Don’t Delay Until It's Too Late

(Minghui.org) Recently a local practitioner passed away. I felt quite sorry for him for not being able to finish our cultivation journey until the end.

This practitioner had a firm belief in Dafa and used to be diligent. He helped many people in his workplace to understand that Falun Dafa is good, despite the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution and slandering of the practice.

His family moved to another city several years ago. I heard in May 2020 that he developed cancer. I then had two video calls with him. He was in good spirits in the first call and was not scared of the cancer. But he was not too well in the second call. His wife told their relatives in our city that the doctors said he had only three months left.

I learned in the video calls that he didn’t find any other practitioners in that city and was cultivating by himself. So I suggested him to come back so that we could study the Fa together. He did. My spouse and I went to his home to study the Fa with him every day. His wife also joined us.

From our sharing, I discovered that he, his wife, and their son decided to stay at the other city for better economic opportunity. They bought an apartment with a down payment. He then worked two jobs to pay the mortgage, starting from 4 a.m. till late at night. He had little time to rest, much less study the Fa.

This situation lasted for eight years.

They paid off the mortgage last year. He reached retirement age and started to receive a pension. He also found an easier job.

He thought he finally could have time to cultivate and wanted to make up for the lost time. But then he was diagnosed with cancer.

I also discovered that he had conflicts with several relatives and even stopped contacting some of them. Though it sounded like the fault was of the other parties, weren’t these conflicts tribulations for a cultivator to pass? He also had conflicts with his wife and talked about divorce.

Understanding his attachment to resentment, he called his relatives whom he had conflicts with to make up.

However, he still passed away in the end. The old forces might have taken away his life using the excuse that he had been too far behind in cultivation.

His passing away is a wake-up call to us. Based on his situation, I think there are two lessons for us.

First, Fa study is really important. For that practitioner, he didn’t keep up with studying the Fa. Instead, he put all his time on everyday people’s affairs. He came back to our city last year to complete retirement paperwork. He then expressed the desire to stay so that he could spend time studying the Fa. However, his wife and son kept calling him back. He spent all his energy on helping his son’s business.

Second, it’s also important for us to keep up with truth-clarification and assist Master in the Fa-rectification progress. That practitioner came back to our city in 2015 when we were preparing a lawsuit against Jiang Zemin, former head of the Chinese Communist Party who launched the persecution of Falun Gong. His stay in our city was short, so he only learned what we were doing but didn’t participate in filing the lawsuit.

This fellow practitioner’s deferring cultivation until he finished up everyday people’s priorities is alarming to us. I suggest that we re-read Master’s article “Practicing Cultivation After Retirement” (Essentials for Further Advancement) and cherish our cultivation opportunity.