Some Cultivation Stories

[PureInsight.org] I have encountered many experiences throughout my cultivation. I would get bogged down at times, although quite often I would come to understand what I had done wrong in the first place to get me into those difficulties. I’d like to share some of those stories here.

1. Moving into a new house

Due to a situation at work, my wife and I decided to move to a new location. However, I found it difficult to make the final decision. In the end, I said to myself: “Ok, let me just follow the course of nature.” We then went ahead and sold our existing house and purchased a new house in another location. The new house didn’t cost as much as the old one, and both my wife and I were satisfied with the new house and the new location. Just before we moved, we went to the new place to have a look. To my surprise, many troubles began to pop up at the new house.

The first thing we encountered was that the downstairs bathroom’s plumbing was blocked. As we had not yet moved into the new house, the seller of the house agreed to get the problem fixed. Later on, it was found that water was leaking out of some of the walls, and the seller again agreed to pay for the cost of repairs. We then moved into the new house. After moving in, I noticed that the downstairs toilet would make a strange noise whenever it was flushed. It took my wife and I quite some time to figure out what was wrong and eventually got the problem fixed. After a while, I found that the water pipes in the basement were leaking and I had to remove a large area of newly installed timber flooring to dry out the affected area.

I then thought about our old house. That house was built even earlier than the new one. We had lived in it for several years and we had never run into any problems like we were having in the new house. My wife was discouraged and asked me whether or not it was a good decision to move into the new house.

I calmed down and thought about our current situation carefully. The new house’s previous owner was a businessman; he had done a lot of work to renovate the house, so the house appeared to be in very good condition at first glance. Both my wife and I were actually very happy when we found this new house. Even after we moved into it, we were still excited. My attachment to happiness—as if I had got a very good deal—as well as my attachment to comfort resulted in the subsequent problems. In retrospect, all the areas where the problems showed up were exactly the same areas where I felt most excited about the new house.

With the root cause being revealed, all the problems were resolved very quickly. Also, with help from Master, we didn’t suffer too much financial loss getting the problems fixed, even though they seemed very serious.

A Dafa disciple should remain focused on doing the “three things.” Whenever there is negligence, problems will follow.

2. Car accident

One morning while I was driving to work, I wanted to improve my spoken English so I turned on the radio and started to listen to the news. One particular news story caught my attention. The story mentioned that a certain family had raised field rats as pets. I felt really disgusted in hearing the news; the rapid degeneration of human society made me feel terrible. I got even angrier when I thought about some of the even worse things that people are doing nowadays. Right at that moment, I suddenly saw a red traffic light ahead so I immediately slammed on the brakes to stop my car. As a result of the car stopping so quickly, the bag on the passenger seat ended up on the floor and I reached to get the bag. Then I immediately felt the car shake violently. When I raised my head I realized I had just hit the expensive car in front of me.

I immediately looked within and came to understand that I really should not have paid that much attention to that particular news story. Human society is a mess and has its own rules—why should a cultivator get entangled with what is going on in society? A cultivator should just pay more attention to his own cultivation.

Once those righteous thoughts manifested, what followed was just like a miracle. The driver of the expensive car waved to me and we pulled over to the side of the road. I immediately apologized but the driver told me not to worry too much. We took a look at the rear bumper and there didn’t seem to be any damage at all—not even a scratch. Even the driver was amazed. The driver asked for my insurance information just in case, and I gave him a Dafa flier as well. We then left the scene and drove away. Altogether, the incident lasted less than 5 minutes.

I had a similar experience a couple of years ago. At that time, the rear bumper of the car that I ran into was very seriously damaged. I received a ticket from the police officer at the scene, and my insurance company paid out a lot of money for the damage done to the other car. This time however, nothing serious happened even though I was a little bit shocked at the time of the accident. I couldn’t help but thank Master from the depths of my heart.

3. Email stopped working

Today, I ran into another weird thing. When I got to the office this morning, I found that I couldn’t receive any work related emails. I called the IT department for help and even the IT guy couldn’t figure out what was going on. The Internet was working fine, yet my email program was not showing any new emails for me. What was stranger was that it was only my computer that was experiencing this problem.

Even though I was somewhat inconvenienced by the email problem, I was not worried about it that much because I knew that I must have done something improper to have encountered this situation. I had found out the previous day that I was going to have one meeting in the morning and another meeting in the afternoon. I spent some time in the lab and when I took a break, I started to reflect on the email problem. Finally, I started to understand what was causing the problem.

I was busy all day long yesterday. Besides the lab work that I had to perform, I also was asked to help some other people in their labs. I had to conduct one meeting in the morning and I had to also conduct another meeting in the afternoon. During the lunch break, I got to prepare for the afternoon meeting and then my boss approached and asked me to add some more content to the meeting, etc. In the end, I finished preparing for the meeting just one minute before the meeting was scheduled to start and I hurriedly made several copies of the meeting documents. I went to the accountant’s office and stapled the documents and gave each attendant a copy of the documents. My boss was in the room and he laughed when seeing me in such a hurry. Right after the afternoon meeting was over, my boss asked me to attend yet another meeting followed by more lab work. By the time I had finished work and drove to pick up my child, there were still many emails on my computer that I had not yet had time to read. That was surely the busiest day for me in the past couple of months. On the way home after work, I was telling myself, “I don’t want to take care of everything from now on. If I don’t have to manage a certain thing, I will just skip it; if I don’t have to talk to a certain person, I will just skip the talk. I will just mind my own business.” As a result, I ran into the email problem this morning. My boss felt sorry for me but he couldn’t help me out. My colleagues were managing their own projects, and they wouldn’t be able to know what the content of my emails were all about. I knew that I had many things to take care of, but I couldn’t do anything as I didn’t know what those things were. I rebooted my computer several times, and also called the IT department a couple of times as well, but the problem still didn’t go away. Only then did I come to realize that it was an opportunity for me to get to talk to others. As a Dafa practitioner, my conversations with others would help spread the good news about Falun Dafa, and I could also tell people about the persecution of Dafa in China. How could I have developed those negative thoughts just because I was a little busy throughout the day yesterday?

Soon after the second afternoon meeting was over, the email program started to work properly again. Everything seemed like it was back to normal, but deep in my heart, I realized that I had changed my thoughts towards others, and this change of thought had resulted in the restoration of my emails.

4. Caring for fellow practitioners

Fellow practitioners gathered for group Fa study over the weekend. People began to talk about a certain thing and two opinions started to form with each group claiming they were right. As I didn’t know too much about that particular issue, I felt that it was not necessary for me to get too involved in the discussion as I didn’t know what to say. After the group meeting, one fellow practitioner came to me and said, “You talked quite a lot last time, why didn’t you say anything this time?” I smiled and said that I didn’t know what to say.

I have stayed in many places and worked with many different practitioners over the years. Even after a long period of time, I still had trouble trying to find the right answers to some of the questions fellow practitioners have raised. On several occasions, when I found that a certain practitioner was not cultivating diligently, I would proactively approach the practitioner and try to help the practitioner out. After a while, if I found that the practitioner was not making any significant progress, I would then stop trying to help. I had also taken part in a couple of Dafa projects, and many times I was deeply moved by the project team leaders for their commitment, thinking that I should also do my best to make the project a success to help Master in the process of Fa rectification. However, as time went by, I gradually found that some of those projects were not following the original plan. They evolved into something I had never expected, and I felt there was nothing I could do to address the issues. I was kind of down-hearted and thought that I would just mind my own business and let the others manage those projects in whatever manner they chose.

Recently, I talked to a practitioner about one particular article on the Minghui website. The article talks about the power of unity. Over the past decade, many veteran practitioners have experienced persecution in China. They have clarified the truth to the public a lot, and had been cultivating for so many years. Yet, when compared with junior practitioners who were so eager to study the Fa and so diligent in their personal cultivation, those veteran practitioners seemed to be lacking in determination and diligence. I had a very strange feeling in my heart and I also felt ashamed of myself.

After studying “Touring North America to Teach the Fa,” I have realized that the future for a sentient being is dependent upon the being’s attitude towards Fa rectification. Many old force beings have descended from very high places; they have their own understandings at their realms. However, as they are not able to treat Dafa in a proper way, their wisdom and their capabilities are not properly utilized in the Fa rectification process. Instead, the old forces are acting against the Fa rectification and as a result their futures are doomed and they will be destroyed in the end.

Now, for a Dafa practitioner, if he fails to help in rectifying the Fa and fails to save more sentient beings using the capabilities and wisdom obtained from Dafa, he will not only regret it later on but it will create serious problems.

In the article of “Righteous Thoughts” from The Essentials of Diligent Progress, Vol. III, Master says, “Dafa disciples are now sentient beings’ only, sole hope for salvation.” I realize that this particular Fa has very deep meaning. I should never give up helping other practitioners and I must continue saving sentient beings no matter what—there is simply no excuse for me to give up under any circumstance. Saving sentient beings and helping fellow practitioners to improve together is simply my sole mission in this world.

Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/node/122249