PureInsight | August 26, 2002
Teacher repeatedly taught us to seek inward for areas of improvement. Despite my conscious efforts to look inside myself, I made very little progress. Moreover, I always ended up feeling miserable and mentally exhausted, only to remain blind to my flaws. Recently, it suddenly occurred to me that there were profound implications in our inner searches: to seek inwardly is to be compassionate toward sentient beings in our cosmos. Now that I regard seeking inward as the true meaning of my life, it has become clear to me what the root cause of my problem was. I had regarded searching inwardly as unpleasant and mandatory work or as an external tribulation that I had to endure.
Let's think about what we look for in our inner searches. Apparently we search for our bad thoughts, karma and bad notions. After we find them, we are then ready to eliminate them from our realm. After we eliminate them, all sentient beings in our cosmos will be saved from their evil work. To seek inward, from the perspective of Fa-Rectification, is to locate and eliminate the evil forces that damage the Fa. Once we find these evil forces, we can easily purge them with our righteous thoughts and thus free the sentient beings under their manipulation.
Our main consciousnesses are our true selves. When we first began to truly cultivate within Dafa, we have already rectified our main consciousness. The purpose of our cultivation is for the sake saving sentient beings in our corresponding cosmos. Prior to Fa-rectification, the entire universe had gone astray. Countless sentient beings in the infinite layers of dimensions corresponding to our body had also gone astray. Searching inward is the primary and essential cultivation practice of Falun Dafa. When we seek inwardly for areas of improvement, we are looking for the source of the pollutants that have infected the sentient beings in our cosmos in order to purge them from our cosmos. It is only when the source of the pollutants are rectified by the Fa that the sentient beings in our cosmos can be restored their true selves. Therefore, to seek inwardly for areas of improvement is to provide salvation to sentient beings in our cosmos. When we search inwardly more thoroughly, we will be able to save more sentient beings in our cosmos. If we leave no stone unturned in our inner search, all sentient beings in our cosmos will be saved. This is when all sentient beings in our entire cosmos will reach a genuine great consummation.
When we send forth righteous thoughts or clarify the truth about Falun Gong to sentient beings, we are actually eliminating the evil forces that damage Dafa and giving salvation to all sentient beings with our righteous thoughts. In order to attain to this goal, we must first locate all these evil forces that damage the Fa. This is one of the profound meanings of searching inside during the Fa-rectification period.
There is another profound implication of performing inner searches. There is a principle in this universe called "no loss, no gain." Everyone has to pay for whatever he does. The sentient beings in my cosmos had become warped because I had become warped. Therefore, I must take the consequences for my actions. I have no right to search externally because I am the very cause of the degeneration in my cosmos. I must take responsibility by searching inward to find out the root cause of the depravity in my cosmos. Then I must eliminate it to rectify the depraved sentient beings in my cosmos. When I search inwardly for areas of improvement, I am very comparable to a responsible parent who disciplines and elevates his children morally. The only difference is probably the level of impact and significance. When I discipline my children, it takes on a more profound meaning because I am in line with Teacher and Fa-Rectification.
It is the main consciousness that does the work when we search inward. When Teacher asked us to search inward, I believe that he meant to ask our main consciousness to predominate in our three important missions, including studying the Fa thoroughly, sending forth righteous thoughts, and clarifying the truth to sentient beings. It follows that we are being responsible to all of the righteous sentient beings in our cosmos while building the mighty virtue as Dafa disciples when we search inward for areas of improvement.
Searching inward is bound to irritate all evil and warped old forces. Both our karma and external interferences will stop at nothing to prevent us from searching inwardly because they know their lives will be in danger if we search inwardly. When we search inwardly there is also severe types of interference in the form of personal persecution. They are the so-called "exams" by the evil old force, which are destructive in nature. The evil old forces will spare no expense in preventing us from taking a big stride in seeking inwardly. When everything seems to encourage us not to seek inwardly, it is a clear clue that our efforts of continuously searching inwardly are now hitting the evil old forces on the right spot. Therefore, we should persist in searching inwardly with a diamond will. We must try to reinforce our main consciousness in order to thoroughly and continuously seek inwardly in all directions. We must leave no place for the evil old forces to hide. We must eliminate all impure elements in our cosmos in order to restore the boundless radiance of all sentient beings.
The moment I realized the profound implications of searching inwards, I began to regard it as the most magnificent and honorable privilege to be entitled to do it. I no longer regard seeking inwardly as an unpleasant mandatory chore. Instead, I now regard it as the true meaning of my life. I regard it as a manifestation of my compassion toward the sentient beings in my cosmos. Although seeking inwards causes hardship and tribulation, I shall pledge to take the hardship as joy with composure.
Translated from:
http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2002/8/6/17097.html
