By a practitioner from Hebei Province, China

(Clearwisdom.net) I was recently arrested, but soon regained my freedom. Nevertheless, I incurred heavy losses. Why had this happened to me? I used to think that if I diligently practiced cultivation and made the best use of my time in doing the three things that Teacher requires of us, then the evil forces would not persecute me. With a calm mind, I searched within myself, and discovered my biggest omission was that my basic objective was not pure enough.

Confident that my cultivation would be perfect as long as I did my best to do the three things, I didn't initially pay enough attention to the undesired results. Now, in a flash, I have gained an insight into my problem, which is actually that my primary objective was individual cultivation. I had set strict demands on myself, allowing no excuses. Whenever I made a mistake, I would blame myself, feel upset about it and then correct the mistake. When I worked on Fa-rectification projects, I wasn't too concerned about coordinating my efforts with fellow practitioners. Being satisfied that I had done everything possible, I ignored some omissions that I recognized in fellow practitioners. Allowing them the excuse that they too were cultivating and would surely move up eventually, I didn't bother to address those problems. As a result, we worked together on Fa-rectification projects, but we failed to act as one body. I allowed myself to become overloaded with responsibility and had limited time, but never considered asking other practitioners, including my family members, to help me with anything because I doubted that their xinxing (moral character, heart or mind nature) was high enough to do what I did. However, I now realize that the real problem was in my own xinxing. The foundation upon which I considered these issues was impure because my basic objective did not include all of us practitioners. We should have been diligently cultivating and upgrading our levels together. However, I rationalized that it would be difficult to remain tolerant and harmonious if I were to measure others by my own criteria or if I tried to impose my opinions, so my focus was only on other practitioners' faults, and I ignored their enlightened side.

Why couldn't I continue to keep realizing ever-higher principles in my Fa study as I had once done? Why did the result of all my Fa study seem so lacking? I came to understand that the Fa had yet a higher requirement. As Falun Dafa practitioners in the Fa-rectification period, we are facing all kinds of persecution by the evil forces. As long as my basic objective in studying the Fa was not pure, the evil forces would interfere with me in various guises, and I would be unable to get rid of the interference. The evil forces were making me follow their own arrangements and impeding my progress. Because my primary concern was my own cultivation, I failed to eliminate the interference and simply became busier and busier. I kept working, allowing myself only minimal rest, assuming that taking a rest would make me sluggish and lazy. I had even convinced myself that I was tempering my willpower whenever I tried to ignore or deny my fatigue. However, I often fell asleep when studying the Fa or sending forth righteous thoughts. I was going through the motions of doing these things, but wasn't really succeeding. I had been unable to study the Fa with a calm mind for quite awhile, and didn't even have a clear recollection of the point at which I had begun to drift away from the Fa. My own field was not clean and my righteous thoughts were not strong enough. Consequently, I could not maintain mental tranquility and the evil factors were able to avail themselves of my loopholes.

The root cause of these effects was that I had been paying too much attention to myself and was putting personal cultivation above safeguarding and upholding Dafa in the Fa-rectification period. Whenever I made a mistake, I had to correct it, allowing zero tolerance for any potential oversight. I had become so mentally fatigued from continually accepting more Dafa work than I could handle, and being unable to it well by myself, that I remained mired in a mood of inferiority. While I appeared to be diligently cultivating, I had actually deviated from my limited basis of individual cultivation. I realized that in order to make amends, I should view my problem from a perspective based on the Fa. When I finally discovered the root of my problem, I felt so unburdened and relaxed! As Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples, we must be selfless and indifferent to our own interests. Everything we do is done to assist Teacher with the Fa-rectification and for the salvation of sentient beings. Falun Dafa has enlightened me to rectify my mistakes, and I will surely take my final steps well.

Posting date: 1/4/2004
Original article date: 1/4/2004
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/12/15/62553.html

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