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Walking on the Path of Cultivation
By a Falun Dafa practitioner in Australia
Shared at 2005 Australia Falun Dafa Conference (Clearwisdom.net) Greetings to Master Li! Greetings to fellow practitioners! I am glad to have this chance to share my cultivation experience here. 1. Tests on My Cultivation Path After I came to Canada to study in1998, my classmate introduced me to Dafa,
but I developed some complacency, as I had been bothered by cheating and
mistrust in the human world. I seemed to find another excuse to avoid the
everyday conflicts. Such a mentality caused a longstanding weakness in my cultivation.
Particularly after July 1999, we started the Fa-rectification period without a
solid foundation in individual cultivation. As a student, my time was more
flexible than others, so I took part of the responsibility to clarify the truth
to the government and western society. At that time, not many people had heard
about Falun Gong and we started everything from scratch and asked for people's
help. At the same time, my school study was very busy. I felt the choice between my
personal career and Dafa work was selfless at that level, to let go my personal
career and interests and sacrifice a lot of time to make up for the void in Dafa
work. But the requirement of Dafa won't stay at one level forever. Once I let go
personal interests another test soon followed. Pressure at school became more intense and I could not finish my thesis. My
schoolmates and professors started to have a negative impression of me, that
because of practicing Dafa, I didn't study well and couldn't finish writing my
paper. My family also had misunderstandings about Dafa. At that time, I really
felt bitter in my mind, not just for the pressure and misunderstandings, but
more for my own limitation in cultivation, which caused losses to Dafa and
prevented the people around me from understanding the truth and being saved.
During those days, I felt like I was living under a big mountain and could not
even breathe easily. How could I pass this mountain-like test? I kept asking
myself if I could still continue cultivating and if I could still firmly believe
in Dafa, even if it meant losing everything. I told myself that even if I lost
everything, including my life, I would not give up cultivation. I calmed down to
study the Fa and cleanse myself. I started to realize that there were many attachments behind my previous
"selfish sacrifice" for Dafa: the attachment to consummation, and a
fear of losing the opportunity to establish my mighty virtue. Master Li told us
to be good persons in any environment, including work. Have I harmonized Dafa in
my own environment? Though a cultivator should let go everyday people's fame and
interests, don't we want to achieve the selfless and egoless realm in
cultivation? Now, could I do my job well, not for my interests, but for sentient
beings around me? After enlightening to this, I started to balance the time
between schoolwork and time to cultivate and clarify the truth. Afterwards, the
situations improved and I smoothly passed my PHD qualification exam, but I still
didn't achieve a fundamental breakthrough. I enlightened that I could not break through my current situation with my own
power, and that the answer lied within Dafa. My Fa study state was stuck in a
bottleneck for a long time. I studied 1-2 lectures per day and sometimes the
reading became so familiar that I read without fully realizing what I was
reading, and also felt sleepy sometimes. Also, I didn't have the state of
enlightening to new understandings of Fa principles while reading Dafa. I realized that my current problem was mainly due to the limited state of my
Fa study, until one day I read a Minghui article about reciting Dafa, and the
Chinese practitioner's happiness and sacred experience to recite Dafa
enlightened me a lot. In the past I heard other practitioners' stories of
reciting Dafa, but after trying for some time I felt it was too difficult and
stopped. This time, I decided to fundamentally change my Fa study situation and
was determined to persist in reciting Dafa no matter what difficulty I ran into.
Hence, I started to recite Zhuan Falun. Due to my limited time, at first I could only recite a few paragraphs in a
couple of hours, and was also severely interfered by thought karma, making me
feel not able to cultivate without so many bad thoughts. After overcoming interference in the early stage, I could gradually feel the
beauty of studying the Fa with a calm mind, and reciting Dafa by heart. Those
sentences that I used to read through quickly now appeared new and showed new
words when I recited them quietly. In order to increase the Fa study time, I
used any spare time I had to quietly recite Dafa or listen to Fa lectures so as
to dissolve the whole of my life into Dafa, including the time while riding my
bike to and from school, walking, doing housework, standing in line, etc.
Besides the time I needed to eat, sleep and work, I used the rest of my time to
do the three things that Master Li told us to do. When I was not clarifying the
truth, I would concentrate on reciting and studying Dafa or sending forth
righteous thoughts. I felt so wonderful by melting into Dafa and had a
compassionate mind-state every day, and also had strong righteous thoughts and
wisdom when clarifying the truth. With this breakthrough in Fa study, the tribulations in everyday life were no
longer a barrier. I started to make big progress in my thesis and finished the
other 2 papers in less than half a year, and my supervisor also felt impressed
by the logic and fluent writing in my third paper. Other students also felt
amazed by how one complicated question could be solved with a simple method. My
families also saw the wisdom and miracle that Dafa created in me, that I could
finish the PhD study and thesis writing in half of the time of my fellow
students. Then I smoothly passed the defense of my thesis and obtained my PhD
degree. After passing the test in school, the test of a job soon followed. As I
preferred working in the university, and North American universities were short
of vacancies due to the recession, I started to apply to universities around the
world and suddenly received an offer from a university in Sydney. I was faced
with the choice of where to go. 2. The Choice I Had to Make I obtained Dafa and participated in Fa-rectification in Canada, and have had
a deep predestined relationship with Canadian practitioners, and also benefited
a lot from that environment with many veteran practitioners and a tradition of
long-term group study. Now, to give up all these and go to a new environment to
start again, cultivation seemed to become uncertain. After learning I might be
leaving Canada and going to Australia to work, most of the feedback I heard was
disagreement: Is it worthwhile to go so far away to start from scratch at this
last stage of Fa-rectification? Will those projects that you participated in be
affected? At that same time, I also heard much feedback about Australia: a
complicated environment, spies, conflicts among practitioners, etc. Thinking
about leaving Canada, I wondered when I could come back to listen to Master's Fa
lectures. Also, starting in a new complicated environment, will this affect my
cultivation and participating in Fa-rectification work? Will this be the old
forces' arrangement or a pre-destined relationship with sentient beings in that
new land? It was difficult making a decision. Especially after the economy
recovered in North America, more and more job opportunities came to me and it
would not be hard for me to find a job in North America with a finance major. I
was stuck in a dilemma of how to choose. At this time of hesitation, I attended the 2004 Chicago Fa conference, and
one sentence of Master seemed to answer my puzzle, "A stone is a stone no matter where you place it, and a piece of gold
is a piece of gold no matter where you place it."("Teaching the Fa
at the 2004 Chicago Conference") Yes, if I could not cultivate well in a different environment, am I still a
stone? Can I get by in cultivating in an easy cultivation environment? If the
new environment has a complicated situation, it needs more righteous power and
support. If it is easy to cultivate in a good environment, won't Master want to
save the rest of the world and the sentient beings there? One day when I read Master's poetry, one poem touched my heart, "Tathagata:" "He comes with the Truth, which gives him full control I suddenly felt the selfless mind-state of great enlightened beings, to be
responsible for righteous factors in the cosmos and willing to sacrifice
everything for others. I asked myself if I believe Master is taking care of
every practitioner's path. Dare I let go of my concern and fear and leave my
future to be arranged by Dafa and Master? Even if I could not do much in the new
environment, it is still good if I can add one more righteous element and save
one more being. Though understanding the principle, the process to let go of oneself is not
always so easy. The next step to immigrate and move was smooth, but my mind was
not always so peaceful. From time to time, I would worry whether I would regret
such a choice, or whether I could continue cultivating. At this time, I often
remembered Master Li's words in "Teaching the Fa at the Conference in
Switzerland" which shocked me deeply, "I can give up to the greatest extent possible everything of mine, and
that is why I can resolve all of it." I think if I could let go of my concern for personal gain and loss, including
the attachment to consummation, I have nothing to be afraid of, or no barrier
can stop me in cultivation. When my family and I set out from Canada to
Australia and all the old experiences were left behind, I had a feeling of
"revival" and felt that a new journey in cultivation would start. 3. Cultivating in a New Environment The process of starting in the new environment was easier than I imagined.
Australian practitioners are more simple and sincere than I heard. Though I also
ran into various conflicts and problems, including the basic issues in
cultivation, I am touched by practitioners' sincere hearts working for Dafa.
During the process of clarifying the truth to everyday people, I am also deeply
impressed by the kindness and justice of Australian people, and feel more
closely Master's hope for this land and people here to be also saved. When clarifying the truth to people from different walks of life, I could
often experience Master's great arrangements and everyday people earnestly
waiting to be saved. For example, when passing by a minister's office, the
minister suddenly walked out and smiled at us. We went into an MP's office
without an appointment and clarified the truth to MP's and their assistants for
quite some time. When delivering the truth-clarifying materials to an MP's
office and talking to the assistant, the MP suddenly came back to the office in
the middle of our meeting and cheerfully talked to us for quite a long time. We
had just missed one person when clarifying the truth, when she suddenly came out
from another door. We ran across a big sale of envelopes when looking for
envelopes for truth clarification packages, etc... We ran into so many similar stories that it is hard to describe, but we can
only feel by our hearts the miraculous power of Dafa. Such power could only be
felt and manifested during the process of clarifying the truth and practical
cultivation. As Master Li said in Zhuan Falun, "For a practitioner, one's mind-intent dictates supernormal abilities
to do things. For an everyday person, one's mind-intent directs the four limbs
and the sensory organs to work." I came to understand that whatever Dafa work we do, the main determining
factors depend on the power of Dafa in other dimensions. When Dafa work has good
effect, the fundamental reason is not how wise our methods in the human world
are or how capable those practitioners are, but because we conform to the
requirements of Dafa, and our mind-state meets the standard. Master and gods in
other dimensions give us a hand, so the power of Dafa is naturally manifested in
the human world. When some Dafa work doesn't have good results, it is not
because Dafa doesn't have that power, but that our mind-states and realms don't
meet the requirement of Fa, so the power of Dafa is restricted by our
limitation. In the past few months' Dafa activities, I saw good experiences and poor
ones. I found that no matter whether it is a large-scale activity or
face-to-face truth clarification, when practitioners from different groups don't
have too many barriers and arguments, and practitioners can work together to
participate in the events and support each other, the results were unexpectedly
positive and the whole event was covered by a harmonious, compassionate field.
But when some practitioners stuck to their own opinions or had barriers in their
minds, the results were not satisfactory. As Master said, "For Dafa disciples as a whole, in the process of validating the Fa,
when you work together in concert, the Fa power is great. Whether you're doing
things as a group or doing things individually, what you're doing is the same
kind of thing, and that's what we mean by one entity. You're all clarifying
the truth, sending righteous thoughts, and studying the Fa, so the specifics
of the things you're doing are different but the division of roles is orderly,
together there's a form, and separated there are particles."
("Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa
Conference") I came to the understanding that no matter whether promoting the Nine
Commentaries or clarifying the truth of Falun Gong to the government, there
is no shortcut. Everything is included if we can do the three things well. I
feel that we have organized a lot of activities, but the main questions that we
are faced with relate to the salvation of more sentient beings, and include the
issue of whether we can study the Fa well, if we can form a harmonious group
study environment and tradition to share frankly and compare our cultivation, if
we can persist in clarifying the truth to as wide a variety of groups in society
as possible, and if we can overcome the personal conflicts and project barriers
and have better communication and coordination as one body, etc. Sometimes, when seeing how some politicians sold out the Australian people
and assisted the evil, I also felt frustrated and lost confidence in clarifying
the truth to them. At this time, when studying the Fa I saw Master's hint, "Wherever there's a problem, that is where you need to clarify the
truth and save people. Don't take a detour when you run into difficulties.
When you see something that does us harm, or when you see something blocking
our validating the Fa, don't take a detour -- you should face it, and clarify
the truth and save those beings." ("Teaching the Fa at the
Washington, D.C. Fa Conference 2002") I came to the understanding that there is no shortcut in cultivation and
clarifying the truth to save people. It is long-term work and a test for all
practitioners, and we should not count on a few big activities to completely
change the situation. It needs our persistent efforts without pursuit to clarify
the truth and save people. Big activities cannot replace solid and comprehensive
work to clarify the truth, and many sharings cannot replace the cultivation
process in clarifying the truth. Only when all practitioners take action and help the majority of Australian
people understand the truth, so that more and more people will condemn the
persecution and support Dafa, can the government's attitude be rectified. Gods
judge people by their actions, not by what they think or say. If say, we clarify
the truth to a wide variety of people in society and help a lot more people
understand the truth, so that several hundred thousand people sign petitions to
the government, several hundred NGO's write letters to support us and dozens of
MP's condemn the persecution, what impact it will have on the government and is
there any extra room for a few politicians to continue assisting the evil? When
people understand the truth, their hearts are rectified and the unrighteous
factors and evil won't have the field to exist. I also had a poor experience due to my attachments. For example, after a
local school didn't remove our Falun Dafa club from its web site despite
pressure from the CCP, I wrote reports to our web sites about this incident with
complacency and exaggeration of the facts. The evil increased the pressure on
the school so that this school removed Dafa club from its web site with the
excuse of misrepresentation in media reports. Though the problem got partially
solved through clarifying the truth, it left me with a hard lesson. Cultivation
is so serious that any omission might lead to loopholes for the evil to use to
cause damage to sentient beings. I also ran into quite a few xinxing tests. For example, I heard
some rumors that two Canadian practitioners were deceived into joining a certain
group of practitioners. At that time, I felt wronged as I didn't have the notion
of group and section. I just tried to give support to as much Dafa work as I
could. It was unexpected that we would incur complaints for this. I think that
if most of practitioners' energies were spent on such "internal
friction," how much extra energy would we to have clarify the truth and
offer salvation to more everyday people? But later on, I searched inside and I
also realized Master's intention, "I can't just let you work without
reaching Consummation."(" A Person in Charge is Also a
Cultivator," Essentials for Further Advancement) If everything we do
runs smoothly with voices of praise, do we still have a chance to cultivate and
improve? It is a test to see if our hearts are moved during the conflict and if
we can continue doing the things that we should do, and at the same time
tolerate different opinions with great compassion, and try our best to support
Dafa work in all other projects. Recently, due to different understandings about "Quitting the CCP
organization," I ran into another xinxing conflict. Though I tried
to cooperate with other practitioners to promote the Nine Commentaries
and quitting the CCP, I still felt uncomfortable in my mind without any clear
reason, and could not cooperate and support it with my full strength, until one
day when I was in sitting meditation with an uneasy feeling in my mind. I
suddenly remembered the story that Master told during a Fa lecture, about how
Shakyamuni's disciples collected their bowls to beg for food, and also comparing
how your bowl is golden and my bowl is jade...The first time I heard this story,
I felt that those monks' attachments were funny. Today I suddenly realized that
my attachment to formality was as funny as those monks attachment to their
bowls. I also had a hidden attachment to prove myself and show off my good work,
so I could not completely let go myself and cooperate with other practitioners
with different opinions. Whether it was a jade bowl or a golden bowl, they are
all tools to "get food" for a pre-destined relationship. When I was
attached to the formality, did I still remember its real purpose? Have I used
that "bowl" to "travel widely for food" and connect
pre-destined relationships for more sentient beings to be saved? If my
attachment to the form of the bowl delays my efforts to save beings, what
perfect form can make up for such big losses? With this enlightenment, the
uneasy feeling in my mind suddenly melted and I no longer had a barrier
cooperating with other practitioners. Sometimes I also feel worried about an unsatisfactory situation. At such
times, I would ask myself if I have put 100% of my heart and effort into
validating Dafa and saving sentient beings. Have I made full use of every second
and minute? I feel very ashamed of the gap between my state and the requirement
of Dafa on me. In the past, I felt good about my cultivation state in a familiar
environment. Today in this new environment, many previously unrealized
attachments and shortcomings were exposed to me. I really appreciate Master's
kind arrangement to help me improve and benefit in this new cultivation
environment so that I can treat my cultivation and Fa-rectification more
seriously. Reflecting on the past 7 years of my cultivation path, nothing could pay back
or describe my appreciation for Master's great compassion and support. The only
thing I can think of is to redouble my efforts to save people and fulfill
Master's wishes. In the last stage of Fa-rectification, I hope we can remind and
support each other to do the three things well, cherish this unprecedented
precious opportunity, and don't let down Master's salvation and the sentient
beings who are waiting! Thank you Master Li! Thank you, fellow practitioners! |