PureInsight | November 3, 2008
[PureInsight.org] One night, I dreamed that I was going to take an examination. I thought that it might be very difficult so I prepared for it in advance. Master Li, who had taught me, read the examination question. However, instead of listening to it whole-heartedly, I thought about how I was going to answer the question while listening. Next, Master Li told me to write down what he had read. I knew that the examination question was the answer, and that was quite simple. But I hadn’t listened to the question because I was only thinking about the answer at that time. So, I couldn’t remember clearly what he had read. I was very regretful that I hadn’t paid attention to the question. I had lost my chance.
After I woke up from my dream, I realized that Master wants us to listen and follow what he tells us, and what Master tells us is the answer to the “examination questions.” I remembered that during that day I was very resentful when I talked with my husband. Previously, I would think about what Master had taught us and try my best to discipline myself. This time, I compared myself with a fellow practitioner and thought that I always worked hard and that she did not. On top of this, my husband always talked about my shortcomings, so I compared him unfavorably with other husbands. He thought he was the best husband in the world and didn’t want to listen to me. We quarreled severely, and I didn’t treat myself as a practitioner from the beginning of the argument to the end. I felt upset because nobody appreciated me. Then that night I had this dream. When I woke up, I realized that my actions were wrong and that I hadn’t passed this test.
In this life, everyone experiences karmic retribution and/or the results from accruing virtue in previous lives. Everyone has a different situation, so how could they have the same “happiness”? Master told us in “Teaching the Fa in Canada, 2006:”
Haven't I said that when you look at things in the Three Realms, things are reversed? Many of the things that mankind considers bad are good. And many things that mankind considers good are bad. Isn't the conventional wisdom in the human world inverted? Human beings think it's a bad thing to experience hardships. But suffering hardships can reduce an ordinary person's karma and sins. When a person endures a lot of hardship during his lifetime, he will receive blessings in his next life. When someone has money or enjoys a high rank in the next life, it owes to his having done good deeds and accumulated blessings and virtue in his previous life. If a person keeps doing bad things, doesn't have even a bit of blessings or virtue left, and has accumulated much karma, then in his next life he will not only have no blessings or virtue, nor enjoy any good fortune, but he will also have to pay for all that karma. So he will be poverty-stricken his whole life and looked down upon by others. He may even think that the world is unfair to him in all sorts of ways, when in reality it's all because he is paying back the debts he accrued in his previous life. This is speaking in terms of human beings. For cultivators, then, doesn't this environment provide exactly opportunities to improve oneself? Dafa disciples all know that enduring hardship eliminates karma, and that it furthermore furnishes opportunities to improve oneself. They are able to view it correctly, and along with paying off their karma they are able to seize the opportunity and do a good job with the things they should do. Even though it's hard, those are tests that they must overcome. When you are able to think correctly on the matter, keep the difficulty in the right perspective, and make it through the right way, you will have overcome that test, your level will have been raised, your realm will have elevated, and your gong will have risen, right? Isn't this how the entire process of Fa-rectification cultivation works?
There are many tests like this that I have failed all because I didn’t remember what Master has taught and because I failed to truly cultivate myself. There are not many chances left for us to improve ourselves. The reason I have written this down is because I want to strengthen the impression of this lesson in my mind in order to do better in the future.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2008/10/4/55196.html
