father about their selfishness for taking others’ money.
Eliminating Resentment and Jealousy:During the pandemic, both of my parents became seriously ill. My mother’s cough became so bad she told me that she felt she might not make it. That night, they both coughed incessantly and blamed each other for making a lot of noise. The sound was overwhelming. I thought, “This reflects my resentment and jealousy.” I began sending forth righteous thoughts to eliminate these substances. The instant I raised my palm, the house fell completely silent. I continued sending righteous thoughts for about twenty minutes before beginning to study the Fa. By the next day, my mother said, “I’m well. I’m not coughing anymore.”
My parents used to quarrel a lot. When they quarreled, I observed that my mother harbored resentment and jealousy, while my father could not tolerate criticism. I understood that they mirrored my own flaws. As I continually rectified myself, they stopped arguing, and our home grew harmonious.
I also came to understand that this principle extends beyond our immediate family. Every Dafa disciple is responsible for a certain realm in the human world. We are responsible for saving the sentient beings in our realms. Our cultivation state will be directly reflected in them.
If we cultivate ourselves well, then when we rectify ourselves completely, those sentient beings can also be rectified and ultimately all saved. But if we don’t cultivate well, the loophole will be reflected in the sentient beings.
Although I have not lived with my parents during the past two years, my cultivation state still manifests itself in them. For example, after spending more than a month clearing impure substances such as insects and bacteria from my dimensional field, my skin became delicately smooth. Later, my mother told me that their skin had become very smooth.
One day, my mother told me that my father once frequently lost his sense of direction. I thought it was because he was getting older, so I became worried about his health. But then I realized that the worry was an attachment of sentimentality toward my father. Once I let go of that attachment, he never experienced that problem again.
Transcending Ordinary Human Reasoning
Master once hinted to me that I still had an attachment to lust. At first I could not understand it. Having been divorced for twenty years, I felt repulsed by romantic relationships. How could it be possible that I still have an attachment to lust?
I gradually realized my repulsion was rooted in the traditional human notion that “lust is the foremost of all immoralities.” It was that human notion that felt repulsed. This repulsion was actually a disguised form of lust, which made me unnatural around men. After eliminating this notion, I feel no difference between either gender of all sentient beings. Everything became natural, and I felt at ease.
In 2018, during the persecution, the evil communist regime forcibly and illegally took me to a detention center. Throughout the ordeal—during the medical examination or while being transported to the center—I refused to cooperate with them. Nevertheless, they still succeeded in taking me to the detention center. I couldn’t understand why I was still sent to the detention center since I refused to cooperate with them with all my strength. A saying came to mind: “A scholar may be killed, but he cannot be humiliated.” I soon realized that my refusal to cooperate was merged with this notion, which was fundamentally pride and self-preservation. However, Master’s teaching on not cooperating with the persecutors is based on compassion—it is to prevent sentient beings from committing crimes against Dafa, giving them a chance to be saved.
In addition, things ordinary people consider “good” or “proper” are not necessarily correct when viewed from higher levels. While we must begin by being good people in everyday society, Dafa disciples must ultimately align their actions with Dafa to become the finest beings at every level of the new universe.
I would like to share some insights on looking within while recently memorizing The Essentials of Diligent Progress II and III.
While memorizing the article “Using at Will” (The Essentials of Diligent Progress II), I detected a notion in me: Writing informally is a sign of being uncultured. Catching this notion, I rebutted it, Human history and culture were all created by Master. How could it be possible to lack culture? Upon rejecting this notion, I gradually awakened to higher Fa principles. I felt deeply moved and awestruck, realizing that Master wants us to let go of human norms, fixed concepts, and limitations so that we can perceive higher Fa principles.
While memorizing the article, “Righteous Thoughts” (The Essentials of Diligent Progress III), I had skipped the line, “But under normal circumstances you should hold your palm erect or do the lotus hand position. I immediately looked within and realized that my posture was often incorrect when clearing my own field. I often slouched and rested my hands near my legs because sitting straight for a long time was tiring; slouching felt more comfortable. I found this was an attachment to comfort, and immediately felt a tingle in my back. I thought Master was adjusting my body. Consequently, I was able to sit quite straight, not feeling tired anymore.
While memorizing the article “Path,” I missed the sentence, “instead of using the Fa to measure whether something is right or wrong.” (The Essentials of Diligent Progress II) This reminded me of a time in detention that I signed a bail document simply because other practitioners had done so, and with the excuse of considering my family members’ feelings, even though I had sent forth strong righteous thoughts for more than a month and had eliminated all evil factors behind the persecutors, and knew they would release us even if we didn’t sign.
After returning home, I dreamed that I was taking an examination. When completing the difficult questions, I did not want to answer the simple questions. So I copied the answers from other people’s papers. But when I looked over those questions, it was too late for me to correct the answers.
I understood that Master compassionately pointed out my mistake of signing the document in the dream. I must always measure my actions and everything against the Fa, not the actions of others.
While memorizing the article, “We Are Not ‘Getting Political’” (The Essentials of Diligent Progress III), I recalled a time I used quotes from this article to clarify the truth to my brother. But I found that my starting point was not to validate Dafa. Instead, I had been using Dafa to prove that I was right. I was surprised by this serious problem. I must let go of my attachment to self-validation.
I still have many selfish attachments centered on the self that I have not yet completely let go of. I hope that in the days ahead I will hold myself to an ever higher standard, cultivate myself diligently, and further improve in my cultivation.