PureInsight | April 19, 2019
[PureInsight.org]
Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
I am a young Dafa disciple. Currently I am studying for a master degree in Tainan City. When I was in the third year in primary school, my mother introduced my brother and me to Falun Dafa, and we used to study the Fa and do the exercises together. I had a really bad temper and was easily irritated and felt angry very often. But Dafa has a magical power on me. Every time after studying the Fa, the anger and unpleasant feeling disappear, and I feel very comfortable and happy. For this reason, I have kept on the cultivation. Until today, Dafa cultivation has become an important part of my life. However, the influence from the ordinary society, especially decades of learning in the schools, I have unfortunately accepted a lot of scientific notions that do not correspond to the Dafa standard. My initial Dafa comprehension was not very good and so for a long time I had limited progress in my Xinxing improvement.
I would like to share my following experience of my studies and relationship with my professor in the university for the past three years, and how I overcame the trouble through memorizing the Fa and looking within.
I remember as a kid, I had no idea about good grades and fame and fortune, but I was always very hardworking. However, under the influence of my fellow students, I started to care more and more about my grades, ranking, and critics from teachers, etc. Later in the junior high school, senior high school and the university, I have always taken my studies very seriously and spent a lot of time on studying and doing research. I had an outstanding performance in my class and got the chance to join a research lab much earlier than other students. However, I did not realize my attachments such as being overjoyed, showing off, jealousy, and competitiveness, and striving for fame and fortune. I thought I was doing better than others and could not stand it when being surpassed. Because of my attachments, it seemed like my abilities were appreciated by the professor and was able to do much more research works outside of the curriculum. But in fact, these extra works were really a hard burden on me, as they even took up the time for my normal studies, and I was often lagging behind in the Dafa projects I was responsible for. I did not realize that I was following the way arranged by the old forces, and I kept this very busy pace all the way to the end of my bachelor years and continued on to my master study.
Since I got into the graduate school, the professor had even higher expectation on me. I could not take this working pace and pressure anymore. While I was not able to balance between the three things and the works from the lab, no matter how hard I tried, things were always not as good as I expected. I became very unhappy because of this frustration and often cried out loud at night. The situation became worst, and I cried almost every day and lost a lot of weight as well. I even started to wonder if I had got a depression like the ordinary people. Although I kept studying the Fa on a daily basis, the situation sometimes turned better sometimes but then worst again, and there was no fundamental improvement. This continued for more than one year. During this time, I was abroad for a few months. Leaving the environment of my university allowed me to be away from the bad condition temporarily, but once as I went back, all the tribulations came back again. I knew I had to face my fundamental attachments.
At the time, I participated in the one-day Fa study group in the southern region. We were asked to memorize the chapter The Closer to the End, the More Diligent You Should Be from The Essentials for Diligent Progress Vol. III. That was my first time memorizing the writings from Master. During the memorizing process, I was surprised to see those deep-rooted notions as Master had described in The Closer to the End, the More Diligent You Should Be from The Essentials for Diligent Progress Vol. III, “Because pain is hard on people, they try to, consciously or unconsciously, ward off suffering in hopes of leading a more pleasant life. And so it is that in the pursuit of happiness people form ideas about how to avoid harm, how to live well, how to get ahead in society and achieve fame and success, how to acquire more for themselves, how to come out on top, and so on. To this end, as they gain experience people come to form notions about life; and those experiences, in turn, come to fortify these notions as people live out their lives.” Only after memorizing this paragraph, had I seriously realized how deeply I was controlled by these stubborn ideas that interfered with my understanding of the Fa taught by Master. I decided to memorize one page of Zhuan Falun every day. I wanted to fill my brain with the Fa, instead of the science. I would go the way arranged by the Master, not by the professor.
After I started to memorize the Fa, there was always a sentence of the Fa coming to my head. This allowed me to better measure my conduct with the standard of the Fa, and I was able to find out my attachments hidden behind the tribulations in the lab, such as jealousy, competitiveness, being overjoyed, showing off, and the deep-rooted striving for fame and fortune. Miraculously, while I slowly gave up these attachments, I started to notice the subtle changes in the people around me in correspondence. This became clearer and clearer as all the tribulations happened in the lab are directly due to my attachments. The only way to solve them is to look within.
For example, I used to be the one who spoke the most during the meeting in the lab, and my ideas were always highly appreciated by the professor. One day, we needed to report our progress for a group assignment. The other students were not confident enough to speak, so I began as usual to be the first one to express my ideas. However, this time the professor asked me to stop and to give others a chance. At that moment, I felt frustrated and disappointed. But before long, I realized that I had always liked to express my thoughts and grab the limelight, and this was actually a very strong attachment of showing off. Moreover, when having a meeting or discussion with other students, I always thought it was necessary to argue for the exact fact and I should do my utmost to make sure my ideas are fully expressed. I even criticized and picked up all the small mistakes made by others. I had not realized that my way of talking was too dominant and would hurt others. Some classmates had therefore considered me as a stubborn person and hard to communicate with. For a long time, I had no idea why some people would think of me as that, because I thought I did not force them to follow me. Later, I read an experience sharing article on the Minghui website about competitiveness. It said that the competitiveness in other dimension was a small competitive monster. Only then had I realized, behind this notion of wanting to express ideas, arguing for the facts was a strong competitiveness. After that, I found it was easier for me to stay calm and listen to others, instead of being eager to express my thoughts.
Before, I used to put the tasks from the lab as my first priority. If there were Dafa activities, I would also finish the assignment from the lab first, then take part in the Dafa activities. I thought by doing so the ordinary people would think I am hardworking, and the professor would think that I did not waste a lot of time on my Dafa projects. After a long time, I started to realize this was not right, as if it was the professor who had arranged my life instead of Master. So, I adjusted my time management and put Dafa activities as my priority. However, this affected my status in the lab and I was no longer appreciated by the professor. The professor even let other junior students lead the research projects and I became their assistant. Though I could understand the arrangement was reasonable and knew that it was better for my cultivation, it still sometimes stirred up my attachments of jealousy and showing off. Through continuous studying and memorizing the Fa, I slowly realized, it was the striving for fame and fortune and the competitiveness behind these attachments, which I had not given up for a long time. With this thought in mind, I was able to balance better my relationship with the professor. Maybe this was not my destiny to work for the professor like the other fellow students and I had a different path to follow.
I learned to look within whenever something irritated me, and tried to face and give up the attachments without regret. Little by little, all my hatred and the tribulations with my professor that were once so complicated had resolved themselves. Surprisingly, the professor used to give me a lot of tasks and thought only I could do this job, but then he started to assign the heavy duties to other students and even forgot to discuss the annual plan with me, so I ended up with extra time to study the Fa and do the exercise more regularly. The other students were also doing very well with their tasks. I felt that Master had directed the tasks away for me, and those big projects originally assigned to me were either canceled or reassigned to others. Therefore, in my second year of master degree study, I was able to write my master thesis and do the three things normally.
Through memorizing the Fa, many of my notions were fundamentally weakened; I was no longer afraid to bear hardships and face tribulations. I was able to handle tribulations according to the Fa and was not easily lost. I no longer felt like arguing with other people with science and logic all the time. Nevertheless, there was still a relatively big Xinxing test which was aimed directly at my deep-rooted striving for fame and fortune. It was because I have taken in the notion of striving for fame and fortune since very young. Not long ago, a research article I wrote was published, but I was not listed in the author’s list. Because of this I started to resent my professor. Later, through constant studying the Fa and sharing with other practitioners, I was able to accept the truth easily.
But what came next was that, the professor appeared to be only taking my research results away and not teaching me new things. I was asked to hand out the unpublished data from my master thesis and share it with other students. It was really hard for me and I felt utterly uncomfortable with the request. One day after studying the Fa, I asked myself, what was irritating me so badly. Suddenly, the thought of believe in Master and believe in the Fa came to me. If Master had arranged the professor to improve my xinxing, which meant there must be something I needed to improve. I soon realized it was for me to cultivate compassion, even when being hurt by someone else, one should still help and care for others. After I had given up the resentment, I was able to explain my situation to the professor in peace. He showed understanding and did not ask me to share the data any more.
In conclusion, ever since improving my xinxing, in the lab, I was no longer eager to acquire new scientific knowledge or gain the affirmation from the professor. I began to put my Fa studies in front of my academic studies. This made my thoughts even clearer and my theories were more easily approved by other professors. My master thesis was completed smoothly.
While writing this experience report, I also found my other attachments, including fears and low self-esteem. One day the coordinator of my Dafa project asked if it was because I was too outstanding in my academic study that I could not improve the quality of the Dafa project. I was stunned for a second and then realized that I need to keep on improving. It is not enough just to do well on the things of the ordinary people, I need to keep improving my Xinxing and expanding my capacity so I could really do well on my duties as a Dafa Disciple.
The above is just my understanding at my level. Please compassionately point out anything inappropriate.
Thank you Master, thank you fellow practitioners.
Chinese version: http://www.zhengjian.org/node/248115
