(Minghui.org) Greetings, respected Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!

I am a 17-year-old Falun Dafa practitioner from Florida. In these times of intense interference and tribulation, being diligent and maintaining a clear mind in cultivation is more important than anything else. With every step I take, I am choosing whether to be a cultivator or to remain lost in the maze of ordinary people. The following are some of my recent cultivation insights.

Throughout my cultivation, I struggled to stay diligent. Even though I am well aware of the Fa principles and what Dafa requires of me, I sometimes found myself easily swayed by everyday temptations the moment my mind wavered. Particularly when I felt irritated or angry I had difficulty remaing calm. I sometimes couldn’t resist the urge to mindlessly browse my phone to kill time, thereby neglecting my school studies and music practice.

I was deeply aware of my shortcomings and tried to force myself to be more disciplined. However, these efforts usually lasted only a few days or weeks before I inevitably slipped back into old habits and repeated the same mistakes.

On the night before May 13th, I had a vivid nightmare that I still remember. I dreamed I was wandering in a forest, dirty, exhausted, and struggling to find a way out. I was wearing a black vest fitted with metal rings.

As I trudged through the forest, I suddenly came to a clearing. As I entered, I triggered a trap and a metal hook flew out of nowhere and latched firmly onto one of the metal rings on my back. Then a second metal hook flew in from the front and latched onto another ring. I was instantly yanked into the air, dangling and swaying. Two creatures appeared, looking extremely excited. I can’t remember what they looked like, but I remember that one of them was holding a thin, curved blade. It pulled open my vest and plunged the blade straight into my heart. The pain in the dream was so intense that I could still feel it after I woke up.

I didn’t understand the meaning of the dream, and wondered why I hadn’t simply unhooked myself and run away, which would have been relatively easy. I got on with my day and put the dream out of my mind. My parents took me out to eat, to enjoy a rare moment of leisure. We sat outside and ordered food. My parents began talking to me, sharing their advice and insights from their cultivation.

After we finished eating, they just kept on talking. It was stifling hot outside and I noticed small insects buzzing around me. I felt incredibly uncomfortable—hot and itchy—and I desperately wanted to go home. However, my mother hadn’t finished her drink yet, so she asked me to wait a little longer. Eventually, I couldn’t stand the discomfort anymore. Without asking, I picked up her glass and finished her drink, hoping it meant we’d leave sooner.

My parents were shocked. I realized I’d done something wrong. I immediately apologized and asked if my mother wanted to order another drink. But my parents weren’t concerned about the drink—they were concerned about me. On the way home, they asked why I couldn’t endure hardship. Finishing off my mother’s drink just to escape the bugs and heat was incredibly immature and rude. There had been similar instances in the past where I had caused trouble simply because I didn’t want to endure discomfort. At first, I just regarded what I’d done as something I needed to pay a bit more attention to.

I couldn’t sleep at all that night. I was still shaken by the nightmare from the previous night and I was afraid to drift off. I began thinking about the meaning of that dream. Suddenly, my thoughts turned to the incident with my parents and the question they asked me, “Why can’t you endure hardship?” I realized there was a recurring pattern in my life: whenever things got difficult, I slacked off; whenever trouble arose, I tried to find a way to escape; when others judged me, I often went to extremes to prove myself; and whenever I saw that others were better or more capable than me, I would desperately try to reach their level just to escape my own problems. Although on the surface it appeared as if I was striving to do the right thing, my heart was not truly aligned with the Fa.

I couldn’t quite figure out why I kept falling into these contradictory patterns, slacking off when things got hard, doing the “right thing” merely to avoid trouble, going to extremes, and so on, but I knew the root cause was the same: selfishness. I also realized that simply labeling the problem as “selfishness” was too vague, so I began to dig deeper. Even though I understood the Fa, why was I still so selfish? I couldn’t answer that myself.

I couldn’t sleep with all these unresolved questions, so I decided to study the Fa with a sincere heart, hoping to uncover the root cause and eliminate this attachment. I opened Zhuan Falun to a random page and happened upon Lecture Four, “Transformation of Karma”. The following two paragraphs truly helped me resolve the knot in my heart. Master said:

“A person with a lot of the black substance will usually have to sacrifice more than a person with a lot of the white substance. Because the white substance assimilates directly to the characteristic of the universe, Zhen-Shan-Ren, as long as a person improves his xinxing and improves himself in conflicts, his gong will increase. It is that simple. A person with a lot of de has good enlightenment quality. He can also endure hardships—“working the body, tempering the will.” Even if he suffers more physically and less mentally, his gong still increases. This is not the case for someone with a lot of the black substance, as he must first go through this process: He must first transform the black substance into the white substance. This process is also extremely painful. Therefore, a person with poor enlightenment quality usually must suffer more tribulations. With a lot of karma and poor enlightenment quality, it becomes more difficult for this person to cultivate.

Take a specific case, for example. Let us see how this person cultivates. Sitting in meditation requires crossing the legs for a long period of time. The legs will be in pain and feel numb after they are crossed. As time passes by, one will begin to feel quite uncomfortable and then become rather restless. As “working the body, tempering the will” goes, one will feel both physically and mentally uncomfortable. Some people are afraid of the pain from sitting with the legs crossed, so they uncross their legs and don’t want to continue. Some people cannot bear it anymore after sitting a little longer. Once they take the legs down, their practice is in vain. For some people, once they feel the pain from crossing their legs, they will move their legs about—and after moving them about, they cross them again. We have found that this serves no use whatsoever. This is because we have seen that when their legs are in pain, the black substance is attacking their legs. The black substance is karma and can be eliminated through suffering; it can then be transformed into de. Once the pain is felt, karma begins to be eliminated. The more karma that comes, the more pain one’s legs will feel. Therefore, the pain in the legs does not arise without a reason. Usually, while sitting in meditation one’s legs feel the pain intermittently. After a moment of very uncomfortable pain, it passes, and one’s legs will gradually gain relief. Soon the pain starts all over again. It usually happens this way.” (Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun)

I realized that the issue lay not so much in my understanding of the Fa, but in whether I was truly using the Fa to examine my xinxing and transform myself. Whenever I encountered even a little hardship, I would cast the Fa aside. I failed to choose the path of a genuine cultivator and instead clung to the desire for comfort, seeking to avoid trouble and make things easier for myself. Whenever temptation arose, I wouldn’t even think of the Fa; instead, I would indulge in the pursuit of pleasure and ease, much like in my dream where I failed to remove a metal ring that could have been taken off quite easily. This pattern persisted for so long that it became a deeply ingrained, almost imperceptible bad habit.

This realization struck me deeply. It felt as though a yoke that had weighed me down for years had finally been lifted.

Choosing between living as an ordinary person and steadfastly cultivating myself in Dafa is no easy task. Yet, when I consider that I have this unprecedented opportunity to cultivate, assist Master in the Fa-rectification, save sentient beings, and participate in this magnificent, sweeping tide of Fa-rectification, I realize what a glorious and precious thing this is! No matter what tribulations or hardships lie ahead, I am determined to be a true Dafa practitioner and walk my cultivation path well.

Thank you, Master! Thank you, everyone!

(Presentedatthe2026FloridaFalunDafaCultivationExperienceSharingConferenceintheUnitedStates)