Memorizing the Fa
By a Dafa practitioner in China
(Clearwisdom.net) I have just finished memorizing Zhuan Falun
for another time. It has made me remember the past and there are some stories
that I would like to share. I was lucky enough to discover the practice of Falun Dafa at the end of 1998.
I often felt that I did not come across it early enough. When I read Zhuan
Falun, I often lost focus. I also liked to read the lectures Teacher gave
outside China. One time I read an experience sharing from the Minghui website
about studying the Fa and it occurred to me that I would not lose focus if I
memorized the Fa. So I began to memorize the Fa starting in March of 1999. When I first began it was very difficult for me because I had only read the
whole book a few times and there still were many things not yet cleaned up in
me. I really liked memorizing the book. I still remember when I progressed to
the paragraph where Teacher explained "Why can this be done for a
practitioner, then?" It was in the spring of 1999. One day while I was
riding my bike home after a group exercise session, I was memorizing "We
see that in this universe a human life is not created in ordinary human society;
the creation of one's actual life is in the space of the universe." I
really felt that every single part of me could sense that the spring had come. I
was not really sure about this feeling, but now that I look back at it, that
moment was when my life really began. The best thing about memorizing the Fa is that you can't lose focus while you
are memorizing it because you have to be mentally involved. Another great
advantage is that you can study the Fa wherever you go and you can enlighten to
things at anytime. It is very easy. When you make up your mind to pick up the
book and memorize it, your battle with thought karma and all kinds of
interference begins. However, very soon you will finish the battle and find that
you have won. When I had almost finished memorizing the second lecture, July 20, 1999 came.
Everyone was flooded with tons of propaganda from the media. I gradually became
confused. I wanted to log onto Minghui but it was blocked, and I was left with
no source of positive information. I thought, "Forget it, let me stop it
for a while." I discontinued memorizing the Fa for the first time. This "giving up" was really serious, and all the bad things came
back to me. One time a friend of mine offered me a cigarette, at first I
hesitated for a bit, but then I lit up. I vaguely remembered Teacher at that
moment, but it seemed like a long time ago. By the end of August, I was
struggling with the desires of fame and personal gain. All of a sudden a thought
came up, "Is all of the propaganda true? Do Buddhas exist? Are there other
dimensions?" I pondered these questions a lot that day and felt that such thoughts were
very important. I had to find some answers. If there were no Buddhas, then I
would forget about it and move on. So I went to the largest bookstore in the
city and started to read some books. By coincidence, I came across an
encyclopedia entry talking about some important archaeological discoveries in
the 20th century. I randomly flipped through it and realized that
what was said in Zhuan Falun was true. There were also other important
discoveries not mentioned in Zhuan Falun in the field of archaeology that
pointed to the existence of gods. I read the book for a long time. After I went home, I thought, "It seems that Buddhas do exist. I must
keep on cultivating. But should I practice Buddhism or Falun Dafa?" The
minute this thought came up, I chose Falun Dafa. If Buddhas exist, I must
practice Falun Dafa. So I picked up Zhuan Falun again and continued
memorizing the book after I had stopped for more than a month. The very next day after I resumed memorizing the book, I ran into a veteran
practitioner I had met once and she gave me an IP address. When I logged on, the
Minghui website appeared, and I thought, "Ah, this is the truth. The
reports from the media are vicious lies." Now that I think about it, it was really amazing. Teacher always watched over
me, seeing whether I could enlighten independently in this important test and
make my final choice. "Once a person wants to practice cultivation, his or
her Buddha-nature is considered to have come forth. Such a thought is most
precious, for this person wants to return to his or her original, true self and
transcend the ordinary human level." Teacher had waited for me patiently
after I had stopped the practice for a month. Luckily my true nature was not
totally covered up, and Teacher helped me to come back. I continued memorizing the book. This time there was a totally different
feeling and I was able to memorize it faster and faster. I started with four
pages a day, then ten pages or more each day. I usually memorized the book in
the morning and reviewed it in the afternoon (I did not work at the time). My
head was full of pages from Zhuan Falun. Often I woke up in the middle of
the night, and the first thing I would do was to memorize the book until I fell
asleep again. Eventually it became that I could not tell whether I was
memorizing the book while I was awake or in a dream. Towards the end of 1999, I finally finished memorizing the whole text of Zhuan
Falun for the first time. I remembered reading another practitioner's
experience: you need to go through it ten times before you can remember it well.
So I began to memorize it for the second time. This time I progressed much
faster. It took me one day to recite the first lecture, and two days to recite
the second lecture. In the beginning of 2000, I reached the 5th
lecture for the second time. At this point, I started to go outside to practice every day. However,
someone tipped off the police, and I was jailed for 15 days. After I came out, I
went to work at a new company. As I did not have as much free time, I gave up
reciting Zhuan Falun. Three years had passed before I realized the
tremendous price I paid for not continuing. During those three years, many things happened. Fa-rectification had turned
the universe and the human world inside out. I myself also went through a lot. I
have been held in brainwashing centers, detention centers, and forced labor
camps many times. Sometimes I did better; other times, I did poorly. It was a
long, winding road. It was very hard. Although I was able to recite the whole
text of Zhuan Falun one time and the first five lectures a second time, I
could only now remember vaguely the first two lectures. I regretted that I did
not persist in memorizing Zhuan Falun. What made me decide to pick it up again was when I recited Master' text at
the detention center. Even a short passage would demonstrate to me the boundless
and magnificent Fa principles. At that time, I was also sending forth righteous
thoughts persistently. I kept reciting the first two lectures that I remembered.
I did not do it to accomplish a task or to lighten the persecution, it was only
for my own improvement. I felt so wonderful. For example, one day, while I was reciting the passage, "when a person's
body moves, the cells in the body will also move, and at the microscopic level
all elements, such as all molecules, protons, electrons, and the most
microscopic particles, will also move. Yet they have their own independent forms
of existence, and the forms of the body in other dimensions will also undergo a
change." (Zhuan Falun, Lecture Two), suddenly, I understood the
wonder of our own bodies; the divine bodies at different levels move along with
the righteous thoughts of the main body: they are studying the Fa, practicing
the exercises, sending forth righteous thoughts and clarifying the truth, and
doing magnificent things at their levels. And yet, we look so ordinary in the
human world. When I understood the truth, I was very excited. I told my fellow
practitioners whenever I had a chance, "You don't know how great you are
when you are sending forth righteous thoughts. Never feel it is too ordinary or
get frustrated simply because you cannot see the outcome." The more I recited, the more I regretted that I hadn't continued earlier.
There is so much wonder in the Fa. One day, I was reciting this passage,
"It's about a monk who meditated and his soul went to the Western Paradise
and saw some scenes. He strolled around for a day there and came back to the
human world, where a good six years had passed." Right
away, I remembered the Fa taught by Master Li in the USA about Buddha Amitabha
and the Paradise of Ultimate Bliss. My mind went over the Paradise of Ultimate
Bliss and looked back at Sumeru Mountain. I thought, "Oh, it is like
this." My mind traveled in the dazzlingly, wonderful world... As I continued to recite the Fa, I came to understand one thing: why had it
been so difficult in the past few years? Why did I make so many mistakes? It was
the price I paid for giving up on reciting the Fa. It was not so much the fact
that I gave up reciting Zhuan Falun; it was more because I had given up
being diligent with Fa-study. In the face of the unprecedented tribulations in
human history, at the critical moments of Fa-rectification, I did not spend an
unprecedented effort on Fa-study and Fa assimilation. It was easy to see why I
could not walk well on my path. I realized clearly that if I had not given up reciting the Fa and had
continued to recite, maintaining the diligence, I would not have been arrested
and held by the evil. My path would have been different and the losses would
have been minimized. I made up my mind then that the first thing I would do
would be to recite Zhuan Falun when I got out. However, when I was released I slacked off again. I was faced with tremendous
tribulations, to the point where I was almost destroyed. I finally picked up Zhuan
Falun in August 2003 and started to recite it again. Three years and eight
months had passed since the last time I recited it. This time, my experience was different from the last two times. Having
experienced so much, I have a different understanding of the Fa and my
perspective is different. I realized what it means to be "born again." I completed this round of reciting Zhuan Falun in a very tight
schedule. I am a technical person and I am responsible for the maintenance of
production sites for truth-clarifying materials. I spend a lot of time traveling
on long-distance buses, but I feel that Master Li is watching over me and
strengthening me all of the time. Whichever lecture I am reciting, there are
always incidents which help me understand the Fa principles. As I continue to
recite the Fa, our production sites are getting better and better, and I feel
that my abilities are getting stronger. When I started lecture 7, I could not control the tears flowing from my eyes
while I memorized the Fa. One day, while I read, "The child will begin to suffer from an early age. When it grows
mature, the master will come back. Of course, the child cannot recognize him.
Using supernormal abilities, the master will unlock its saved memory. It will
at once recall everything. 'Isn't this my master?' The master will tell it:
'Now, it's time to start the practice.' Thus, after many years the master
will pass the teachings to it." I had to stop and I burst into tears for a long time. In the human world, I
had lost my father when I was a teenager and I had lost my mom when I was a
youth. During the next few dozen years, I experienced many hardships and
difficulties and I cried. But never had I cried like I did on that day. It was
the return to my true self. I deeply feel Teacher's graciousness and a debt that
I cannot repay. Last week, I finally finished memorizing the last sentence of Zhuan Falun.
I silently burst into tears, feeling an incomparable happiness. I am not sure if fellow practitioners have ever thought about this question:
If Fa-rectification ends one day, our cultivation will also end, then will there
be an end to our time of studying the Fa? Will it be cut off on a certain day as
well? Are we losing one day every day? Sometimes when I see fellow practitioners
spending their thoughts and energy on unnecessary things, I really feel
distressed. We should really have a good idea of what we are here for, and what
the most precious, biggest, most ultimate happiness for a living being is. We
should repeatedly and clearly think about these questions! When I was holding the book yesterday, I truly and clearly felt that it is
not an ordinary book, but the creator of my life and the end result as well. I
had the mentality of completing the task, improving myself, and lessening the
persecution or wanting to gain something when I memorized the Fa before, but now
I can clearly feel happiness that comes from simply memorizing the Fa. The most
cheerful time in my day is when I memorize the book. Therefore my reason for
memorizing the book is very simple: I "like" to do so. For the moment, I will finish my story about memorizing the Fa. I would like
to share a small bit of my experience with the practitioners who want to
memorize the Fa but have not yet started: 1. It is better not to expect that you can completely remember it the first
time, otherwise it will be very difficult, and easy to give up if you can't
reach the goal. You need to be prepared to memorize it a few times, just like
reading through the whole book many times. 2. Don't be afraid of forgetting the contents, because it is normal that you
will remember the latter part and forget the earlier part. The part that you
have cultivated well would be moved over, and it is the same for the part of you
that can memorize the Fa well. If you always fear that you will forget the
earlier part and repeatedly memorize it, it may affect your confidence and slow
down the progress. It can severely affect your confidence. In fact, when you
memorize it the second time, you may find that you have actually not forgotten
the parts you thought you had. 3. It is the best to be focused. My experience is that if I memorize the Fa,
it is better to not read through the book. I used all the time of reading Zhuan
Falun to memorize the Fa, and used all my brain's spare time to memorize the
Fa. (Previously all sorts of messy thoughts often occupied my brain). Staying
focused on one task is more efficient. 4. Don't worry that your memory may not be good, and don't think your speed
is too slow. "Cultivation depends on one's own efforts, while transforming
gong is done by one's master." Just recite without any attachment and wait
to see the result. It is guaranteed that it will be different from what you
initially imagined. The last point is that reciting the book is not the end goal, it is only the
method. The ultimate significance is to assimilate into Dafa. Finally, let's review together Teacher's Fa in relation to reciting the book: "Question: Time is limited. While I want to
read through the book, I also want to memorize the book. But then I feel that
memorizing the book will affect my reading through the book. How can I balance
the two? Teacher: Reading through the book contributes tremendously to your
improvement. If you want to memorize the book, you can only put your effort
into trying to memorize it within a designated time. This will spare you later
on from having to read with the book in hand. But you'll have to set aside
some time to concentrate on memorizing it. Otherwise, if you want to read,
then you also want to memorize, and then you go back to wanting to read again,
thinking like this all the time will get you stuck in this situation. Your
memorizing the book won't affect your reading, nor will it hinder your
advancement due to a lack of reading through the book. This is because when
you memorize the book, behind every word there are infinite Buddhas, Daos, and
Gods, and every word can enable you to understand the principles at different
levels." (Lecture at the Conference in Europe) "Some of you are able to memorize the Fa. Why is it that after some
time you forget even the parts that you'd memorized really well? It's because
the part of you that had memorized the book really well became fully
cultivated and was moved over. What's left is the part that still doesn't
understand, so you still need to continue to study the Fa." (Lecture
at the Assistants' Fa Conference in Changchun) "I'm just giving you the idea. They said: "Why don't we memorize
something that's this good? It requires us to be good people at every moment
among everyday people and it enables us to improve, wouldn't it be better if
we could memorize it? Then we'll have something we can measure ourselves
against at every moment." That's how they started a "book-memorizing
upsurge." (Explaining the Content of Falun Dafa) Note: Above quotes of Teacher's words are all from Zhuan Falun except
otherwise indicated.
Chinese version available at
http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/2/8/66877.html
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