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Understanding the Elements Behind Pursuing a Peaceful and Stress-Free Environment
By a practitioner from China
(Clearwisdom.net) The old elements in my life, including the pursuit of peace and quiet,
must be very strong. It is actually the attachment of trying to avoid conflicts,
not being willing to take responsibility, and being selfish. As a result, before
I obtained the Fa, though I was quite serious in doing detailed jobs at my
workplace, I was not very happy being promoted to team leader, as I was afraid
that I might offend others. I seldom had conflicts with anyone and enjoyed
helping others, so everyone regarded me as a good person. In fact, sometimes
when I encountered conflicts or troubles, I intentionally tried to avoid them,
rather than calmly facing them and remaining unperturbed. My reasoning for
willingly trying to avoid these conflicts and troubles was because I was very
concerned about them. Since I obtained the Fa in 1996, I always wanted to cultivate in a peaceful
and quiet environment, because I had read books about practicing cultivation in
the Dao school. I once had the intention of living in the mountains to
cultivate. After obtaining the Fa, I learned that one improves fastest by
cultivating in everyday life, so I no longer wanted to go into the mountains to
cultivate. Actually, that was due to my strong selfishness and pursuit of my own
improvement. My notion of wanting to cultivate in a stress "cultivate while
maximally conforming to the ordinary human society." ("Dafa Is
All-Encompassing" in Essentials for Further Advancement II) Although I still worked very hard after obtaining the Fa, I distanced myself
more and more from my friends, and spent most of my time in isolated
cultivation. As long as I could cultivate in this environment, I would disregard
everything else. I regarded the conflicts and troubles in my life as obstacles
on my cultivation path, rather than seeking within according to the standard of
the Fa and finding why I fear conflicts and troubles. In everyday life, I was no
longer as warm-hearted as before when helping others. This behavior caused
obstacles for other people to obtain the Fa. After the Chinese Communist Party started to persecute Dafa, I was also
persecuted and arrested many times by my workplace and police. Further, I was
agitated and had the notion to cultivate in a stress-free environment. As a
result, at the end of 2000, I took the initiative to ask for time off in order
to get away from them. But soon I realized that it was not possible for me not
to have a job. Not only did my family members not understand me, but my friends
and colleagues did not understand me either. I noticed that my behavior caused
difficulties when clarifying the truth and saving sentient beings. Master has taught in "Teaching the Fa at a New York Meeting", "Since there aren't even many people in mainland China who go to
temples--let alone Caucasians and other ethnicities--if I were to become a
monk and teach this Fa in temples, it would be impossible to enable those
among the public at large who can truly obtain the Fa to obtain the Fa." Master also taught in "Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern
Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference", "Except for newer students, from July 20 of 1999 on, Master hasn't
created any personal cultivation tests for you, and that's because overall your
personal cultivation has changed in every respect so that it's in the direction
of saving sentient beings and validating Dafa. " Only by facing the population, facing the conflicts, can we cultivate, save
the sentient beings and validate Dafa. My attachment of pursuing a peaceful and quiet environment has led to the
attachment of being afraid to endure hardships. I often did not discipline
myself well. The past few years, I've been running my own business, and have
also been looking for full-time jobs, but didn't do any of these well. The
reason is still related to my pursuit of being stress-free. It is actually the
pursuit of comfort without being responsible for sentient beings. Now I have
enlightened that one of the objectives in cultivation is to develop a
compassionate heart and to be responsible for sentient beings. Fundamentally, the pursuit of being stress-free is an issue about practicing
only one cultivation way in one school. Master mentioned many times in his
lectures, "One must be single-minded in only one practice, and even ideas from
other practices should not be intermingled." "One must conduct oneself well and truly practice cultivation in a
righteous way. Do not mix it with anything else in cultivation, not even with
any mind intention." ("Lecture Three" in Zhuan Falun) I have enlightened to the fact that if one holds on to his or her selfish
mind intention and does not let it go, that is not practicing only one
cultivation way. My personal understanding is that cultivation in Dafa will rectify everything
that is not righteous, and allow us to eliminate those notions that were formed
at different levels in the old cosmos, and that do not comply and harmonize with
the Fa. December 15, 2006 |