Ever since the beginning of this year, I have often felt that my Fa-rectification period cultivation has gone very poorly. When this happens, I feel depressed to the point where I don't feel like doing anything, want to sleep or wait for the Fa-rectification to clear away the final obstacles.

However, I feel that it is an omission to just feel guilty. This could easily be intensified by the old forces and evil beings to the point where we feel so guilty that we make even worse mistakes and fail to guard our character. This will stop us from striving forward to the point where we completely fall, and do not want to get up. I have often gotten to a point where I almost felt like giving up cultivation.

Master has often told practitioners who have fallen down to get up again and do what Dafa practitioners should do. My understanding of this is that Master wants to give everything a positive solution.

Then, how do I understand the recent phenomenon in my cultivation, where I feel like I have not done enough Dafa work, have slacked off, developed the attachment of comfort, and other things? Of course, these are all omissions that should be worked on by doing the three things well, especially by studying the Fa well. What I would like to share is my understanding of why some of these things have manifested recently with me.

When I first started to validate the Fa, I did not care very much about what my family and friends thought about my validating Dafa. I thought to myself that when the truth was revealed, they would be astounded at my unselfishness and admire me.

At the beginning of this year, Fa-rectification had still not arrived to the human world and my family environment grew complicated. I realized that I had not done well in balancing this aspect of my life, and started to spend more time with family and friends.

As time went by, I found that I was spending more and more time with family and friends, to the point where I wasn't doing as much Dafa work as before. Also, I have a lot of friends, so it was taking up a lot of my time.

However, complying with everyday society enabled my friends to see Dafa more positively. They came to better understand how I strive to be a good person. In addition, I often got chances to clarify the truth about how Dafa had changed me for the better, as well as about the truth of the persecution in China.

Also, my friends would often introduce me to their friends and family at social occasions as a Falun Gong practitioner, and ask me to tell them about Falun Gong and the persecution in China. This gave me a lot of chances to clarify the truth. One of my new close friends, whom I met through a mutual friend, recently accepted the copy of Zhuan Falun that I gave him and finished reading it.

So I feel that even though I spent some time complying with everyday society, it had a positive effect.

When I first started validating Dafa, I had a very simple job -- I didn't have to work very hard at it. As a result, I spent a lot of my time at work studying the Fa and reading Clearwisdom articles, and had plenty of time to do Fa-rectification work later. But the job did not pay enough for me to cover my college tuition expenses.

I started working for a professor this year. This helped me get a tuition waiver, but the job was very demanding and took up a lot of my time. As a result, I didn't have as much time as before to validate the Fa and take part in outdoor activities. Also, I had to spend time coordinating with a lot of people for a project and I had to handle my time well.

However, working for my professor was a blessing in disguise. The project that I am involved with has a lot of people working in different areas, and we interact mostly by e-mail. I made my e-mail signature contain a small note about Falun Gong and the persecution in China. This way, whoever read the e-mail would learn the truth about Falun Gong.

Also, I have a Chinese lab mate, and a lot of Chinese students are researchers in the department that I work in. Previous attempts to reach out to them did not have much of an impact. However, through working for my professor, I was able to interact with them much better. I was able to talk in-depth with quite a few Chinese students in my building while casually chatting with them after classes or in the eating area.

Also, my diligence at work impressed my professor. He allowed me to keep Dafa material and posters in the lab. Recently, he also increased my salary without my asking because he was impressed with the work that I did for him. I believe he has a good understanding of Dafa.

Oftentimes, I still feel bad that I have not been able to do as well as I was doing earlier in Dafa work. But I feel that the last year has made me mature in truth-clarification, and allowed me to clarify the truth in many ways that I never thought possible. It has also helped me be more clear-headed in terms of clarifying the truth to everyday people, in the family and work environment.

I would like to conclude by saying that the old forces sometimes create very complicated situations for us in order to make us feel guilty and give up cultivation. However, things are not always as bad as they seem, and can be turned around with Master's infinite grace. I hope that my experience is of help to fellow practitioners who are going through experiences similar to mine. 

Posting date: 11/13/2003
Original article date: 11/12/2003
Category: Practitioners' Insights