Seize Every Opportunity to Upgrade Xinxing

By a Dafa disciple from Taiwan

(Clearwisdom.net) Master said:

"What Dafa disciples are dealing with today is establishing the best beings of the future. And that's why for all of you, when it comes to xinxing requirements, or the standard that you as cultivators can achieve, you don't have any wiggle room--you must reach the standard." ("Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Vancouver, Canada, in 2003")

Something that happened before this New Year made me realize the weak point of my xinxing. What I did was far from the goal I should achieve, and it reflected the fact that my cultivation was not that solid. We all know that no matter what sort of problems we encounter, we should treat ourselves as cultivators. But we usually do not perceive our human concepts, so sometimes we follow old patterns of habitual thinking. In that situation, the old way of thinking would regard the contradiction as trouble provoked by other people but not as an opportunity for us to cherish, an opportunity to cultivate ourselves and upgrade our xinxing.

One day before this New Year I went shopping. As I drove out of my garage, I stopped the car as usual, closed the garage gate, fastened my safety belt and prepared to go. I saw another car approaching from the opposite direction. I thought he would turn to the other, wider lane as he noticed my car being in the middle of the lane. But while I started the car and set out, he drove straight toward me and then stopped approximately 3 meters in front of my car. It seemed that he did not intend to make a concession but wanted me to back up to let him pass. The lane is too narrow for two cars to pass each other. I did not argue and gave ground. On the surface my manner looked gentle, but his behavior actually impacted my emotions. I complained to wife in my car, "What's this guy's problem? Did he not see my car? People's ethics nowadays are deplorable!" At last I unwillingly drove back into my garage. Later, while I calmed down to think about this incident I realized it was a xinxing test directed toward me, wasn't it?

Master said:

"Yet whenever you run into a conflict, you always push it off to the others and find weaknesses and shortcomings in others. Your doing that is not right.

Actually, as I grumbled at that person I was avoiding the problem and lost an opportunity to upgrade my xinxing. All I needed to do then was just to drive back toward my garage a little bit, and I could let him pass. But why did I need to complain? Because I was not aware of the concept of defending the self. I only thought that the other person was wrong and I was right. But as a cultivator, we should not be superficially attached to who is right and who is wrong - we should have higher parameters. Everything we encounter is pre-ordained and not accidental; all of them are opportunities for cultivation, and for examining our cultivation status. We should strive to achieve keeping calm in xinxing conflicts. We should become mature, gentle and steady. That is the quality a cultivator should achieve.

The above-mentioned incident made me realize that I did not do well, and it was because I did not do well on Fa study. I also realized I did not come close to Master's requirement,

"the closer to the end the more diligent you should be."

We are people in cultivation. All of us have certain attachments common to non-practitioners and we all will come across a lot of xinxing tests. Only when we solidly study the Fa and make an effort for genuine cultivation practice, strengthen and raise our xinxing and let all of our thoughts melt into Fa, can we fundamentally get rid of the concepts of everyday people, break through the interference hampering us from upgrading our xinxing and do what we should do with a pure mind.

All the above are my own realizations; please benevolently make any comment or criticism.

February 22, 2006

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/2/26/121461.html

 Yearly Archive   Printer Version