Cultivate Every Thought

[PureInsight.org] Dear Master! Dear fellow practitioners!

Despite a busy everyday life, I’ve passed my twelfth year of Dafa cultivation. When I look back over my cultivation path, I’ve found that every single thing in my life was part of my xinxing cultivation. Every thought of mine has been a choice between being a human or being a God.

1. Cultivation and Improvement in Being a Mother

As a mother of four children, I have many good cultivation experiences. I feel deeply that my kids are my best fellow practitioners. They help me expose my hidden attachments. Meanwhile, they reflect my human thoughts and impurities in comparison to their purity.

Every time when someone says that they feel thirsty, my three-year old son will stop playing, quickly open the fridge and get a drink. Sometimes he spills the drink because he is in too much of a hurry. If I was in the middle of doing housework, I would sometimes chastise him without a thought. Then he would look at me with his innocent, nervous, but curious eyes that made me recognize my rude behavior. He is actually very enthusiastic and the most helpful person in my family. If I calm down and think of his selfless behavior and compassion, I get embarrassed. Despite being a practitioner, I often ignore the virtues of my child because I’m busy with housework and see his enthusiasm as making a mess. I often don’t know how to appreciate the child's selflessness and warmth. This made me realize that I made the same mistake during Fa rectification work. I always think of the result too much and forget to appreciate the virtues of each practitioner who wants to cultivate and displays a heart of gold.

Let me now talk about my joining the media project. I’m one of the veteran practitioners who has been part of the media endeavor from the beginning. After two years, I saw myself as a specialist with a lot of experience. I began to pick on others’ news reports. I unconsciously hurt other practitioners with my comments that were laced with various human notions. I couldn’t see in others the wish to improve. It’s my son who let me see the harm to Fa rectification work because I didn’t take working as cultivation.

Many times, when I was in a hurry to go out, my second son helped his younger brother to slowly put away his toys, without caring about my yelling or scolding. Although this happened over and over again, my son continued at his slow speed. I felt provoked and blamed him and scolded him using bad words. But, my son never resents me, always smiles and says, “I love my mom the most.” At first, I thought it was his character, because he is the quietest among my four children. He is also the most honest, most ordinary and the least smart one. During conflicts among the brothers, he is always the most tolerant and never takes revenge.

Then one day, I found that I had lost virtue when dealing with my second child. I felt guilty about what I had said and my behavior. I realized that it’s been his gentle and tolerant character that has smoothed the relationships between my children, which has helped me a lot. Instead, I criticized him from a materialistic standpoint. I worried about his not being as smart as his elder brother. But actually, a sentient being with higher xinxing is much closer to the truthfulness, benevolence, tolerance character standard of the universe. Isn’t he reflecting my lack of compassion and tolerance by his behavior? Isn’t he helping me improve myself?

The same thing happened during my Fa rectification work when trying to save sentient beings. I often evaluated and co-operated based on people’s ability in the human world. I didn’t look within and made the excuse of being busy on tasks assigned by Master. Actually, every single Dafa disciple has an important role in the Fa rectification. We cannot judge them by their worldly abilities, their age or based on their technological skill. But I am still not quite clear about this principle and am bouncing back and forth. Most of the time I could not behave like my second son. I was not able to smooth the relationships during conflicts with practitioners because of my own attachments.

For quite a while, my eldest son spoke some rebellious words and displayed rebellious behavior. This appeared to be the behavior of an adolescent. He always threatened that he would not study the Fa any longer. I became worried and gave him more attention. I felt that he no longer was so good hearted and obedient as when he was younger, and he didn’t like helping me anymore. As our conflicts increased, I developed a really bad headache and began to study the Fa intensively. I eventually looked at myself from the perspective of my son. I found that I really had a problem criticizing him daily, chastising him for his impatience, selfishness, high-handed behavior, which actually were reinforced by all of my shortcomings. It was I who brought so many problems to such an innocent child! He used to help me a lot by taking care of his brothers, but I never thought to thank him. I never appreciated or learned from his inborn virtue. Wasn’t that a special way Master used to remind me? When I apologized to him from the bottom of my heart and tried to change my behavior, my eldest son no longer rebelled and he treated his cultivation seriously again.

As a coordinator, I have similar problems. When I got attached to my tasks, I would forget what other practitioners had done and how much they suffered. Thus, I didn’t know how to cherish, appreciate and thank others. Isn’t that a bad old cosmic factor that separates us and prevents us from being upright? If I couldn’t realize this and continued to deny this, how could I be part of the one body with all practitioners?

Three of my sons were born after I began to cultivate in Dafa. I trained them to go to the restroom the day after they were born. My husband, who is not a practitioner, laughed at me and said that it was impossible to train a 2-day-old baby. Shortly after he said this, my infants showed that they knew how to cooperate in this respect. They were very neat and never let poop or pee dirty their bodies. And they could always make me understand what they wanted. What’s more, the infants seemed to know my time for saving sentient beings is limited. They automatically stopped or refused my breast milk when they were between seven and eight months old. Thus, I could go out more often. I realized that Master was reminding me all the time: As a practitioner, I must be modest.

Compared to Dafa, my thoughts of human opinion are all shallow and wrong. If I could be as pure as an infant, I would also have supernormal abilities, be enlightened and do everything efficiently.

2. Cultivation While Collecting Speeches for our Experience Sharing Conferences

I have collected speech drafts for Experience Sharing Conferences for many years. We cancelled our Canadian Experience Sharing Conference last year for many reasons. Though we lost our deposit, many disciples were still relaxed and said that we were too busy and they did not mind that we canceled the conference. We don’t have to worry about this issue now! I myself was there, but didn’t feel anything wrong.

This year, we found that many cultivation problems had become more prominent. Many projects faced great difficulties. When looking within, we realized that the difficulties were due to our lack of integrity. We should find the root cause and see the truth clearly. We found that cultivation communication among practitioners had become working communication. Our Fa study groups grew smaller or some disappeared. Exercise spots were scattered all about. When we talked about the Experience Sharing Conference, practitioners seemed uninterested. Even only a couple of days before the Canadian Experience Sharing Conference, despite much information and communication from the Fo Xue Hui and volunteers calling for speech drafts from every practitioner, there was hardly any response.

Master said that we should look within when encountering any problems. As a member of the task force, a person responsible for collecting drafts, I should look within more than others. When I looked inside, I was astonished to find a loophole as large as my own cosmos and all kinds of wrongful behavior.

I still remember the first few years of my cultivation. I was so diligent at that time. It was difficult to put down Dafa books. And I did the exercises in the park all-year-round. When it was time for the Experience Sharing Conference, I would write an article and it did not matter if they were going to use it. Difficulties never stopped me. Then, I don’t remember when I stopped studying the Fa and doing the exercises diligently. The Experience Sharing Conference just became one of my projects and made me busier than usual.

Although I took part in many Fa rectification projects, this cannot be an excuse for not cultivating in the form Master arranged for us. I finally understood that I was no longer diligent and I needed to make a breakthrough. But how? Where did the problem come from?

I remembered that when I first started cultivating in Dafa, veteran disciples told me that Master would recommend that practitioners in China read the cultivation story about Buddha Milarepa. I would follow whatever Master said and found this story immediately. I finished reading with tears running down my face. My will of being diligent became extremely firm. I decided in my heart: “I want to be as intelligent as Buddha Milarepa, not afraid of suffering, and cultivate into a Buddha in this life.”

The story of Buddha Milarepa has faded from my memory. I followed Master all the way in his Fa rectification and built up some virtue. Because I live among ordinary people, some subconscious but terrible human thoughts took hold in my mind. I dared to bargain with Master in my mind and no longer took cultivation as such a sacred and solemn thing. This is just like a spoiled child beginning to negotiate with its parents. I also helped Master in the Fa rectification. My work is hard and difficult. I told myself that it’s forgivable if I could not reach Master’s requirement sometimes. Because these thoughts were deep in my mind, it was difficult to expose them. So they became big obstacles to my being diligent in my cultivation.

After recognizing these shortcomings, I began to treat myself as a new practitioner. I put away all the so called “credits” and read the story of Buddha Milarepa again. It felt so different reading the story again ten years later. Before, I just saw a good cultivation example, but now I saw the insufficiencies inside me. For instance, Buddha Milarepa’s master wanted him to succeed, so he forced him to build houses around the hills. The houses were built and destroyed again and again. Milarepa was wounded by the stones. The scene was one full of misery. His master still criticized and beat him sometimes. Though Milarepa thought of a shortcut and met with failure, he listened to his master’s words all the time. That’s why his master called Milarepa the best disciple he ever had and taught him all those cultivation truths.

In comparison, I seemed to be paying a lot during all the projects and suffering a lot. But I understood now that all those things are arranged by Master for my cultivation, just like Milarepa building the houses. How could I feel proud because of the credits I accumulated?

Master wants us to achieve a higher level of fruition. So what we do will not be as simple as building houses. We have to publish newspapers, build up a TV station and set up shows. Master doesn’t care about the results of those projects, just like Milarepa’s master didn’t care if he built the houses or not. Our Master wants to see our disciples’ hearts: Do they truly believe in Master, are they respectful to Master, are they true disciples and are they diligent? If one test is not enough, there will be a second, third, fourth and fifth.

Because we fell into the maze, we forgot all this. We built attachments to how big our house would be, how wonderful it would look, how many stones we moved and how much effort we put in. We began to feel that we built houses well for Master, and we put in a lot of effort, and that Master must treat us well and mercifully, that he will definitely make us a Buddha. Those are terrible human thoughts. We are not listening to what Master says and even bargain with him.

Cultivation when preparing for an Experience Sharing Conference is a form of Dafa cultivation arranged by Master since the beginning of his Dafa teaching. Before the suppression by the Chinese Communist regime, if there was an Experience Sharing Conference and drafts were required from every practitioner, who would not have written an article? Everyone paid great attention and wrote an article because that is the way arranged for every practitioner. The evil tested us in a devastating way. They first attacked the cultivation form taught by Master. The environment for group study and group exercises inside Mainland China was damaged.

Now, the Minghui Website is trying to overcome those difficulties and has opened an online Experience Sharing Conference for practitioners in China. There are tens of thousands of Experience Sharing articles breaking through the Chinese Regime’s Internet blockade. Practitioners inside China are also trying their best with their righteous thoughts and actions to build up an environment for group study and group exercise. We disciples abroad cannot use the excuse of being busy in working for projects and thus accept the persecution from the old cosmos. We have to adhere to everything Master arranged and requires of us.

In fact, I experience a lot of cultivation even during a simple task like writing sharing articles. Every time I write an article for an Experience Sharing Conference or any other sharing, it exposes my human thoughts. When I am happy while writing, I find the mentality of showing off and the attachment of zealotry. When I am reluctant to write, I find the attachment to being afraid of losing face, as well as the superior feeling of veteran practitioner. If my article is not chosen, there would be attachments of arguing and jealousy. If the article is chosen, I would become arrogant. It is just as Master said in Lunyu, “If human beings are able to take a fresh look at themselves as well as the universe and change their rigid mentalities, humankind will make a leap forward” (Zhuan Falun). In the course of exposing my attachments, I realized that I am still cultivating myself. I also feel that Master is helping me get rid of those dirty thoughts and other impure matter. I can see the Fa at different levels displayed by Master.

From now on, I dare not slack off again. I have decided to treat myself as a new disciple and try seriously to finish everything required by Master. I will persist onward and reach the ultimate standard for disciples of the Fa rectification period. I will not let down Master’s merciful salvation.

Thank you for letting me share with you. Please kindly point out anything inappropriate.

Thank you, Master! Thank you, my fellow practitioners!