PureInsight | February 12, 2023
[PureInsight.org] Recently, two articles concerning “aging” on PureInsight website inspired me. I also want to share some understandings on this issue.
When I first found Dafa, I did not think anything about my age. However, after 26 years of cultivation, I am now close to 70 years old. My face is wrinkled, I wear glasses, and my hair is less ... I felt a little stressed over this. The most distressing thing was when I dreamed of someone pulling out my hair, and later my hair actually began to fall out very quickly.
I looked within and found that I feared hair loss and aging. However, I knew it was not my fundamental problem. The main thing is the old forces' persecution, and that they are interfering. Therefore, I sent forth righteous thoughts: "Clean out the factors of aging, hair loss, and presbyopia (farsightedness). Completely negate the old forces' arrangements." However, after more than 10 years of sending forth righteous thoughts like this, there wasn't much in terms of noticeable improvement.
After reading the two articles on aging, I immediately saw my own problems: I have become very attached to aging, hair loss and presbyopia. This attachment is not obvious, and it is not as easy to identify as other human attachments. Ultimately, I found that it is about being attached to vanity, wanting to look younger, radiant and attractive, as well as to be complimented … it's all from selfishness. Would a God be afraid of aging? Are those cultivators in the deep mountains afraid of getting old? What do cultivators cultivate? It is to cut off these human opinions and thoughts. Upon this realization, I felt that my sending righteous thoughts based on the attachment of selfishness was ridiculous. Most importantly, I felt significant improvement in my xinxing after identifying this attachment. Still, I find many practitioners discussing this topic, feeling helpless about aging, hair loss, presbyopia, and so on. I think they just haven't made a breakthrough in this area.
When I think about our path of cultivation over the past 20 years of evil persecution, we Dafa disciples have endured countless ordeals and lost too many things in society. If we have not let go of life and death, how could we persist in cultivation up until today? We are not afraid of death, but are we still afraid of aging? Are you afraid of hair loss? Are you afraid of presbyopia?
Master said in Teaching the Fa in Washington D.C. in 2018, "None of the Dafa disciples are governed by the Three Realms."
Since we are not governed by the principles of aging, sickness and death in Three Realms, why should we worry about old age? Does old age affect cultivation? Besides, Falun Dafa is a practice of both mind and body. The more you practice, the younger you become.
The practitioner said in the article, "In our cultivation, the old forces have set up various mechanisms and made various arrangements for us. When a certain idea appears, we mistakenly think it is our own, and we recognize it mentally instead of rejecting it. The old forces use this as an excuse to persecute us, what an evil arrangement it is.”
I have a deep understanding of this. In the past, I would dream that someone pulled out my hair, and I began to worry about hair loss. This kind of worry is exactly what the old forces want. It caused my hair loss to worsen. Consequently, someone would keep pulling my hair out in my dreams. The more I worried, the more severe my hair loss. This is the mechanism they arranged. It did not seem like a big thing, but it would upset me and affect my state of mind, it is really evil.
The old forces have arranged all sorts of mechanisms to interfere with practitioners. The mechanisms they arrange are various, such as: dressing, eating, drinking, being fat or skinny, sleeping in, insomnia, feeling drowsy when studying the Fa, the fighting mentality, resentment, emotion, lust, conflicts between relatives and friends, various desires, showing off, being addicted to WeChat, fear, negative thinking during sickness karma, negative thinking when being harassed ... Everything has been carefully arranged, and these mechanisms inextricably limit and restrict you.
After seeing through this clearly, I sent forth a righteous thought: "Completely deny and eradicate all the arrangements from the old forces! Destroy all the mechanisms arranged by them! Master, please arrange this for me." When sending forth this righteous thought, it needs to be very strong; otherwise, those things cannot be cleaned out well. I heard one practitioner say, "I sent forth righteous thoughts to make myself younger, so everyday people can admire Dafa disciples, which is good for saving people." In my opinion, this aspect is not important. An older or younger appearance does not affect saving people. We save people on the surface, it's actually Master doing it. If we focus on this aspect, it becomes a gap the old forces can use to persecute us.
It is a little understanding at my current level.
Chinese version: https://big5.zhengjian.org/node/278771
