(Clearwisdom.net)

Sickness Karma and Self

I am a young woman who has practiced Falun Dafa for more than ten years. After the period of Fa-rectification cultivation began, I was repeatedly interfered with by sickness karma. Every time I developed sickness symptoms I intensified my Fa-study and reminded myself to look within to identify loopholes. I worked hard to improve myself whenever I was able to identify some omissions. But I have to admit, the effect was poor. At other times I couldn’t even see what was wrong with me, so I just kept studying the Fa, looking within, and sending righteous thoughts. It often took a long time for me to pass the tribulations, which only made me more passive and hopeless. Despite my cultivation state I was hesitant to discuss this with anyone. I seldom shared experiences with my husband or my parents, who are practitioners. When other practitioners came to see me I was very cold toward them.

Around the end of 2007 I came to realize that I should change myself, and I made up my mind to open up to my fellow practitioners, so as to improve together. No sooner did I have this thought, that the old forces made arrangements to interfere with me. My parents, who used to live with me, suddenly moved out. My husband went out of town, and my child was in boarding school. With no one else home, sickness karma launched the most ferocious attack on me since the beginning of my cultivation. I was in so much pain that I wasn’t able to study the Fa, practice the exercises, or send righteous thoughts. I knew the old forces were preventing me from forming a one-body with other practitioners, and were exploiting my loopholes to persecute me, but I wasn’t sure what particular issue had caused the trouble.

One day in autumn 2008 a practitioner came to see me. The moment she said, “Nothing can prevent me from coming to share experiences with you,” I felt Master’s immense compassion. The two of us shared experiences and we both benefited a lot. But after she left I once again developed severe sickness symptoms. Again, I had no idea what loophole I had that the old forces were taking advantage of.

After the 2009 New Year’s Day another practitioner visited me. She was somewhat lax in her cultivation, so I spent a lot of time studying the Fa together with her. She felt that such intensive Fa-study was a great help to her, but I began to cough uncontrollably right after I saw her off.

A few other practitioners who used to work with me came to see me in the summer of 2009. The same scene occurred again. I was attacked by sickness karma the moment they left.

I was extremely baffled by such recurrence of sickness karma. What exactly was my problem? Even though I kept studying the Fa and sending righteous thoughts, I did so only for the purpose of finding a solution. No wonder I still failed to dig out the root cause of my problem.

I didn’t enlighten to my root problem until not long ago, when I attended an experience sharing conference with the theme of the fundamentals of the cultivation. I left the conference with a renewed understanding of what we cultivate. If a practitioner focuses solely on personal cultivation, she could still encounter sickness karma or other forms of persecution, no matter how hard she works on the three things. On the other hand, if the starting point of her cultivation is assisting Master with Fa-rectification without any thoughts of ego, she will simply follow the Fa-rectification requirements and harmonize what Master wants. When she is able to rise above personal cultivation, the tribulations and tests that the old forces set for her are nothing, and her cultivation is much simpler.

Reflecting on my cultivation, I realized that I had never really moved beyond personal cultivation during the past ten years. I knew that being able to cultivate in Dafa was a precious opportunity, yet I wanted to escape the filthy and dangerous secular world. As a result, I warned myself to cherish the opportunity to cultivate well so as to avoid the fate of reincarnation. I understood that in order to become an enlightened being and finally reach consummation I needed to accumulate mighty virtue by doing the three things. I was also clear that Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples must do the three things. Therefore I set high standards for myself and cultivated diligently. However, my reason for cultivating all these years was still for my personal consummation. With such a huge omission, how could I possibly catch up with Master’s Fa-rectification process?

Because of the persecution I had to change my cultivation environment from time to time. As a result, I felt I did not have all the opportunities to fully exert my capabilities to save sentient beings. I often blamed myself and was dissatisfied with my cultivation state, and I even had doubts about my chance of reaching consummation, which I realized later were indeed a manifestation of lacking a firm belief in Master and Dafa. No wonder my purpose for cultivation became impure. I paid more attention to my personal cultivation state. Behind all my efforts was a deeply hidden selfish heart. Every time I did some truth-clarification things, I felt that I had just accrued more capital for my consummation. Before the above-mentioned conference, I never thought about the true purpose of my cultivation. But after the conference I realized that my selfish thought--of seeking personal consummation--was my biggest problem. Whatever I did was just for myself, and every day I worried whether or not I would reach consummation. No wonder sickness karma bothered me non-stop.

When the persecution began in 1999, many practitioners did not really want to go to Beijing to appeal, but were afraid of missing the opportunity to reach consummation. Back then, seeing their reluctant attitudes made me very uncomfortable. I see from looking back now, that I wasn't much different from them. Because I confined myself to the boundaries of the old universe, the old forces found the biggest excuse to persecute me. No matter how diligently I cultivated, my sole purpose was to benefit myself and reach consummation. As a result, I failed to keep pace with Master’s Fa-rectification process and wasn’t making progress toward moving to the new universe. No wonder I was constantly attacked by sickness karma. My symptoms not only shook my righteous thoughts and my righteous belief in Master and Dafa, but also affected other practitioners.

Safety and Self

Another reason the sickness karma issue confused me for so long was my relative isolation. For a long time I only kept in touch with a few practitioners whom I thought were reliable. I knew I had fear. When a practitioner urged me to attend the above-mentioned conference, the first thing I thought of was my safety. After the conference I suddenly came to understand why some practitioners (including me) had been persecuted. The problem was still related to the fundamentals for cultivation. If the goal of the conference was to help everyone improve as a whole so as to better save sentient beings, how could it invite persecution?

Master said in, “Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Boston,”

“The old forces don't dare to oppose our clarifying the truth or saving sentient beings. What's key is to not let them take advantage of the gaps in your state of mind when you do things.”

I came to understand that an experience sharing conference that was pure, selfless, and totally conforming to the Fa had nothing to do with the old forces and their persecution. The fear I had before was not my true self; it prevented me from melding into the whole body and saving sentient beings. After I enlightened to this, I felt that the substance of fear had subsided and gradually disappeared in my dimension.

I shared my thoughts on sickness karma and safety during the conference. A woman practitioner then read me the following two passages from Master’s teachings.

The first one was from “Teaching the Fa at the Meeting with Asia-Pacific Students:”

Question: Some students who have supernormal abilities think that, when they send righteous thoughts, the lives in other dimensions should be saved, and that it's a bit uncompassionate to eradicate them...

Teacher: If Fa-rectification didn't exist, or if when this happened it was just the master of some discipline guiding his disciple, then you couldn't really say it was wrong for his disciple to have that understanding, though the master would think you were lacking in proper thoughts. With any master, if he had a disciple like that, that disciple would get sent home sooner or later, because if you don't do what your master tells you, what kind of a disciple are you? Today what's happening is different. Fa-rectification is unfolding and it goes well beyond a being's self-cultivation. When a being interferes with you and with Dafa, that being should be cleared away, and it's no longer a matter of whether you as an individual are merciful; rather, it's a matter of whether you are responsible to Dafa.”

The second one was from the Seventh Talk in Zhuan Falun,

“I’ll give you an example. There was a story about Shakyamuni during his early years. One day in the forest Shakyamuni wanted to take a bath, so he asked his disciple to clean the bathtub. His disciple went there and saw that the bathtub was covered with bugs, and that if he cleaned it the bugs would be killed. The disciple came back to tell Shakyamuni that the bathtub was covered with bugs. Without looking at him, Shakyamuni said, 'Go clean the bathtub.' The disciple went to the bathtub and found that he didn’t know where to begin, since the bugs would be killed if he started cleaning it. He circled around it once and headed back, and asked Shakyamuni, 'Venerable teacher, the bathtub is covered with bugs. If I clean it I’ll be killing them.' Shakyamuni took a glance at him and said, 'What I asked you to clean was the bathtub.' The disciple suddenly got it and cleaned the bathtub right away. That illustrates a point: we can’t stop taking baths because of insects, and we can’t look for other places to live just because of mosquitoes, just as we can’t tie up our necks and stop eating and drinking because grains and vegetables have life in them. That’s not the idea. We should keep these things in perspective and cultivate openly and with dignity. It’s fine as long as we don’t harm living things on purpose. At the same time, human beings need to have their living spaces and living conditions, and these need to be maintained and protected. Human beings need to sustain their lives and live normally.”

When she was done, a male practitioner recited another passage of Fa to me,

“Ask yourself whether you have a wrong, hard-to-detect motive that’s related to the problem. If you, as a cultivator, only part with things superficially while deep down inside you still stick to something or cling to your own vital interests that you don’t allow to be undermined, I’d say to you that your cultivation is fake!” (“Lecture at the First Conference in North America”)

I was a bit upset after the two practitioners finished reading the Fa to me. Even though I still had omissions, I had cultivated for more than ten years. How could they think my cultivation was fake? At the same time, I knew nothing happened without a reason. It could well be that Master was giving me hints through their mouths. After thinking for a few minutes, I felt the two practitioners were targeting my attachment of feeling good about myself. I figured the test was to see if I was moved when other practitioners didn’t think I was that good at cultivation.

I talked to my husband about this after I returned home. He thought the few passages of Fa read to me were intended to test my belief in Master and Dafa. In his words, when Shakyamuni’s disciple feared cleaning the bathtub would kill bugs, the junior monk was not following his master’s teachings, and when someone said sending righteous thoughts to eradicate the evil was not compassionate enough, then that practitioner was not following our Master’s teachings. My husband’s words were very helpful to me.

I had more insights while writing this article. The few passages of the Fa read to me were really targeting my ego that was hidden in layers of my life. Like many lives in the old universe, I didn't want to change myself.

The old forces joined this Fa-rectification because they wanted to save themselves when the old universe was on the verge of destruction. However, they didn’t want to completely cooperate with Master. They went ahead with their own warped notions. Their fundamental purpose was self-perpetuating. Even though I was working hard on the three things, deep down in my heart I just cared about my own consummation. If I felt something was not safe enough, I chose not to participate. If I thought a certain practitioner failed to pay attention to safety, I made sure to stay away from him or her.

I finally identified the thing I still clung to deep down inside. That was my ego - cultivating just for myself. If I didn’t change my mindset, I wasn’t a genuine cultivator. Even though I never agreed with that practitioner who felt eliminating the evil in other dimensions was not kind, I had a new understanding of relevant Fa teachings. How could a practitioner who fails to follow Master and still clings to his own notions be called Master’s true disciple?

I thank Master for creating this opportunity for me to discover my root problem. I thank practitioners for honestly pointing out my shortcomings. I will completely change my notions and correct the fundamentals of my cultivation. I will disintegrate my old self and follow Master, to become a true Fa-rectification period Dafa disciple.