(Clearwisdom.net)

I went to visit fellow practitioner "A" at her home. Ever since her husband, practitioner "B," was arrested and taken to a labor camp, practitioner A has shouldered the entire family's workload. It became really taxing for her to work and take care of her two school age children at the same time.

During our sharing, practitioner A mentioned that it was not easy to finish the family chores and squeeze in some time to study the Fa. By then the interference of drowsiness and the attachment of seeking comfort would attack. She easily fell asleep without eradicating the interference with righteous thoughts. Even if she could stay awake to study the Fa and send forth righteous thoughts, mentally she tended to doze off. From time to time she needed to entertain visitors and fellow practitioners who came for experience sharing. She ended up being very weary.

The dark shadow of being persecuted sometime ago kept lingering on her mind. She said, "I was really lax back then. I felt it was too difficult to cultivate. I knew I did not accomplish the three things Teacher asked us to do, and I felt so ashamed to face our great, compassionate Teacher and the sentient beings waiting for salvation. I wanted to give up cultivation, just be an ordinary person, and take care of and educate my children well. But from time to time I realized such thoughts were not right. I faced Teacher's picture with tears running down my face. I wanted to vow to do well all over again, but I was afraid that I would let myself down and be ashamed to face Teacher. I harbored these bad notions in my heart for a long time, never revealing them to anyone. But I let them all out today."

I could profoundly sense the difficulty, the all-around pressure, and the current state of cultivation faced by practitioner A. Nevertheless, she had mustered up enough courage to talk about her deficiencies, so it was time to expose and disintegrate them. During our sharing there was constant interference. My throat felt dry and itchy and I coughed. All this made carrying on a conversation difficult. Practitioner A showed signs of drowsiness. Faced with this situation, we promptly recognized that we each had our own omissions, plus those bad elements thrown at us by those old evil factors that were being destroyed, so we sent forth righteous thoughts to disintegrate them. Afterwards her mental state changed for the better, and my throat felt a whole lot better.

We recalled the group Fa study and exercise environment when we first started our cultivation. We also talked about the March 4, 2006, Clearwisdom editorial about "Soliciting articles for the pending publication of books:" "One book will be titled Cultivation for all articles collected before July 20, 1999; the other book will be titled Practice for all articles after July 20 1999." Practitioner A sighed with emotion, "I did not cultivate diligently before July 20, 1999, and I did not do well after July 20, 1999. Today I will make a vow to Teacher," she stated most solemnly and fervently. "Although I no longer remember what I promised specifically in my previous vow to Teacher, today I vow to Teacher--and you are my witness--that I will start anew in my cultivation, complete my prehistoric grand wish to be worthy of Teacher's compassion, and never let sentient beings or myself down."

I was so touched by her righteous thoughts and action. Even though there were just two of us, I knew that her righteous voice resonated throughout the cosmos. Teacher was watching her, all the gods in the cosmos were watching her, and of course, those evil beings and factors that had not been completely eradicated in the cosmos were also watching her. I also enlightened at the same time to the fact that the instant she sent out that righteous thought, the evil factors that interfered with her at that very moment were disintegrated.

Teacher also wrote in "Fulfilling the Wish" in Hong Yin,

"With the same heart, coming to the world,

Having earlier obtained Fa.

One day flying away to the heavens,

I said, "We all signed our names vowing to Teacher that we would help Teacher to rectify the Fa in the human world. We must bring our own people back to our respective kingdoms upon Consummation. You are also my witness. I will vow to Teacher, and we will be one body, and not drop a single practitioner in our family who, for incarnation after incarnation, hoped for salvation in Teacher's Fa rectification. We will be diligent along our cultivation path and not leave any regrets."

Before we bid each other farewell, we reminded one another, "When we became less diligent, when we became timid in front of tribulations, when we started to relax when the environment changes for the better, we must not forget our vows today. Dissolve and disintegrate all obstacles with righteous thoughts and actions. Do not leave holes for the evils to exploit until all of the evil is eradicated and the Fa has rectified the sentient world."

I wrote down this experience to encourage both practitioner A and myself, as well as all practitioners who read this article. At the same time, I want to apologize to practitioner A for unintentionally causing any detriments because of my attachments that were exposed during our experience sharing.

Please kindly point out my omissions because of my limited understanding.