PureInsight | February 6, 2006
[PureInsight.org] On January 19, 2006, I finished memorizing all of Zhuan Falun for the first time. It took me about 74 days all together and I would like to write down my experience to share with fellow practitioners.
I obtained Dafa in 1997. In the past, my way of studying the Fa was reading it continuously from the beginning to the end. I read it about 412 times from 2000 till now. Very early on, I heard that some practitioners had memorized Zhuan Falun and I admired them very much. I also thought about doing it myself from deep in my heart. But when I thought about how thick Zhuan Falun is, I gave up the idea. So my initial desire of memorizing the Fa was buried by my attachment of fearing to endure hardships. From then on to the end of 2005, I had multiple dreams of myself attending a test. I sometimes passed the test and sometimes failed. I thought about how to break through my situation many times. During this period of time, I read many articles in Minghui.org/Clearwisdom.net about the experiences of many practitioners memorizing the Fa. I was strongly touched. I felt that memorizing Fa was the best way for me to be more diligent, and it was time for me to memorize Fa.
On November 6, 2005, I started memorizing Zhuan Falun for the first time. But it didn't last too long before I gave it up. The reason is that it was too painful and I was on the same page for a whole day without making much progress. A paragraph that normally I can read smoothly became so difficult when I wanted to memorize it. I either lost words or made up new words and made mistakes repeatedly. I needed to correct myself again and again. I ran out of patience from the repetition. Now when I think of it, that was probably a test of my determination. But at that time, I thought that all the time I spent trying to memorize a paragraph of Fa probably was sufficient for me to read several chapters of the book. So I found an excuse for myself in the face of hardship and told myself to go back to reading the Fa. But once I went back to reading the Fa, I didn't feel that I wanted to completely give up on my effort to memorize the Fa. On November 16, I began to memorize the Fa again but once again gave up and went back to reading the Fa.
"Question: Time is limited. While I want to read the book straight through, I also want to memorize the book. But then I feel that memorizing the book will affect my reading of the book. How can I balance the two?"
"Teacher: Reading the book cover to cover contributes tremendously to your improvement. If you want to memorize the book, you have to spend some effort to memorize it for a period of time. It will spare you later on from having to read with the book in hand. But you'll have to set aside some time to concentrate on memorizing it. Otherwise, if you want to read it through, then you want to memorize, and then you go back to wanting to read it through, then thinking like that all the time will keep you stuck like that. Memorizing the book won't affect your reading the book through, nor will it hinder your advancement due to a lack of reading it through. That's because when you memorize the book, behind every word there are infinite Buddhas, Daos, and Gods, and every word can allow you to understand principles at different levels." (From "Falun Buddha Fa: Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Europe")
"Teacher said, 'I'm just giving you the idea." They said: 'Why don't we memorize something that's this good? It requires us to be good people at every moment among everyday people and it enables us to improve, wouldn't it be better if we could memorize it? Then we'll have something we can measure ourselves against at every moment.' That's how they started a 'book-memorizing upsurge.'" (From "Suggestions Given at the Beijing Falun Dafa Assistants Meeting" in Explaining the Content of Falun Dafa.)
I was greatly encouraged to memorize Fa after I read those words from Teacher's Fa. It was the motivation for me to restart and finish memorizing Fa after I gave it up for the second time.
On December 8, I began to memorize Fa and continued until I finished the entire book. During that period of time, I read timely experience sharing articles from other disciples who had been memorizing the Fa. I am grateful to fellow practitioners who published their experiences on Minghui net. In the process of memorizing the Fa, I felt many times that a hot stream energy came down from the top of my head. Many principles that I am supposed to understand actually were manifested to me. After I finished memorizing the whole book of Zhuan Falun, I clearly felt changes in my body. I no longer need to sleep as many hours and my energy level is very good. In the past, I wouldn't feel rested until I slept for at least 8 hours at night. Now I feel rested with only 5-6 hours of sleep every night. Thus, I have much more time to do the Three Things well.
The biggest interference I experienced while trying to memorize the Fa was sleepiness. Now that I think back on it, I feel two factors contributed to my problems and there are ways to resolve them.
1. Factors from myself. I need to strengthen my righteous thoughts and eliminate interferences. When I didn't take the difficulty so seriously but rather thought of it as a minor problem, I could easily pass it. Each day when I tried to memorize the Fa, it was always the most difficult at the beginning. I would try to quickly memorize the first sentence of the Fa that I was supposed to memorize that day and let myself reach harmony with the Fa. Everything else would be taken care of automatically.
2. Factors from environment. Because it is winter season, the temperature inside the house is usually set at 27 °C (80.6 oF). When I tried to memorize the Fa, I lowered the temperature to 20°C (68 oF). When I felt cold, my sleepiness disappeared.
My way of memorizing the Fa and my experience are as follows:
1. Memorize one short paragraph at a time. For a long paragraph, break it into several parts according to the meaning and then memorize them separately.
2. Don't go back after you memorize each small section and move forward.
Just like when one reads through the Fa, one can't read very long without pauses. One always has to make pauses, and the pauses are made according to meanings of the sentences. Just like what I did when I read the Fa through, I memorized the same thing again and again.
3. After I memorized one paragraph, I would recite it again 3 to 5 times. When I recited it the final time, I looked at book and checked the accuracy of my memorization while I recited the content.
4. Set goals. When I decided to memorize the book, I planned to finish it before New Year's Eve. If you plan to finish it in 83 days, you have to do 4 pages per day. So you can make a schedule table and record the progress everyday. With such a record, you can do a comparison every week and look for areas where improvements are required. You can divide the big goals into many small goals. When every day's objective is firmly accomplished, the final goal will be achieved naturally. I remembered that a famous marathoner said, "I never think about how far away my final destination is. I only think about my immediate target and try to reach it. Once I reach it, I start to aim for my next target and move forward."
5. I try to hold both of my hands at Heshi position while I memorize Fa. I want to show my respect to the Fa, which I believe helps me to memorize it better. Of course I only did it when circumstances allowed for it.
6. Don't give up easily. Even if you have given up 100 times, you should still persist for the 101st time.
Teacher said, "If you can actually do it, you will indeed find: 'After passing the shady willow trees, there will be bright flowers and another village ahead!'" (From "People with Great Inborn Quality" in Lecture Nine of Zhuan Falun.)
Don't look up to see how far away you are from the end of the book and don't think about how much difficulty you will need to endure. When you firmly make more progress everyday, will you goal still be too far away?
I haven't done enough and I am continuing to memorize more Fa. I know some disciples can recite Zhuan Falun without saying one word wrong. I hope that I can do this as well.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2006/1/21/35402.html
