PureInsight | October 17, 2011
[PureInsight.org] Master taught us five sets of exercises, “The Great Consummation Way.” Although we consider ourselves practitioners who meet the requirements, are we still practitioners if we slack off in doing the exercises? In my understanding, one cannot reach consummation if he or she is unable to keep up with the exercises. This is because if a practitioner does not exercise as required, one’s body cannot be transformed into high-energy substance. It may take hundreds or thousands of years for one to obtain a human body. Shouldn’t we cherish it? What if others reach consummation with their physical bodies transformed, while we cannot due to our slacking off in doing the exercises? We are cultivating in the maze and we have to cultivate following Master’s arrangements unconditionally. Counting on luck, or finding excuses for not doing the exercises, will lead us down an evil path.
I did not pay attention to doing the exercises in the past. I knew it was not right, but my laziness and attachment to comfort stopped me from doing the exercises more. This laid back attitude gave the old forces an excuse to take advantage of me and I often had symptoms of illness karma.
Since I began practicing10 years or so ago, I have not needed medicine. Whenever I had illness karma, I first looked inward to examine myself, and then spent more time studying the Fa and strengthening my righteous thoughts. Over the last few years, however, the illness tribulations lasted longer and longer. It would continue for one or two weeks and the symptoms were always the same: runny nose, sore throat, coughing, and fever. The fever was as high as 39 ºC (102.2 ºF). Although I was uncomfortable, it usually lasted only two or three days. A bigger nuisance was the coughing, often followed by a sore throat. One time, the illness karma lasted two weeks and I coughed the whole night and developed chest pain. When looking inward, I realized the time I spent exercising was inadequate. However, I still did not take it seriously until I repeatedly suffered sickness karma; I finally enlightened and decided to catch up. When reading experience-sharing stories in the past, I found a number of examples where practitioners had endured illness karma and kept doing the exercises in spite of pain.
So, after enduring sickness for a long time, I decided to do the exercises. With that thought, Master helped me. One night, I had a fever, accompanied by a sore throat because of a hacking cough. I did the exercises for one hour and felt more energetic. My family also saw the improvement. That evening, I did the sitting meditation and continued like this for a few days. The illness symptoms disappeared and I deeply felt the benefits of the exercises.
In the past, some practitioners would remind me to do the exercises, but I had no perseverance thinking I could always catch up later. This led to a vicious cycle of me doing the exercises less and less frequently. I knew some practitioners exercised every day and some even joined group exercises twice daily. By contrast, I always found excuses not to exercise, even thinking I was too tired.
Without righteous thoughts, I tend to think with human notions. But, doing so was actually deceiving others and at the same time, deceiving myself. In ancient times, cultivators were able to keep up doing the exercises, regardless whether there were hot summers or freezing winters. How can we Dafa disciples do so poorly? In “Lecture at the First Conference in North America,” Master said, “Have you ever thought of the fact that practicing cultivation is the best form of rest? You can obtain the kind of rest that can’t be obtained through sleeping.”
We know that in each particle of our body, there is a countless number of sentient beings. They are counting on me, since I can help them assimilate to the Fa and thus ascend to higher levels. However, because of my attachments and laziness, I wasted lots of time and did not do the exercises as I needed to, totally ruining their hopes of a good future. I need to strengthen my righteous thoughts and do more exercises, so that these sentient beings can be saved.
In “Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference,” Master said, “The Gods of the past have a correspondence with the surface planets, and they all have a life-circulation system. The Gods make sure that the rocks don't decay, and the existence of the rocks guarantees the life of the Gods; once the rocks decay, the divine bodies will dissolve, and some Gods would then fall down. That's their relationship.” “As I see it, the Gods of the future will truly be like Gods--they won't need to correspond to the rocks on Earth anymore. And Gods of other systems won't need to correspond to rocks and matter on the surface particles in their own systems. The reason is, in the past, if Gods didn't have the lowest and largest matter to correspond to, they would lose the circulation system of matter, and their lives wouldn't be assured. There was that kind of relationship. Then have you thought about this: rocks are made of molecules, and that's to say, so are human bodies, so when you've succeeded in cultivating the most surface, material body a human has, won't you be bringing with you this fundamental assurance? Wherever you go you won't be limited by that. But you have to achieve the purity and sacredness required by that level.”
Master has rectified many shortcomings in the old cosmos. The standard of lives’ existence in the past is no longer applicable for our cultivation today. Therefore, we cannot limit ourselves with human notions, such as finding excuses for not doing the exercises. The wisdom of the old cosmos was limited and cultivators could not transcend the Three Realms no matter how hard they tried. Dafa practitioners, on the other hand, could transform their bodies into a high-energy substance by following Master’s instructions. This way, there will be corresponding particles of our bodies at each level, thus ensuring the eternal heavenly circuit of our existence. I think this the most benevolent blessing a being can receive through which we can also see the boundless compassion and wisdom of Master.
Above are my personal understandings. Please point out any place that may be inappropriate.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2011/9/4/77114.html
