PureInsight | November 17, 2008
[PureInsight.org] I have been cultivating in Dafa for ten years now. I have grown from being a young kid to becoming a practitioner with firm belief in Dafa. The ways in which Master has taken care of me are beyond description. All along, I have constantly felt Master’s care from the microscopic dimensions. I can always feel Master is relieved when I pass a test well; I can also feel Master becomes sad when I don’t regard myself as a Dafa practitioner. I had a dream right after I obtained the Fa. A Buddha with boundless radiance was onstage teaching the Fa. There were also countless sentient beings under the stage, many of whom were very ugly and hurling insults at the Buddha. Then a person near the Buddha asked the Buddha to save him. The Buddha nodded with a smile.
I recalled this dream later when I was overseas and ordinary people were hurling insults at us. I know Dafa’s rectification of the whole universe is not about seeking rewards from ordinary people. Everything in this world of illusion is being judged: those who have positive attitudes towards Dafa will have boundlessly good fortune, while those who have negative thoughts towards Dafa will fall into a bottomless abyss. I was saved from Hell and washed clean by Master. I took on the great responsibility of assisting Master to rectify the Fa, an opportunity envied by all Divine Beings in the universe. However, living in this delusion, sometimes I don’t cherish this magnificent opportunity and value my time.
I can still remember how, when I was practicing in Mainland China, under the huge pressure of the persecution of Falun Gong, I often couldn’t help crying. I was struggling to maintain myself as a cultivator. How I wished to be able to practice Falun Dafa freely! I was in that state for a long time: my ears were full of stories about how evil policemen persecuted Dafa practitioners, and I was fighting with the attachment of fear every single minute. Finally, one day, I was able to let go of the attachment, and at that moment, I felt that my body was weightless. Then I understood that the reason why I had been stuck in that state for so long was that I hadn’t fully believed Master and Dafa. It is very dangerous for a cultivator to not fully believe. As a child, I was able to sense living beings in other dimensions, and I fully believed in the existence of other dimensions. I could often see the magnificence of those dimensions with my Third Eye or in a half-asleep state. But now I realized that all that I saw as a child couldn’t compare to my firm belief in the Fa. True firm belief doesn’t require seeing those things. True belief is rising to a rational understanding of the Fa.
After I moved abroad, due to the language barrier, it was very hard for me to find a job. My determination to live abroad was shaken several times. Unlike in Mainland China, in my new country, there were always many Dafa projects to attend to; they almost appeared trite and insignificant in comparison. Dafa practitioners are all volunteers without pay. They need to endure misunderstandings from their family members and sarcastic remarks from ordinary people. Dafa practitioners need to cultivate their minds to be as solid as diamond by seeing through things that human eyes regard as “real.” They need to give up the pleasures of ordinary people; they need to understand their historic missions. However, very often when I was busy, cultivation melted into everyday life and I forgot about cultivation. I felt like I was trapped in a cocoon. When I was in China, I sent forth righteous thoughts constantly and recited Zhuan Falun every day. But after coming overseas, my diligent state disappeared, like land sinking into the sea. Everything was concealed by a mundane and materialistic surface. Here, I realized how difficult it is to cultivate in the secular world. Here, I was close to Master. Master’s appearance is not different from ours, but I was excited and moved. Yet, although I was close to Master, I knew the distance between us was actually too far. The “illusion” is what we have to break through. Master has given us a priceless treasure, but we often forget to appreciate it, and we jump into the dung and dirt of the secular world.
When Divine Performing Arts came to our city, I was helping backstage. Those young performers were so busy. Everyone must have had his/her own wonderful cultivation story because everyone had broken through various obstacles before and after becoming a member of Divine Performing Arts. I heard some of their stories: some had given up scholarships at top schools; some had overcome severe interference from their families; some had broken through ordinary people’s concepts regarding whether they could dance at their age. They all passed the trial of life and death. When one performer shared her experience, she said, “The first sentence of ‘Lunyu’ in Zhuan Falun is, ‘The Buddha Fa is most profound.’ So how can ordinary people’s college degrees or achievements compare to the Buddha Fa?” I was very shocked to hear this. Maybe she didn’t realize it, but what she said was already at a very high level. That’s why those performers could manifest such pure compassion and pure beauty. It is infinitely glorious to assist Master in rectifying the Fa in the human world. Their blessings in the future will be countless. Actually, the same thing applies to all practitioners. Master has given the best to each and every one of us. Those practitioners who can see Master more often don’t get any special treatment from Master. Every practitioner has to cultivate their xinxing solidly. Only when we improve ourselves, level by level, do we get closer to Master.
I realize that the Fa we study every day is a ladder to heaven. Master has already pointed us in the right direction, but it is up to each individual to cultivate on his own path. Just like the subordinate soul mentioned in Zhuan Falun who has to wander around in society for some time, we have to walk our cultivation paths ourselves. The attachments are the bad things stuck to us in other dimensions. We need to look inside and clean ourselves through following the Fa, otherwise the attachments will become bigger and bigger and it will become harder and harder to remove them.
Now is the final stage of the final stage. We Dafa practitioners need to help each other, break through the illusions in this dimension, and meet Master’s requirements. Only then can we save more sentient beings.
Please kindly point it out if any part of my understanding is not in line with the Fa.
Translated from: http://zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2008/10/11/55313.html
