PureInsight | August 13, 2001
Lately, I have been thinking how cultivators often beat themselves up when enduring a tribulation that is not that serious. I know that for myself, when an attachment is pointed out to me in my daily life, or by another practitioner, I often get very upset with myself. Another thing I noticed is that when a tribulation arrives, I go to an extreme by trying so hard to figure out the tribulation and my problem. It seems to me that this happens due to using human notions to access a problem instead of our true selves.
Master says in Expounding on the Fa: “When a tribulation arrives, if you as a disciple can truly maintain an unshakable calm, or put your mind to meeting different requirements at different levels, this should be sufficient for you to pass the test.” How can we see the truth if we are constantly beating ourselves up about trivial matters. How do we know that Master didn’t plan out a specific tribulation for us to get over this very mentality? Instead we often leave loopholes so that the evil demons can take advantage of us and then we beat ourselves up for being taken advantage of. Isn’t this a wonderful opportunity to give up this attachment? In my experience, when I am in state of an unshakable calm I know the answer to any problem right away.
Cultivators should be unmoved, tough and yet gentle and merciful. When a practitioner who has a problem in their cultivation approaches another practitioner, I seriously doubt that the practitioner who is listening, would clock him/her in the head for not being able to understand the tribulation. Most likely, they would be gentle and completely kind and try to help the other person to the best of their ability. It’s like a practitioner who tries to sit in full lotus but his legs just won’t let him do that, then he beats himself up for it. The only way for him to attain full lotus will be gradually and by the constant raising of his xinxing. Isn’t even Fa rectification a process? Didn’t Master himself say that “ This is already as fast as it gets”. How can we humanly speed up the process? How can we try to get rid of our attachments by forcing them away? Not only that but don’t we add additional tribulations when we can’t figure something out and then add our own notion due to that fact that our minds aren’t clear.
I came to a realization recently. I realized that the evil is really evil and it will definitely try to take advantage of any loophole that we leave. So when we see our own shortcoming isn’t it a great thing? Doesn’t this further kill the evil when we can act righteously, and simply not let an attachment affect us again. All we really need to bear is that brief moment of pain when we realize that we did something wrong. But we’ve realized this and that is truly great! How do we know it wasn’t planned that way? We’ve all messed things up in cultivation due to our own shortcomings, but why do we have to blow it out of proportion? Why do we pursue so much instead of taking attachments lightly? Lastly, why do we think so much instead of just reading?.
