[Minghui Net] I am continuously busy everyday, so busy that I hardly have time to stop and examine what I just went through. But I will have the chance shortly, because I'm becoming more and more tired, which will create time for me to reflect.
Indeed, I want to succeed in cultivation and return to a good home. As I understand from Master's teaching, a cultivator's wanting to succeed in cultivation is not wrong, but one should not let this wish become an attachment. I also understand that whether one can succeed in cultivation depends on the person himself. Whether we can complete the cultivation that Master has arranged for us, or in other words, whether we want to complete it, and whether we believe and are firm or not, are all matters of individual choice.
The course of our losing, including losing itself, is the course of our cultivation. It is also the path that brings us closer to consummation. This process is full of suffering, desperation, hesitation, confusion, hidden bitterness, reluctance, and so on. All steps are hard on this fixed path. They are like the rocks on the road, which we have to step over in order to reach our destination.
We learn to truly unburden ourselves in order to gain total freedom. My understanding is that such freedom is sacred, selfless, and comes as a natural result of having given up attachments. It is not the result of pursuit. Such freedom is noble and unselfish. It is to have compassion for all beings, and to completely assimilate to what is righteous in the universe. It is natural and without any strain.
I understand from Teacher's Lecture in Canada that the reason why a cultivator's body may not be restricted by the law of gravity is because "It has severed its connection to the particles in this environment, so you're no longer subject to its cohesive force, and are no longer subject to its restraining and drawing power." [Teacher's Lecture in Canada, 2001] This is a result of cultivation, not pursuit. It is the result of letting things happen naturally. Teacher preserved our human side in order for us to be able to connect to our highest innate place in the future. That is it. Hence, before we reach our highest innate place, or before the entire cultivation process finishes and the Fa rectifies the human world, what we want to gain (i.e., what we think is good and are reluctant to give up), and what we think we have already gained, are all preventing us from improving and connecting to higher realms.
But this is cultivation. We have to eliminate our attachments within attachments while experiencing pain on top of suffering. But "'natural' does not exist, and 'the inevitable' has reasons behind it." The key is whether we can truly recognize and completely give up attachments. Being reluctant to leave any level that is lower than our innate level is dangerous. Cultivation cannot bear your looking backward. You can only go forward. Looking backward is for you to do in the future, when you will already be a great and solemn enlightened being.
The greatness of the future is based on the current "ordinariness" of life. The happiness of the future is based on current hardships. The magnificence of the future is based on the current plainness. Hence, consummation in the future is based upon our current behavior and thoughts. It is both serious and strict. I understand from Master's teaching in Canada (2001) that these things are for all beings to use as a reference in the future; therefore, we must follow a strict standard.
When it becomes difficult, the disciples all know to help each other out, coordinate with each other, and to be unselfish. But under favorable circumstances, we sometimes do not do so well and let the evil interfere and take advantage of us. Thoughts of selfishness, egotism, and self-protection are not righteous. When we have such thoughts, we are already within the tribulation. As Teacher said in "Your Mind Must Be Right," (Lecture Six in Zhuan Falun) the practitioner who finds a fortune-teller will increase his tribulation.
I just read the article, "What Shanshan Saw in other Dimensions VII." Evil is trying its best to do damage. This requires us to unite as one and not give the evil any opportunities. This is not for ourselves, but for rectifying the Fa. Cultivation in Fa rectification is not for individual cultivation or personal consummation. Everything is absolutely unselfish and noble. Completely assimilating to Dafa is our ultimate goal. We must improve as a whole and turn into one body that has no weak spots to attack. Perhaps this is the reason that Teacher keeps waiting. During this process, what we lose is the framework of individual cultivation, which centers around one's self; what we lose are the human concepts, human notions, and everything that is human. What we gain is a rational understanding of the Fa from the point of view of our true self. This is the righteous thought. No matter how complicated our environment is, how stressful (so-called unsafe) it is, we should control ourselves and persist with righteous thoughts. It is difficult, but the harder it is, the more it shows our greatness and compassion. Being able to achieve this is true greatness. The bitter pain that we feel when we give up everything will create mighty virtue for the future.
We are being saved. Teacher claims that we are great, because we can follow the progress of Fa rectification, be firm with the Fa, and display Dafa's greatness. This cannot be sought after or grasped intentionally. Eternal greatness comes from Dafa and the great lives that Dafa creates. Yet this greatness reflected in the human world appears as ordinary modesty, letting things happen naturally, compassion, kindness, generosity, and so forth. Of course, at the current stage, only when we completely dissolve into the Fa is this true greatness displayed.
Teacher asks us to hold one hand vertically in front of our chests and silently recite the verses that he often uses: "The Fa rectifies the cosmos, the evil is completely eliminated," and eliminate the evil in the Three Realms. When I read the poem "The Great Enlightened" in Hong Yin,
"Having experienced tens of thousands of hardships, / Two feet treading on thousands of demons;/Palms upright, shaking heaven and earth,/ Across the air stands a giant Buddha"
I felt Teacher's expectation and boundless compassion. Then my extraordinary, solemn, and all-conquering determination arose. Yes, Teacher claims we are great-- then we must achieve it, and we are able to achieve it too!
Let's have "all excessive thoughts extinguished," "wash away all filth and ignorance," follow Teacher and send forth the strongest and most pure righteous thoughts, eliminate all evil in the Three Realms, and receive the bright new cosmos, in which "the mega-havoc is over, and the universe is illuminated." [from Hong Yin]