Devout

[PureInsight.org] My grandmother is from a rural area and is almost illiterate. She believes in the existence of Buddhas. She is a vegetarian and burns incense everywhere she goes. When I was young, she used to tell me many stories about gods and Buddhas.

She told me a story of going to Mulan Hill with a friend to burn incense. Before going, they would eat only vegetarian food for a period of time and bathed the day before. They departed before sunrise and came back at night. Mulan Hill is dozens of miles away from us. At the time, there was no main road there. My grandmother had bound feet, but she walked a round trip of around 100 Chinese Lis (1 Li is about 0.3mile) and also climbed the mountain. It was very difficult!

During her time, with communism, worshipping gods was forbidden and deemed a feudal superstition. But my grandmother and her friends still worshipped gods. My grandmother also told me a very interesting thing—because food was scarce, they could only eat porridge. Before going to Mulan Hill, an elderly woman called Gong asked my grandmother, “Grandmother Lu, what shall we do if we need the restroom along the way?” My grandmother replied, “Do not think about these negative things; we are going there to burn incense.” Along the way, Gong had to look for bathrooms the entire way, but my grandmother did not need to use it once. Gong asked my grandmother what was going on. My grandmother replied, “If people have good intentions, gods will know.”

“If people have good intentions, gods will know.” This one sentence from my grandmother became deeply ingrained in my heart. Although I was young at the time and only understood a bit of this sentence, a seed was planted in my heart, of worshipping gods.

Although my grandmother has never been to school, she frequently comes out with deep and perplexing things, such as, “Eyes that do not see stay pure” and “Tolerate others’ weaknesses but be strong on yourself.” This was likely a result of her being nurtured in traditional culture. Her devotion to gods deeply impacted me.

Ancient people devoutly worshipped gods. They often fasted, cleansed their bodies, bathed, and burned incense. People nowadays have a hard time matching that. The well-known traditional Chinese stories such as “Standing at Teacher Cheng’s gate in the snow”, “Liu Bei asks for Zhuge Liang’s help three times” and “Zhang Liang waits for the Yellow Rock Prince at midnight” are all examples of ancient people’s devoutness. Confucianism also talks about “devotion” and a “sincere and righteous heart” in the Eight Entries, such as “Devoutness brings forth spiritual beings”.

Master Li says in Zhuan Falun, “On Dafa”: “When people show the appropriate respect and reverence toward Dafa as it manifests here in this world, they, their race, or their nation will enjoy blessings or honor.”

Although as Dafa disciples we do not wish for worldly blessings or honor and instead want to return home with Master, shouldn’t we show “respect and reverence” toward Dafa? Due to the destruction of traditional culture, many practitioners lack “the appropriate respect and reverence” towards Master and cultivation.

Here are some examples:

When I first obtained the Fa, I once gave a fellow practitioner one of Master’s recent writings. Twice, he simply scanned them before stuffing them into his pockets and continuing with other tasks. I was shocked! “How could he be like this?”

There are some people who know about the annual May 13 Fa conference on Master’s birthday but do not attend, and others are often late. What kind of day is May 13? How many May 13’s are there in a year? How many May 13’s do we have left? What are we unable to let go of?

In reality, these practitioners’ cultivation states are very bad. This is definitely related to their devoutness.

My cultivation level is limited. Please point out anything inappropriate.

Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/node/237721