PureInsight | January 23, 2002
Recently, I have been doing a Dafa project with other practitioners. The work itself is fairly important and we are operating under a tight time schedule. As I was doing the work, I focused a lot of attention on how to solve problems, for example, where to put certain information, how to deal with the delay of other practitioners' article submissions, etc. I found myself getting into a kind of everyday person's thought process.
In the past, whenever I enlightened to something, I would try to write it down in an article for PureInsight.Net. If my heart was very pure at that moment, I would be able to write the article smoothly and there was no need for me to go through a thinking process. I merely tried to make my heart tranquil, and a pure article would quickly appear in front of me. If I enlightened to something when my heart was not pure enough, but I felt the need to submit an article since I had not done so for a period of time, I had to add human thinking into the process. Although there were still some righteous thoughts in the article, I could feel its impurity.
I brought the many notions that I had acquired while doing everyday people's work into the Dafa work that I was doing. I set up a schedule, planned the work outline, and then assigned work to other practitioners. I felt frustrated when I found the progress slower than what I had expected. I thought that time is very pressing now and that we might not keep up with the Fa-rectification process. What would I do if the Fa-rectification process ended? On the surface, it seemed that I was eager to contribute to Dafa. Actually it had covered up a very heavy selfish motivation. I was afraid that I could not reach Consummation if I did not do Dafa work well. Although I did not say it out loud, I carried the selfish motivation in my heart. Because of this, I was unable to sufficiently show enough consideration for other practitioners when I talked to them. Instead, I demanded that they finish the work on time as I did. This selfishness made other practitioners feel a lot of pressure. However, I did not discover that the root cause was myself.
I did not realize my problem until a practitioner who was working with me told me one day, "I am afraid I won't be able to do my part well. If that happens, I will delay the progress of the entire project." My first thought was that it was his attachment of fear and notions that were trying to interfere with his work. But after thinking the matter over carefully, I realized that I was the actual cause of his problem. As a result of my strong attachment towards doing things, I was emitting selfish notions to everyone around me, which made other practitioners feel a lot of pressure. Although the other practitioner had not yet realized where the pressure came from, I understood the problem clearly after looking inward.
I realized that I had not been studying the Fa well lately. My time for Fa-studying was also shorter than before. I felt that it was essential to maintain good communications with other practitioners in order to do things well, thus I had spent a lot of time in discussing with other practitioners about how to deal with problems in our work. In addition, every time I ran into problems, I would just sit in front of my computer thinking until my neck became stiff. Even if nothing came to me, I would still just sit there and refused to give up. After reducing my time spent studying the Fa, my mental state, as an ordinary person would describe, became rigid. In fact sometimes there were not really any problems. I was simply impeded by my own notions. After studying the Fa with a tranquil heart, I found that Dafa dissolved all of my impure notions and attachments. Some problems looked difficult before my Fa-study. However, they were quickly resolved and easily melted away afterwards.
Master keeps telling us the importance of studying the Fa, but I find I still haven't paid enough attention to it. Sometimes when I have a very strong attachment to everyday people's things, I tend to patronize Fa-study and treat it as a duty. Although I study the Fa every day as usual, I sometimes do not really have the Fa in my heart. I even count the number of pages I have read and at the same time think about hurrying up to do some other things after finishing with the reading. I understand that it is my impure side, my unrighteous part that has not yet completed cultivation that resists assimilating to Dafa.
I think Dafa work is very important. However, after reflecting carefully, I have discovered that sometimes I don't do Dafa work in a completely pure state. Instead, my notions and attachments hold me off. For example, I like to surf the Internet to look up new developments in science and technology in the name of collecting materials for Dafa work. I have surfed a lot of everyday people's websites that contain a lot of not-so-good messages. Those websites have often stimulated my attachments and interfered with my tranquility. This has further interfered with my ability to do Dafa work well.
I thus realize the most important thing now is studying the Fa more and more and looking inward when encountering problems. Only when we melt into the Fa, can the Dafa work we do really play a key role in rectifying all unrighteousness. Only in this way can we do well what Fa-rectification disciples should do.
Translated from
http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2002/1/5/13185.html
