(Minghui.org) Deeply encouraged by an article on the Minghui website at the end of last year, I decided to start memorizing the Fa on New Year's Day.
I know in my heart that Master's Fa-rectification is coming to an end soon. Dafa practitioners' cultivation will also end. I need to grab the opportunity to memorize this Fa of the universe as much as I can.
Knowing that the memorization would begin in just one day, I was extremely excited, feeling as if every cell in my body was dancing. I could not suppress this excitement even when I was studying the Fa. I could not help but start on December 30.
I finished the whole book in less than three months. Strangely, I was calm and no longer felt so excited after I was done. Below are the understandings that I have enlightened to along the way.
Removing the Attachment of Impatience
I usually read the book at an average pace, 45 minutes for short lectures and one hour for longer ones. But I could only memorize a few paragraphs in one hour. At this slow pace, I often thought of giving it up.
I've been anxious and uneasy since childhood. I couldn't stand slow movers. I have the attachment of impatience. I hadn't removed this attachment completely, despite having cultivated for years.
I started memorizing and reciting Zhuan Falun paragraph by paragraph. For short paragraphs, I could memorize them after reading them a few times. For longer ones, it was a challenge and took more time.
On one occasion, I spent one hour on an especially long paragraph and still could not remember it fully. Usually, I can easily finish reading one lecture in an hour. I became impatient. To suppress the attachment of impatience, I reminded myself that memorizing even a small section was good, because I would eventually make it.
After this sequence repeated itself many times, my attachment to impatience was weakened.
Removing the Attachment of Expectation
In the beginning, I set an agenda to memorize certain pages within a certain time frame. On the first day, I finished six pages in two hours. I used this pace to calculate the hours I needed and the pages to be completed each day. I thus developed an attachment of expectation.
Everything was not as smooth as I anticipated. When my pace fell behind, my attachment of impatience arose. I berated myself for being sub par. Then I encouraged myself to be calm and to not be detracted by anything.
When I measured the hours spent in reciting the book one day at meal time, I suddenly realized that I was too attached to outcomes. Since things did not necessarily happen as planned, I tried to remove the attachment of expectation by not emphasizing the time spent in memorizing. I found that my attachment of impatience diminished a lot.
Removing the Attachment of Competition
After I started memorizing the Fa, many practitioners have reported their progress on the Minghui website. For example, someone could memorize the whole book in less than two months. Some practitioners have greatly improved their cultivation levels. One practitioner has even memorized and recited the book several times. My attachment of competition unknowingly arose.
I always thought that I did not have the attachment of jealousy and that I let everything go naturally. But my attachment of competition got stronger as I did this. It was Master who helped me recognize my shortcomings. I will work hard on this.
I reminded myself not to compete with others because no one has the same basis for comparison. Every practitioner has a different cultivation level, inborn quality, enlightenment, and endurance. I did what I had to do and accepted things as they came. Slowly, my attachment to competition weakened.
I carefully looked inward and found that my attachment of competition came from my habit of fighting, which had been instilled in me by the evil party since I was little. In grade school, we were taught to be always in a competitive mode and to score at the top in the examinations. A parents' meeting always followed after each test to sum up the test results. To make my parents proud and to avoid being punished for bad scores, I always studied very hard.
Gradually, I unknowingly developed an attachment to battling.
Master said in “Teaching the Fa and Answering Question in Yanji”,
“If you study hard, won’t you get what you deserve?”
I will gain what I earn, and there is no need to fight for anything.
Changing My Thinking to Align with the Fa
The biggest challenge I faced in memorizing the book was to adjust to different approaches that Master employed in the lectures. After finishing the first lecture, I realized that the style Master used in Lecture 2 was different.
On one occasion, I used the same thinking on a new lecture. I just could not memorize Master's original words even though I fully understood the meaning, no matter how hard I tried. I seemed to see myself laboring desperately up a steep mountain with sharp stones on the surface.
While resting, I suddenly realized that I had wrongly used my own thinking in my approach to the Fa, and assumed that the Fa would align with my thoughts. In my many years of cultivation, I always studied the Fa with a human mentality and thus failed to meet the requirements as my cultivation level rose. Consequently, I could not keep up with Master's teaching when I memorized the book.
I then let my thinking assimilate to the Fa because this universal Fa contains ways of thought at various cultivation levels. Once my thought was changed, I could memorize the Fa smoothly and quickly. Gradually, I finally finished all nine lectures.
It is worth noting that when I encountered difficulty in adjusting my mindset for each lecture, I sent forth righteous thoughts for five minutes to remove interference. The result was very good.
Benefits Received from Memorizing Zhuan Falun
Memorizing the book Zhuan Falun actually is a process of cultivation. Master used this opportunity to let me find my unknown attachments.
I also learned that one attachment can come from other attachments and that, to remove it, I have to root out all the sources.
It is so fortunate to encounter Master's teachings, to be a Dafa disciple, and to obtain this universal Fa.
Category: Improving Oneself
