PureInsight | December 1, 2014
[PureInight.org] When I was young, my family was having difficulties. As a result, I always wanted to live a happy life; I always hoped to have a bright future. I started to spend lots of time reading books and watching TV shows. I wanted to forget my miseries and anxieties. When I was reading a story or watching a TV show, I would often compare myself with the main character in the story. I would treat myself as the main character and experience emotional ups and downs as the story unfolded. All such experiences left me with much powerful thought karma.
When I first learnt of Falun Dafa, it took me a few months to finish reading the book, “Zhuan Falun”. When I was watching the videos of Master’s lectures, I would very easily fall asleep. I should have taken a proper stand against such evil arrangements by the old forces; nonetheless, I simply took it easy and let such interferences go by. Even though I decided to stop reading stories or watching TV shows, I sometimes would immerse myself in day-dreaming as if I were some character in a story or show. I often developed bad thoughts towards “doing the three things”. I did try to suppress such bad thoughts whenever they popped up. I didn’t pay much attention though. Also, I usually wouldn’t pay too much attention to cleaning up thought karma when sending forth righteous thoughts. I would often miss the first five minutes of sending the righteous thoughts. Instead, I would go to the latter part where I started to eliminate the evil forces in my mind.
Recently, my lack of cleaning up my own thought karma began to show its toll. I felt that I was in serious trouble doing the “three things”. My thought karma kept interfering with my cultivation. Even though I clearly knew that such interference was arranged by the old forces. I tried very hard to get rid of them with righteous thoughts, but found it difficult to eliminate them completely. I told myself that the thought karma was not mine to start with and my main consciousness must remain focused. The interference was so severe that I began to fear whether I could continue my cultivation. My confidence in cultivating Falun Dafa started to fall. I began to realize the seriousness of my thought karma.
I had to face my problems. Master says in Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference, “Why don't you stop and think about it: Why is someone interfering with you? Why is it able to interfere with you? Is it because you have an attachment, or because you have something you can't let go of? Why don't you look at yourself? The true reason lies with you yourself, and that's the only reason it can exploit your gap!”
So I started to strengthen my main consciousness. I wanted to make sure that my main consciousness was sharp and my body was under control. At the same time, I spent quite some time reading the Fa. I wanted to fill my mind with the Fa. In Teaching the Fa at the Western U.S. Fa Conference, Master says, “The reason you can get rid of those bad things is that you don’t acknowledge them as you. That is extremely crucial. It is because you don’t acknowledge them as you that you can then eliminate them. The fact is, they really aren’t you. They are the various notions, or even karma, developed from the things you have done after birth—those things.” “Whatever a person wants is up to him, and only when you don’t want that stuff can it be eliminated for you.” “You can use Dafa to judge. Actually, none of the bad thoughts are you.” Also, in Teaching the Fa at the Conference In Switzerland, Master teaches us, “Why do I ask you to return to your origin and true self? What’s the purpose of returning to your true self? It’s to return to what your true self is. Human beings have many attachments, all kinds of notions, and a range of emotions and desires. All these thoughts are in your head, yet none of them are you. “
I also began to send forth righteous thoughts more often. Whenever I got the time, I would follow the instructions from the Master and use the first five minutes to clean up my own thought karma just like what Master has taught us in Teaching the Fa at the 2001 Canada Fa Conference, “Thinking about eliminating the bad thoughts, karma, bad notions, and external interference in their minds. As you’re like this, think that they die, and then they will be eliminated.” No matter how those external interferences would stir up in my mind, I firmly believed that as long as I followed the requirements of the Fa, all such interferences would be eliminated in the end. This whole process was thus a test of my faith in Falun Dafa.
At the same time, I started to seek inwards. I wanted to uproot the origins of the thought karma. Prior to my practice of Falun Dafa, I had always longed to live a happy life due to my miserable childhood experiences, as a result, deep in my heart, I had always hoped for a better and peaceful life for myself. After I began to practice Falun Dafa, my family life improved. I felt many things became easy for me. In my subconscious, I had attributed my happy marriage and better life to my practice of Falun Dafa. I had this notion in the back of my mind that as long as I practiced Falun Dafa, I would be blessed with happiness, my karma would be eliminated, I would be protected by Master. I felt very happy emotionally. I had somehow sensed that such feelings towards Falun Dafa were not correct. I didn’t feel strongly that I needed to correct them though. I would always use some excuse, such as being too busy with work, to let them pass. Gradually, many other attachments began to build. I had become unable to completely assimilate myself within Dafa. Many negative thoughts began to pop up. I started to slack off doing the “three things”. I wanted to play safe to protect myself from any possible danger, and I would even seek for a return while doing Fa related work. Master says in Lecture at the First Conference in North America, “If you, as a cultivator, only part with things superficially while deep down inside you still stick to something or cling to your own vital interests that you don’t allow to be undermined, I’d say to you that your cultivation is fake!”
The more I looked inwards, the more I felt scared. I came to realize that I must start to seriously and genuinely cultivate myself. I must start to completely reject all those arrangements forced upon me by the old forces, including all my human notions. I must start to completely eliminate all those bad dimensions. I also realized that it was not enough for me to just claim that I had rejected the old forces’ arrangements for me. I must act to show that I was following the guidelines of the Fa. I must apply the Fa to my daily activities. I must use the Fa to correct my thoughts. I recalled reading an article by a fellow practitioner. The article mentioned that many fellow practitioners often emphasized things that could be seen by the physical eyes, they tended to neglect cultivating one’s own heart; cultivation of one’s own heart was actually the most crucial part.
Many fellow practitioners from my local area often praised me for my seemingly diligent cultivation. I understood what others were seeing was just superficial behaviour. I have now realized how serious cultivation is, how my thought karma had dragged me down. We all know from the book of Zhuan Falun that “matter and mind are one and the same.” “The thing that ordinary people send out in their daily lives when they think is in the form of a human brain, but it disperses quickly since it doesn’t have energy. But a practitioner’s energy lasts much longer.”
From a karma-bound ordinary person on earth, to change into a merciful great God, one has to let go of all those deeply rooted notions, one has to completely assimilate oneself with the standard of the new universe. It won’t be enough for one just to perform certain seemingly grand deeds, to elevate oneself from humanity to divinity.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/node/136435
