Be a Diligent Disciple

By a Dafa Practitioner from China

(Clearwisdom.net) One day I rode my bike to visit a fellow practitioner, Xiao Li.

It was a long and windy ride and I started to get hungry on my way. When I arrived at Xiao Li's home, he was cooking dumplings. Xiao said to me: "I was just wondering when you would arrive."

We are not very familiar with each other and live far apart. We are busy with different Dafa projects. This was my first visit to his home. When Xiao Li asked me to eat with his family, I felt a little shy. He said, "Dafa practitioners are all family members." His words connected our hearts.

After lunch, we started to share experiences. Xiao Li told me that he was not able to stop crying when he watched Master's lecture tapes the day before. Tears rolled down his cheeks again when he told me about it. I deeply felt his firm faith in Master when he shared this with me. Despite being faced with the evil persecution, there was only Master and saving sentient beings in his mind. I am very proud to know such a great fellow practitioner, and happy that Master has such a great disciple.

I told Xiao Li that "Minghui Weekly" published many great articles during 2003 and 2004. I was touched every time I noticed a fellow practitioners' firm faith in Master and the Fa. Xiao Li agreed and said, "I read an article like that. A practitioner went to prison to visit a fellow practitioner, and brought some of Master's new articles for the practitioner. When he saw the fellow practitioner, he told him that he brought a letter from our father."

"A letter from our father" expressed both this practitioners' deep and firm faith in Master, and how deeply we all miss our Master, like lost children missing our father.

On my way home, I kept thinking about these words, "a letter from our father." This time I shed tears of joy. I was thinking that I might not be a good child of our father. Several days ago, a fellow practitioner asked me, "Could you read Master's Fa overnight without even feeling tired?" I admitted that I could not. I asked myself, why not? Why am I so attached to personal comfort?

During past years, I know I did not cultivate as diligently as others. I knew that I could not go to Tiananmen Square in order to validate Dafa like some fellow practitioners, but I did not know the reason. When making truth clarification materials fellow practitioners rode their bikes dozens of miles in order to bring me paper and ink. I knew that I did not have the same enthusiasm. I knew I was not diligent, but I did not know how to break through this situation. I felt frustrated.

Later, I started memorizing the Fa, yet I did not see any significant improvement. The evil took advantage of my omission and persecuted me. I was forced to leave my home for nearly two years. When leaving home, a thought came to my mind that I must validate Dafa even if I have to collect junk in order to make a living. I would send all the money I made to material production centers even if I could not make truth clarification materials myself. At that point in time I felt as though I had lost everything; the home I had lived in for decades and everything in my home. At that point I only had Master and Dafa.

When living outside of my home, I still made truth clarification materials because there was no one else that could do it in the area. I had a dream one night where a fellow practitioner ran up to me and handed me a relay baton. I took the baton and ran into a dark night while reciting "The Fa rectifies the Cosmos; the Evil is completely eliminated." I knew Master was encouraging me to do better. Yet, other than doing my best by hand writing and distributing truth clarification materials, I did not know how else to improve.

In the spring of 2005, I finally rented a stable place to live in and started to print truth clarification materials. My wife asked me, "How come you cannot find a job and make more money?" I said, "I would like to use this time to study the Fa and improve myself; this way we can validate Dafa better. We have enough money to live on. I do not want to ask for more." During that period, I only printed truth clarification materials, studied the Fa and read Minghui Weekly.

One day I read an old issue of Minghui Weekly, which had been published in 2003. I was deeply touched by a fellow practitioner's article in which he shared his understanding of the Fa. It was a great article and I read it three times, wondering how come I did not notice this article before. Later, I realized that because I did not cultivate well; I was not able to appreciate this fellow practitioners' views. At this point I re-read many articles, and they greatly benefited my cultivation.

I studied the Fa a lot, and read many articles from the new and old issues of Minghui Weekly. The more I studied, the more my attachments surfaced. As I looked deeply within, I finally found my fundamental attachments and eliminated them. For example, I did not like to attend Dafa experience sharing conferences before because I did not want to share my experiences, and I did not improve after listening to others. A fellow practitioner said to me, "That was because you only wanted to gain from the conference." I was so happy that I found my attachment. "I was too selfish."

Before, I could only sit with my legs crossed for 30 minutes because I could not sustain the pain. I told myself that 30 minutes is enough. A fellow practitioner asked, "If 30 minutes is enough, how come Master arranged for one hour?" I understood immediately. "That is right". Since then I insist on sitting for one hour. I finally understood how important enlightenment is for a cultivator. You can only cultivate to the level you have enlightened to.

During that time, sharing with all fellow practitioners helped me to understand the Fa better. For example, I visited one practitioner and shared experiences with him. This practitioner could not step forward and validate Dafa because of his attachment to fear. He kept mentioning how fellow practitioners were tortured in detention centers. I said to him, "Fellow practitioners are tortured because they have human notions. We should not give up validating Dafa for fear of being tortured." I realized that cultivation is truly cultivating the heart. There is no good or bad role model. It is harmful if one cultivates by following a so-called role model.

One day my wife visited this practitioner again and gave him the new Minghui Weekly. She was depressed when she returned. She told me that it was very depressing listening to the practitioner continuously talking about the tortures in the detention centers. She said she did not want to see him again. I smiled and understood that as long as we understand the Fa well and see through the surface, no evil can scare us.

One day, I suddenly realized why we must completely deny the arrangements made by the old forces. Our great Master of the cosmos came to earth in order to save countless beings and save the cosmos from being destroyed. I knew that Master arranged my cultivation. Our Master would not allow any low level lives to make arrangements for his students. They do not deserve it. I have my Master and I only listen to my Master. In my experience-sharing article, I wrote a sentence, which came deep from my heart. The Fa will rectify everything that belongs to me. No one can, and no one is capable of controlling me other than Master. I know that I still have fear which is based on human notions; this was the omission that the evil took advantage of before. However, I now know better. I know that I have to do everything according to what Master has chosen for me. I am doing the most righteous thing in the cosmos, and I am saving sentient beings. Every piece of truth clarification materials I make, every page, every pamphlet, every book of the Nine Commentaries can save many lives. If the low level evil tries to interfere with the things I am doing, Master would stop them. The Fa of the Cosmos will stop them. They would invite their own elimination.

Before, I often felt a barrier between me and Dafa, yet I did not know how to break through it. Now, I learned that it was the distance between me, Dafa and Master, that was the problem. Studying the Fa is the only way to break through it. No wonder Master keeps telling us to study the Fa well.

For a period, a fellow practitioner was not doing things according to the Fa. He refused to correct his mistakes no matter how hard I tried to convince him. I know that I had an attachment to winning the argument with him. One day after doing the exercises, I suddenly thought about Master. Master has so many things to deal with, why am I making more trouble for him? Master told us that we have to coordinate well and validate Dafa together. When I think of Master, I can let go of all my attachments. I started to do the work which fellow practitioners had missed without pointing it out to anyone. I felt peace in my heart, and I think that this is an improvement. All my improvements come from studying the Fa, reading Minghui Weekly, sharing with fellow practitioners and cultivating myself.

I would like to remind all fellow practitioners that we should not focus on the pain we suffer, rather, we should think about how Master cares for us. We should not complain how hard it is walking our cultivation path; rather think about how much Master endured in preparing this path, which allows us to go home. We must walk steadily and firmly on our cultivation paths. If we slow down or engage in conflicts with other practitioners it will cause more trouble for our Master. Let us think more of our Master. We are all Master's students and children. We are the closest-knit family in this world and share the same mission. I will do whatever you cannot or do not want to do, and make up for whatever you have missed. We should not blame each other. We can only blame ourselves if we did not do well enough.

As students of our great Master, we only have one task and that is saving sentient beings.

March 14, 2006

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/3/16/122945.html

 Yearly Archive   Printer Version