By a Falun Dafa practitioner from China

(Clearwisdom.net) Master taught us: "In genuine cultivation practice one must cultivate one's own heart and inner self. One should search inside oneself rather than outside." (Zhuan Falun, 2000 translation version) Master's Fa on searching within oneself has infinite meaning.

I personally think that when encountering problems, some of our fellow practitioners still cannot truly search within themselves. Usually they look for so-called loopholes they and others might have, but only on the surface of things or in obvious ways of doing things, but they do not look for the root cause of the issues - which are xinxing problems. When helping fellow practitioners to find their loopholes, this kind of problem also exists. For example, a practitioner was tricked by some people and opened the door for them. A fellow practitioner who was staying in his home got arrested because of this. He looked inside, and only found that he shouldn't have trusted the people from the residency committee, and shouldn't have opened the door so carelessly. However, he did not truly search within for problems of his xinxing - for example, he had attachments to zealotry and showing off because some Dafa coordinators often visited his home, also attachment to adoration for some coordinators, and attachment to hierarchy. Thus the evil came.

As for another example, after some coordinators encountered certain issues, many fellow practitioners pointed out the causes of these issues from different points of view. Some pointed out the loopholes of coordinators' ways and methods of doing things. I think this is still seeking externally, an obvious phenomena, and seeking on the surface. These coordinators indeed had done well in some aspects, such as organizing Fa conferences and Fa study groups, which has helped the cultivation environment in some places to improve, and helped some practitioners to be more diligent. However, when doing these tasks, they did not pay attention to cultivating themselves, and thereby developed theirs and others' human attachments. For example, the following attachments surfaced: attachments to doing things, hierarchy, showing off, extravagance, desire and lust, material benefits, pursuing money, giving orders to others, being leaders, self-esteem, considering themselves to be great, fame, reputation, emotions toward family, and spending the money of fellow practitioners carelessly. Obviously, if we keep these human attachments, human actions, and impure elements, how can we do well in validating Dafa? We could even bring shame to Dafa which could result in losses.

So the root cause of problems is not the tangible method of carrying out Dafa work (such as whether to use cars, frequency and scale). All these are external things. They are not the essence. The true causes are that our human notions and attachments are being used by the evil. In the lessons we learned during these years, it has always shown what Master told us:

"It is extremely dangerous to add anything human to cultivation practice." ("Digging Out the Roots," Essentials for Further Advancement)

"In genuine cultivation practice one must cultivate one's own heart and inner self. One should search inside oneself rather than outside." (Zhuan Falun, 2000 translation version)

All these Fa principles are extremely important in our cultivation and they provide us with very profound guidance.

Because it's humans cultivating, in the human world there has to be some kind of superficial forms. We can therefore express our willingness to practice cultivation in the human world, form cultivation environments in human society, and have a convenient environment to spread the Fa and save sentient beings. I do understand this. This is one of the reasons that Master has left us with the cultivation forms such as Fa conferences, group Fa study, and group exercise. I hope we don't go to the extremes and become afraid of sharing among each other and being afraid of group Fa study after encountering problems. If our motivation is right, and if we have righteous thoughts and actions, then who would dare to harm us? Whoever touches us would be committing a crime!

Also, thinking of some actions or formalities as issues that could cause trouble, and thus being afraid to participate in certain actions or formalities, isn't this also an attachment? Especially in China, considering safety as most important, we should persist in and maintain the forms which Master has left us for cultivation. If all fellow practitioners in China can consider themselves as coordinators, and everyone can have the effect of a coordinator, then we will definitely be able to create the environment of validating Dafa, and be able to maintain our forms of cultivation.

Master has clearly told us many times that as practitioners we must cultivate ourselves well. This is the foundation of being able to validate Dafa well and save sentient beings in a more effective manner. At the current time, since saving sentient beings is very urgent, we are all very busy. This means that we must attach even more importance to personal cultivation, otherwise we will get half the result with twice the effort. Haven't the practitioners who have had problems given us lessons? From another perspective, the old forces consider personal cultivation to be more important than validating Dafa and saving sentient beings. To get rid of the old forces, we have to follow Master's Fa and cultivate ourselves well. In doing so, we will truly be able to negate the old forces, truly be able to use all forms in this human world to validate Dafa, be able to save more sentient beings, be able to walk righteously on the path of cultivation, and be able to be rock-solid and indestructible like diamond.

These are my personal understandings. Please point out anything inappropriate.

Posting date: 5/28/2007
Original article date: 5/28/2007
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Translated on 5/18/2007
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2007/5/16/154943.html

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