PureInsight | October 31, 2009
[PureInsight.org] I have been abroad for one and a half years. Looking back at this period, I made progress on cultivation in some areas, while I didn’t do well in some other areas. I went abroad at the end of 2007 soon after Master’s lecture “Fa Teaching at the U.S. Capital” was published. In the lecture, there is a paragraph directly related to the Dafa disciples from China who go abroad. I read it again and again and I felt heavy in my heart. I realized that cultivation abroad wouldn’t be easy or relaxed. I needed to be stricter with myself, catch up with other Dafa disciples, spend more time with disciples, and throw away the evil Party culture. I wouldn’t be allowed to have a long time to change slowly.
The initial test was from my family. My husband felt too humiliated to do a job with physical labor, so I did the job instead. In the end, my husband did nothing but complain all the time, and always in offensive language. At the beginning, I didn’t maintain my xinxing. I felt wronged. Later, I realized that my dilemma was actually helping me to improve my xinxing. After I started to cultivate myself in my family life, there were fewer family quarrels.
In terms of looking inside, I have always remembered one incident. One day a fellow practitioner who had been living abroad for many years complained that she was too busy to study the Fa. She coordinated several activities and she was also in charge of some projects. Indeed she was very busy. But I said, “No matter how busy you are, you need to study the Fa well.” She replied, “I want to study the Fa too, but it is so urgent to save people. It wouldn’t work if no one does it.” So the result was that I urged her to study the Fa well while she urged me to come out to do some Dafa projects. We parted in discord. After she left, I talked to another practitioner eloquently to emphasize that I was right. This practitioner, who was quiet all the time, scolded me bluntly. I was speechless. I felt so bad that when we read the Fa together, I didn’t know what I was reading. After I went back home, I still felt awfully bad and kept thinking to myself: “There’s nothing wrong with studying the Fa well; there’s nothing wrong with me urging her to study the Fa. Then why couldn’t she accept my advice?” Master said, “For a cultivator, all the frustrations he comes across among everyday people are trials…” (Essentials for Further Advancement). I knew I must have done something wrong. So I looked inside. First of all, I realized that the talk I had with that practitioner fell into the category of an ordinary person’s argument; I didn’t have a heart of compassion. When I looked inside further and went over the practitioner’s words in my mind, I realized that I had been abroad for almost one year, but I was busy everyday with housework and my job. I planned to call Chinese people to clarify the truth but I never did it. I didn’t come out to group activities very often to clarify the truth either. How many people did I save so far? When I thought of this, I felt deeply ashamed. It was Master who had given a hint to me using my fellow practitioner’s words.
That night I practiced the fifth exercise and I sat in meditation for one and a half hours. When I was in China, I could occasionally meditate for that long. But I hadn’t done that for a long time. That night I did. I knew it was because I had looked inside. Ever since then, whenever I have felt bad, I knew I must have some xinxing problem. When I looked inside, Master always hinted to me where I was wrong. Very soon afterwards, I felt happy and relaxed. I also found that almost every time when I looked inside, I figured out my attachment and was determined to discard it. I was always rewarded by being able to meditate longer, or having someone praise me, or by Shen Yun tickets being sold well, etc. Although these things looked unrelated, I knew it was Master encouraging me.
When my xinxing dropped, it would be reflected in ordinary life very soon. For several days, I missed my daughter so much that I called my husband asking him to take our daughter to my place. I could even feel my attachment was very strong while I talked on the phone, but I still insisted on seeing my daughter. It was like I knew it was an attachment but I didn’t want to let it go. My husband was very angry. The next day I tripped and fell. This was the first time I fell after I went abroad. Similar things happened a lot, which made me realize that the closer to the end, the more serious cultivation is. The cultivation path that Dafa disciples can walk on is actually very narrow. It is not okay if one drifts away only a little bit because everything has to be measured by Dafa. Our cultivation is getting closer and closer to breaking though the surface, and when it reflects on the level of the human world, our every single thought and idea, every single word and action become pure and glorious just like the divine beings.
We had six Shen Yun shows in our city. I went to watch the third show. I was so happy that I totally forgot that we still needed to sell tickets for the last three days. After I got home, I went to bed and had a dream. In the dream, I took the bus to go home. After I got off the bus, I found that the bus station was still far away from my home. Apparently, I got off the bus too early. It was too far for me to walk home. However, since it was so late, there wasn’t another bus. I became so worried that I woke up. I realized that Master had hinted to me that I hadn’t finished my work. Thus, when I later heard that practitioners were needed to help with Shen Yun performances in three other cities in the middle of the state, I joined immediately. That trip was rewarding. Everything that happened to me during that time was a test. I found many hidden attachments. A striking example was that the Shen Yun ticket sales went up and down—one day it went well but the other day it didn’t. How could that be? I recollected my every single thought and idea carefully. As a result, I found many bad human thoughts, an attachment to fighting, jealousy and the mentality of showing off. How could the Fa manifest its mighty power when I displayed so many attachments? Just like Master spoke of in “Fa Teaching Given to the Australian Practitioners”: “There is an issue that not only Australian practitioners have but also practitioners in other areas have, which is when practitioners validate Dafa they validate themselves, and assert themselves. Although they may not do it on purpose, their attachments show that they validate themselves.” [Note: This is an unofficial translation due to the fact that this lecture has not been published in the written form.]
In the past, I wasn’t clear about “validating Fa” or “validating self.” Recently, I had some enlightenment about “validating Fa,” so it became clearer to me. I enlightened that we need to assimilate to the Fa, act righteously according to Dafa’s requirements, and only then can the mighty power of Fa be manifested. So, good results manifest not because I have great capabilities, but it is because I do things by following Dafa’s requirements that the mighty power of Dafa manifests and the results are good. I reminded myself that no matter how successful I am in the human world, it is not due to my capabilities; it is the mighty power of Dafa that manifests in me. If any bad things happen, that is not the true me. Instead, it is the portion of me that hasn’t been assimilated to the Fa, the black karma, and the filthy human notions that play their part. I can only assimilate to the Fa as soon as I can, walk righteously on the path that Master arranges for me, cultivate diligently, and reach consummation soon. To end this article, let me encourage everyone with Master’s poem:
Cultivating gong has a path
mind is the way
On the boundless sea of Dafa
hardship is your ferry
(Hong Yin)
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2009/5/30/59814.html
