Greetings Master! Greetings fellow practitioners!

It's hard to believe that almost four years have gone by since I first attended a nine-day seminar and began my journey of cultivation. Looking back at my own experiences, problems, and lessons learned during this period, I see a common thread that runs straight through them all: in all matters, regardless of how complicated things may seem, it is essential to remain grounded in the fundamentals of cultivation.

Not long after I started participating in various writing projects, the truth of Master's words in the article, "Further Understanding" (Essentials for Further Advancement) really hit home:

I wanted everything I did to be perfect. After all, didn't our words represent Dafa to the world? To some extent, this was genuine idealism, but now, looking back, I can see that my attitude was not totally righteous, as it was formed at least in part by an attachment to reputation. I could not easily accept criticism, so I would seek perfection in the hope there would be nothing for anyone to complain about. I was doing the right thing, but not for the right reason. Of course, as what we fear most is bound to come upon us, such an attitude on my part all but guaranteed that someone would still find something wrong with my work, and indeed, this was more often than not the case.

Every day, we have to put our understanding on the line as we discuss all kinds of matters from the standpoint of the Fa, including language problems, the suitability for certain subjects to be presented to our readers, and much more. There is no place to hide and no way to fake our understanding or our abilities. We communicate mostly by email, and I think most of us perhaps would like to take back some of those that we sent out. Because no one has time to write a formal response to every subject that comes up, our spontaneously scribbled emails tend to reveal all the imperfections at our human surface, and any lack of compassion that might exist in our hearts tends to be highlighted and intensified. The result is that we hurt people often, many times without even knowing it, and if their ability to forbear is a little short that day, we receive the same unkindness back again a day or a week later and wonder why that person is being so mean to us! Courtesy and subtlety of expression sometimes seem like luxuries for which we don't have time, but I believe these attributes of benevolence are a prerequisite to fully achieving Truthfulness in our relationships. Truthfulness that lacks Compassion is not really Truthfulness at all; it is merely bluntness. It has no power to either lead others to agreement or inspire them to greater achievement, and is but a distorted reflection of the characteristic of the universe. Of course, I'm talking here of the true compassion that comes from the cultivation of one's heart, not something impure that's covered up with carefully crafted words that sound good.

But of all the lessons that this rich cultivation environment helped me to learn, I think the greatest and most profound is simply the very fundamental principle to look within--all the time, no excuses, no exceptions.

From the first time I heard the words "look within," I thought I understood them and I thought I saw the necessity of doing so, but my failure on so many occasions to abide by this principle is proof in and of itself that my understanding and faith were lacking. I have to admit that I easily fall prey to believing I understand something absolutely, regardless of how deep or how shallow my understanding might actually be. Thus it was not hard for me to be lulled into complacency and take these two little words for granted, or use them in the wrong spirit. At times I thought these words pointed to something that someone else ought to do, and thus their meaning became, "I'm right and you are wrong!" Other times it seemed like they lost their meaning altogether, and became just something I said out of habit. This much is certain: if I'm "looking within" to find the source of a problem, and all I can see are the names and faces of my fellow practitioners, then I'm not really looking within at all.

After going through a particularly difficult period recently in which I was unhappy with just about everyone and everything, I realized that the two mind-activities of looking inward and seeking externally are not only opposite in nature, they are also mutually exclusive and antagonistic to one another; that is, as one advances, the other necessarily retreats. A person can only do one or the other at the same time, and the stronger one's ability is to do one, the weaker it will be to do the other. I was rather shocked to discover this, for I realized that not only had I been wasting a lot of time in negative mental states in which I was blaming everyone but myself for this or that problem, but I was also very definitely harming myself in the process by reducing my ability to fulfill a fundamental requirement of a Dafa cultivator.

Shortly after making this breakthrough, another thought came to mind--that the concept of looking within is inseparable from another fundamental principle in Falun Dafa, that of putting others first. When my mind was bent on judging others--especially when I judged them harshly, but in fact, also even when I judged them as "good"-- I was definitely not in the proper state to truly put them first. When we judge someone this way, haven't we already put ourselves first? Thus, it seems to me that we cannot even talk about putting others first if we have not thoroughly learned the importance of looking within to solve our problems.

Problems in Fa-rectification cultivation often appear to have their roots in the fundamentals of personal cultivation. For example, there have been many articles published on the Clearwisdom website in which practitioners realized that their efforts at truth-clarification were severely hampered by a deficiency of compassion. And I can't help but wonder, as I look back over the past four years, how much more powerful and effective my own truth-clarification efforts might have been had I been more solidly grounded in the fundamentals of cultivation. Why does forbearance seem not that difficult when we read about it in Zhuan Falun, but so very hard to do when real-life circumstances require it? Every conflict gives us an opportunity to find our attachments so we can let go of them, but I think there has to be an understanding among Dafa disciples that although there will be conflicts in the course of working together, those conflicts must take place in a field of benevolence, where neither party forgets to look within and put the other first. In this type of environment, practitioners can find ways to say things, reveal truths, and come to common understandings that would otherwise be impossible.

Of course, we cannot forget about interference from the old forces, or discount their attempts to manipulate us into following their arrangements. This also involves looking within to find any gaps or deficiencies in our righteous thoughts through which the interference could get in. In "Teaching the Fa during the 2003 Lantern Festival at the Western United States Fa Conference," Teacher said,

This points once again to the importance of daily Fa study, as this is the source of our righteous thoughts. When conflicts or misunderstandings arise, in addition to sending forth righteous thoughts at set times, it would be helpful to send righteous thoughts immediately to clear away any interference that may be clouding our judgment and making us see things in a distorted way or see things that are not even there.

In conclusion, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to everyone I've worked with over the past four years. We have not always agreed on everything, and there have been some difficult times, but looking back, my only regrets have to do with the memories of my own mistakes and shortcomings. It has truly been an honor and a privilege to serve with you in this great and glorious Fa-rectification period. And most of all, I would like to express my gratitude to Master Li for giving us this opportunity to learn and live and advance together in the Fa. Thank You Master.

These are some of my understandings at this point in time. Please point out anything that is incorrect.