The Cultivation Environment and Its Relation to Me

By Zhengyuan

(Clearwisdom.net)

Not long ago, I had frequent discussions with other practitioners regarding the shortfalls of our local group's cultivation environment. Speaking with fervor and assurance, I even believed that I had advanced and obtained a deeper understanding of the Fa. However, I gradually realized that this mind-set was not correct.

Later, I read from Zhuan Falun,

"There are also some qigong masters who claim that hospitals cannot cure illnesses, and that the efficacy of hospital treatments is just like such and such. How should we speak of this? Of course, it involves reasons from many areas. In my view, the principal one is that human moral values have hit a low point, leading to a variety of odd diseases that hospitals cannot cure. Taking medicine is not effective, either. There are a lot of phony drugs as well. It is all because of the extent to which human society has become corrupt. Nobody should blame others for it, as everyone has added fuel to the flame. Consequently, everyone will come across tribulations in cultivation practice."

I suddenly enlightened to the fact that problems within a cultivation environment are similar in that everyone has contributed to the problems. A problem within a group is not caused by one or a few members, but is the reflection of everyone's problems within the group. Based on this understanding, I began to look inside myself. I asked myself, "Why am I cultivating in this environment? Why am I seeing these problems? What negative elements have I brought into this environment? And how can I improve it?" I found that it was very difficult to explore the problem from this angle because it is very painful to dig out one's own attachments. Out of confusion, the search often ended in vain. I realized that if changing oneself is so difficult, how could it be possible to change others? I must first cultivate myself well. Then I can clean up the part of the environment that corresponds to me. I think this is probably the best approach.

So I would like to remind everyone to study the Fa and look inside oneself for attachments. I also want to raise the awareness of cultivating as one whole body. We can kindly point out the shortfalls of others at appropriate times, when circumstances arise. When all of us have a strong sense of cultivation, we will look inside ourselves when being criticized. Otherwise, conflicts will become bigger, and old forces will use them as excuses to create tribulations for us. This will hinder the Fa-rectification progress.
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/3/13/46381.html

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