The Importance of Cleaning Up One's Own Space

By a Taiwanese Dafa practitioner

(Clearwisdom.net) My physical condition was very poor before I started cultivation, and I would get tired easily. Because of this, I was unable to sit up straight and always had to lean my back against the back of a chair or the wall. After I started cultivation, my health improved significantly. However, this sitting habit was like a human notion that was still following me. Even if I did not feel tired, I would still slothfully half lie down when I sat. By a cultivator's standard, a person should keep an upright posture whether standing or sitting down. However, I continued ignoring this problem, and the long-standing habit still regularly controlled my behavior.

As my cultivation progressed, I started to realize that I should sit up straight. However, I did so only during the time of Fa-study. I did not pay much attention to it in my daily life. For example, when I got home, I would lie down comfortably on a couch. Although this was only a trivial matter in my life, it reflected many of my attachments, such as avoiding hardships, seeking comfort and the inability to concentrate, etc., which I did not realize at the time.

One day, I felt somewhat unwell, feeling pains on several parts of my body. Thinking that this was karma elimination, I did not take any notice of it. However, I suddenly realized that if I treat physical discomfort as karma elimination each time it happens, I would continuously stay at the level of karma elimination. Perhaps at this moment, Master wanted me to enlighten to some deeper principles behind it. Since my mental state at the time was pretty bad, I thought I should first clean up my own space. After I calmed down and did so, I gradually restored my mental state and my mind became clearer. Then I realized that I was not sitting in an upright position and looked sluggish. Immediately I sat up straight. Then, my mind returned to a good state, and the pains on my body gradually disappeared as well.

Through this incident, I understand that when a person's mind has an impure thought, it will reflect in his words and actions. In the past, whenever I suffered a mental or physical pain and felt tired or down as a result, I would feel bad, thinking, "Why is it so difficult to pass each tribulation?" However, I did not realize that the interference and demon nature were closely related to my attachments. Putting it another way, if I could keep my own space pure and clean, apart from my own karma that needed to be eliminated, no black matter or dirty things that were brought about by the interference of the old forces could get onto my body.

Master said in Fa-Lecture at the 2001 Canada Fa Conference, "Another thing is that from now on at group practice or when there's another big conference like this one of ours, our students can quiet their minds for five minutes, sitting with their hands in Jieyin and 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. Five minutes will do." Moreover, Master told us clearly in Fa-Lecture at the Conference in Florida, U.S.A., "When a person himself doesn't have righteous thoughts, all the bad things in the cosmos, or in the Three Realms, will flow around continually in the human body, and even when they stay there the person doesn't realize it. That's how people are manipulated; in other words, they manipulate people when these particles are able to connect with each other." I began to understand that whenever we encounter interference of any kind of Dafa work, we should clean up the interference from our own space as much as possible. Only then can our sending forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil be effective. Otherwise, the bad things generated by the evil will take advantage to weaken the power of our righteous thoughts when our own righteous thoughts are not strong.

Since we have formed many ways of thinking and doing things in this human world, we often readily think and do things in the same way as everyday people. Usually only when things get really difficult do we start to think seriously about why we encounter such problems and how to resolve them. However, after studying the Fa, we all understand that many phenomena are not due to the karmic relations at the human level. In my case, it was because my own space had unrighteous things that my physical condition turned worse. The real cause was not karma elimination. However, whenever we are in a situation of poor mental or physical condition, we tend to think, "Was it because we did something wrong that caused the evil interference?" Although we later seriously sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the interference in the matter, we did not identify the real cause, and the effect of our righteous thoughts would be limited. In fact, I realized that in the last stage of Fa-rectification, we should be strict with ourselves against the yardstick of the Fa at all times, actively measuring ourselves according to the requirements of the Fa at each level. We cannot passively wait until a test comes, and then try to think about how to pass it and how to reach Fa standards. It would be very difficult to understand the Fa from the perspective of the Fa if we take a passive attitude towards a test.

The above is my personal understanding, please point out anything inappropriate.
Chinese version available at http://minghui.cc/mh/articles/2002/3/15/26593.html

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