PureInsight | October 15, 2014
[PureInsight.org] Some time ago the local puppet court illegally put a foreign fellow Dafa practitioner on trial. Many Dafa disciples came from out of town to send forth righteous thoughts, disclose the evil, share experiences, clarify the truth and save sentient beings. We sent forth righteous thoughts at every hour, and I found some fellow practitioners sitting in the half-lotus position when sending forth righteous thoughts.
When doing the morning exercises, half of the people sat in the half-lotus position when doing the fifth exercise. Half of the people seemed unable to bear the pain in their legs and stopped practicing after half an hour. Only a few people could meditate with double crossed legs for one hour.
I discussed with fellow practitioners about why they could not sit in the full-lotus position. Some practitioners gave up practicing in the first few years after the persecution by the evil communist party and had just come back; some slacked off in practicing and felt pain whenever they crossed their legs. However, these practitioners could all sit in the full-lotus position for over an hour in the past. How could they be unable to do so now?
Master has taught Fa about the full-lotus position: “Let me explain the half-lotus position. This position can only be used as a transition, as a last resort, when you can’t manage to sit with both legs crossed… We don’t have many requirements for the half-lotus position since we actually require the full-lotus position, not the half-lotus. But there are people who can’t cross both legs yet, so I will take this opportunity to speak a little bit about the half-lotus position. You may do half-lotus if you can’t yet sit in full-lotus, but you still need to work to gradually put both of your legs up” (Falun Dafa The Great Way of Spiritual Perfection).
Master has said very clearly that it is understandable for new practitioners to sit in the half-lotus position temporarily, but veteran practitioners who have obtained the Fa for many years yet cannot sit in the full-lotus position cannot be justified. They have not worked hard on crossing legs. Many practitioners who can sit in the full-lotus position for a long time all worked hard in the beginning period after they obtained the Fa. At the time, most of them could not even sit in the half-lotus position. Some even endured great pain when just sitting loosely cross-legged. By steeling their will to endure the pain and reduce the karma, only then could they break through and sit in the full-lotus position. They also gradually increased the time they could sit in the full-lotus position from several seconds to a few minutes. Now some practitioners can sit in the full-lotus position for several hours without moving. This is definitely not a day's effort! It is the result of many years of hardship, hardworking and accumulation on a regular basis.
On the contrary, some practitioners were originally poor at bearing hardships. With the addition of the evil persecution, they lost the cultivation environment for many years. Out of fear and a desire to seek ease, they slacked in their cultivation and could not ensure practice everyday. Originally they could cross their legs for one hour, but they stopped once they felt pain. Gradually the length of time they could sit in the full-lotus position decreased, making it harder to persist. In the end they completely changed to sitting in the half-lotus position. Their standard continually lowered, and some people even feared crossing legs.
There are not just a few Dafa practitioners with this problem. I’d like to discuss my personal understanding about this.
Since I started cultivation, I never slacked on exercises. Everyday I experienced aches and pain. Year after year, month after month, day after day I persisted doing the morning exercises like this.
Here are my calculations. As an example, take sitting in the lotus position for one hour each day, which is doing one exercise each day. If you sit in the lotus position for half an hour before you feel pain and uncross your legs after forty minutes, you will be practicing twenty minutes fewer every time. In a month you will have practiced 600 minutes less than the requirement of the exercise tape. Then in a whole year you will have 7200 minutes less of karma elimination through meditation, which is 120 hours. If you sit in the lotus position once every day, then 120 hours less would be equivalent to 120 days less of practicing in a year. Now that the Fa-rectification has gone through fifteen years, one will have practiced 1800 days less in fifteen years, which is equivalent to five years!
What does this imply? Practicing twenty minutes less per day would be practicing a third less in fifteen years of Fa rectification! This is still the case for fellow practitioners who insisted on practicing everyday. There were many fellow practitioners who slacked in practicing for many years. They would go fishing for three days and dry netting for two days. Some could hardly even practice a few times in a month. The result is obvious.
Recently I came across several fellow practitioners who had severe illness karma. Some passed away, and some are still suffering. To my knowledge, most of the fellow practitioners who were persecuted by the old forces and had illness karma, or more seriously lost their flesh bodies, were those who could not ensure the time and quality of practicing (of course we do not acknowledge the persecution imposed by the old forces). As such, the karma that should have been reduced and transformed through practicing was not reduced. As a result, very difficult tribulations were formed due to the accumulation of karma. As time passed by, the accumulation formed an insurmountable hardship.
Master has told disciples very early that “Falun Buddha Law also includes cultivation of the body, which is accomplished by performing the exercise movements of the Great Way of Spiritual Perfection—a great high-level Buddhist practice. One purpose of the exercises is to strengthen a practitioner’s supernatural abilities and energy mechanisms using his or her powerful gong strength (gong-li), thus achieving ‘the Law (fa) refines the practitioner.’ Another purpose is to evolve many living beings in a practitioner’s body. In high-level cultivation, the Immortal Infant or Buddha-Body will be born, and many abilities will be developed. The exercise movements are necessary for transforming and cultivating these things. The exercises are part of the harmonization and perfection in our Dafa. So Dafa is a comprehensive mind-body cultivation system. It is also called ‘The Great Way of Spiritual Perfection.’ Dafa thus requires both cultivation and exercises, with cultivation taking priority over the exercises. A person’s gong won’t increase if he merely does the exercises and fails to cultivate his character. Meanwhile, a person who only cultivates his character and doesn’t perform the exercises of the Great Way of Spiritual Perfection will find the growth of his gong strength impeded and his innate body (ben-ti) unchanged.” (Falun Dafa The Great Way of Spiritual Perfection).
Personally I think as long as one normally does well in everything and cultivates firmly in the long term, the big tribulations will shrink to small ones, and the small ones will vanish. If one big tribulation vanishes, several tribulations can be resolved in a year. When one can really achieve this in solid cultivation, the loss will be reduced. On the contrary, several tribulations will accumulate to a huge tribulation.
Master has told disciples in the Fa: “You claim that you’re too busy and don’t have the time. Actually, you are afraid that you don’t get enough rest. 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. Nobody would say: ‘The exercises are making me so tired that I can’t do anything today.’ One would only say: ‘The exercises are making my whole body relaxed and at ease. I don’t feel sleepy after a sleepless night. I feel full of energy. It doesn’t seem to bother me at all after a day’s work.’ Isn’t this the case? So if someone who doesn’t come out to do the exercises says that he has no time or uses other excuses, I’d say that it’s completely because he doesn’t have a deep understanding of the Fa and lacks the will to make painstaking efforts.” (Lecture at the First Conference in North America).
Fellow practitioners, we have cultivated for so many years, and the Fa-rectification has gone through fifteen years. How much longer on earth do we still have to meet Master’s requirements? Master has repeatedly and painstakingly told disciples to “cultivate as if you were just starting”, but even now some disciples cannot insist on doing the morning exercises everyday, and they cross legs at their own will and comfort. How worried must Master be when he sees us like this! Personally I suggest fellow practitioners should read more Falun Dafa The Great Way of Spiritual Perfection.
In conclusion I would like to encourage fellow practitioners by having the honor to read Master’s Fa: “Pause for a moment of self-reflection, and increase your righteous thoughts. Thoroughly analyze your shortcomings, and progress with renewed diligence.” (Hong Yin Vol. II: “Rational and Awake”).
I wrote what was on my mind. Please kindly point out anything inappropriate.
Translated from: http://zhengjian.org/node/134111
