Click on the below-mentioned, numbered subjects:

1. Welcome
   
2. My Understanding of Sickness Karma
   
3. Getting Up to Speed in my Cultivation After a Slow Start
   
4. Looking Inward but Failing to Find the Attachment
   
5. In a Few Words: Inter-relation Between Different Aspects of Cultivation That Ensure Our Diligence
   
6. On Enlightenment Quality
   
7. Motivation and Acts
   
8. Thoughts Inspired by "Searching Inward" and "Sending Forth Righteous Thoughts""
   

1. Welcome

Welcome to the December 2006 newsletter.

Last month was a busy month for Indian practitioners since the Chinese President was visiting the country and it was time to step up the truth clarification process! Different groups were identified and targeted for truth clarification. Even before the impending visit, the friendly neighborhood VIP’s had kicked up a storm—with ambitious claims of territorial ownership of our land. There were apologies and other fiascos that made us doubt about this being the year of friendship between the two countries! We will have to wait and watch for further rumblings!

In this issue, we have an insight-sharing Article by an Indian practitioner and as usual we have a compilation of experience-sharing Articles culled from Clearwisdom and Pureinsight that always shine through because of their insights and fine quality of sharing. It is important to read the Clearwisdom, Pureinsight and other Dafa sites. We make an effort to select Articles from the Archives which people don’t go back to and are relevant even today. Contributions are welcome from practitioners.

Heshi! Hope, you like the selection of Articles.

We would request you to please let us know if you have received the newsletter. Our repeated requests for any feedback, etc have elicited no response. All that we ask of you is a simple ‘yes’ if you have received the newsletter.
Please send it to: newsletter_team@fastmail.fm

Note: "All the contents in this newsletter - except for quotations and excerpts of writings of the founder Mr. Li Hongzhi - are only ideas and experiences of  practitioners and do not represent Falun Dafa in itself."

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2. My Understanding of Sickness Karma
By a Falun Dafa practitioner from India

I have noticed among practitioners here that once they get the common cold, fever or aches and pain, or any kind of discomfort they get quite agitated. On the intellectual level they know why they are unwell but they can’t come to terms with it and want to find a quick-fix solution. They are a bit diffident about going to the doctor but they will resort to self medication and console themselves by saying that what they are taking are not medicines but a herbal remedy for temporary relief. Some say that they still haven’t graduated to the cultivation level where they can do without medicines! So, I wonder sometimes, if they can take recourse to medicines so easily, will they ever transcend their present levels?

In “Essentials For Further Advancement” Master says, “Why does a new student who has just begun studying the practice, or a veteran student whose body has been adjusted, experience physical discomfort in his cultivation, as though he were seriously ill? And why does this happen once in a while? I told you in my Fa lectures that this is to eliminate your karma and to improve your enlightenment quality while eliminating the karma from your different previous lives. Besides, this is also to test whether you are determined in following Dafa; this will continue until your cultivation reaches Beyond-Triple-World-Law. This is putting in general terms.” (For more details on Sickness Karma, refer to page 38 of Essentials For Further Advancement).

I would also like to mention an excerpt from Master’s answer to a question on sickness karma by a practitioner at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference, 2003.
“… But think about it, so many people who had severe health problems or incurable diseases before they learned the Fa became well after learning Dafa, so why is it some students are going the other direction and can’t sustain themselves? Is it that Dafa discriminates among sentient beings? Is it that I, your Master, treat students differently? I really have to ask you: Are you truly cultivating? Have you truly followed Dafa’s requirements? Are you clarifying the facts with the human mindset of criticizing the persecution of Falun Gong, or are you validating the Fa and saving sentient beings truly from the standpoint of a Dafa disciple? Yes, the old forces have arranged for some people to get in, but why is it that most people can do it now, but you can’t? Haven’t I taught the Fa to you?!
When problems arise, when something doesn’t feel right, you have to look at yourself! Look at where you were wrong and allowed the evil to take advantage. If you were wrong you should recognize it and do better. Don’t forget, you are all Fa-rectification period disciples! Don’t forget that you came to validate the Fa! Cultivation is hard, and the evil is more evil while you are validating Dafa. Those who can make it through are bound to be kings of sentient beings.”

In my experience, whenever I feel unwell, I make a firm resolve to do more of the exercises and meditation and look for gaps in my cultivation. Because, it requires a great deal of effort and will power to go through the exercises. I don’t look at it as mind intent but as an extra effort to eliminate the negative karma within me. I always come out feeling better.

It is just like what Master says in his Lectures in the United States, “It isn’t a demon itself, but it can play that role. But on the other hand, it also has the effect of strengthening your will. Don’t you need to cultivate your will? You need to strengthen your will, and restraining it is strengthening your will—it’s also cultivation. Feeling sleepy while doing the exercises is itself also an effect of thought karma.” Master teaches us to observe things dialectically.

This is my personal take on this issue and I am open to any opinions or suggestions. Fellow practitioners please point out and correct anything inadequate.

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3. Getting Up to Speed in my Cultivation After a Slow Start
By a Swedish Practitioner

I live in Sweden, and I have practiced Falun Dafa for almost two years now. I'm a 41-year-old software programmer. I have two teenage children.

I have practiced meditation off and on for about 14 years, and before I started to practice Falun Dafa I also practiced a healing method for 3 years. I was looking forward to doing the next educational "step" in this.

But two years ago I felt it was time for my 16-year-old daughter to start thinking of other matters than clothes, boys, and partying. I thought it was time for her to meet "deeper things" in life. So I grabbed her hand and took her to a Falun Dafa practice site southeast of Stockholm. I selected Falun Dafa since their website claimed that it was free of charge to learn it. This was important to my daughter since she couldn't afford to pay anything (being a student). I had no idea of what Falun Dafa was, except that it was some kind of qigong and that it didn't cost anything to learn it.

There, we learned the 5 different exercises for an hour, and afterwards a practitioner told us that Falun Dafa is more than just the exercises, "it is a cultivation practice!"

"Snap!"

At the same time he said this to us, I literally felt a "snap" in my head! I had never heard the expression "cultivation practice" before, but I instantly new that this was something for me. Knowing without knowing, I knew I now encountered what I had been waiting for the last 25 years. A very strange feeling indeed, I couldn't explain it. It was so overwhelming. I had found my "thing in life" without really understanding what it was. Sounds strange perhaps, but this was what my body and mind told me.

I felt at "home,"

Later, I downloaded the books China Falun Gong and Zhuan Falun from the Internet and started to read. The very next day I went to my usual weekly group healing session to practice. It felt really strange as I entered the practice room. I didn't know why. Very uncomfortable! It felt as if my body was "itching" inside during the two hours the group practice lasted. The day after I had made up my mind. I phoned my friends and declared that I would start practicing Falun Dafa instead.

Then I continued to read the books; I read both of them in only 5 days. On the 3rd or 4th day my back was aching with a pain I had never felt before. It was as if my spinal cord was cut right off by a pair of scissors or chopped off by an axe or something. I could neither stand up, nor could I sit or lie down, and the pain was absolutely terrible. But I instinctively understood that this was a "cleansing" process I was going through, and that the only way to pass this was to continue to do the exercises and read - though I almost couldn't move! This condition lasted for about 2 weeks and then slowly disappeared.

In the beginning, I practiced at home, learning the exercises from the instruction video and the once a week training session. Not really wanting to meet other practitioners, I practiced mostly alone at home.

Later I understood more and more about getting rid off attachments, and I quickly opened up myself more and more. I started to engage in the truth-clarification process to expose the gross criminality of the Jiang Regime and joined other practitioners. Today I want to say this: I have never met so many calm and goodhearted people as among Falun Dafa practitioners! When we meet, I really feel that we are one big family.

When the discussion came up regarding presenting facts about the persecution in China to the Swedish people, I immediately felt that my experience in this area could be useful. During my fifteen years of working with software programming, domestic and abroad, I have associated with company representatives in all levels and in different cultures. This has given me a good understanding of how business people may think and act. I also recognized that a huge effort was needed to put together an acceptable "Business information package," to get understanding and acceptance from the companies we wanted to reach. This required a thorough document that presented only facts without speculation. Facts, and more facts. Nothing, but facts.

Of course, I was not alone doing this. I had important help from other practitioners with writing and reviewing the growing material. This was - and is - definitely a team effort, and this would have been extremely hard without mature teamwork. This work has helped me in understanding the Fa.

For me, it was important that we, as a team, as close as possible reached full consensus about the content, and this as soon as possible.

The understanding of "being one body" with the persecuted practitioners in China helped me a lot to overcome the moments of distress that sometimes came over me during the long and tiresome nights. My working experience definitely helped me through this 6 months long effort, since I knew that each small step would eventually bring us through this long walk (and it did).

As a result of this work, I am now also ready to provide seminars about the persecution and what Falun Dafa is all about, The importance of revealing the facts of what is happening in China cannot be emphasized enough. I realize that I am "fortunate" to live in a free and democratic country, and I often think that I may have been tortured to death had I lived in China.

We practitioners all over the world all do good deeds: some hand out flyers on the streets, some write letters to politicians and newspapers, some translate witness reports into local languages, and some make phone calls to China. I am impressed by them all, and feel fortunate to be part of the Fa-rectification process. It feels good to know that we all have the chance to reach so many. I will continue to do this as long it takes. Let's make this happen. The time is short. As Master said: "Hurry up to tell them."

But in some aspects I still feel like a beginner and that I have still many possibilities to improve. I am sure I still have attachments. Many times I have been disappointed in myself when I couldn't pass some tests. Starting in the middle of Fa-rectification, I also sometimes felt "deceived" in my individual cultivation that I was thrown into the truth-clarification process too early. I felt deceived since I never had the chance to establish a higher level solely from individual cultivation. In the beginning I just wanted to stay at home, "locked in" and practicing by myself. As I already mentioned, it didn't take long until I left my shell and started to help out.

Today I believe that it was not by chance that I started to practice Falun Dafa late--it was meant to be. I am like a locomotive, I start slowly but when the speed is up I do better. I hope I do well enough

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4. Looking Inward but Failing to Find the Attachment
By an Overseas Dafa disciple

A Dafa disciple has to look inward whenever problems are encountered, because as long as cultivation has not yet been completed, there is the matter of individual cultivation. No matter how sacred and important the Dafa work we are doing, no matter what level we are at in our cultivation, and no matter what understandings we have of the Fa, it is impossible for us to have clear sailing in everything during cultivation--and it is even harder for everything to be in accordance with our current understanding of the Fa. If this were not the case, the impurities in our lives could not be cleansed and corrected, nor could we make further progress in our understanding of the Fa.

When as practitioners we encounter problems in cultivation, it indicates that there is a gap between us and the criteria of "Truth, Compassion and Tolerance." As we need to catch up rapidly in this aspect, this is a good thing. A strong determination in Dafa, studying the Fa and looking inward--all these are the ABC's of cultivation. However, during the course of a tribulation, when we find we have certain attachments, it is because we are unwilling to follow the basic requirements of cultivation with respect to that matter.

Generally speaking, overseas disciples obtained the Fa relatively late, yet they started to carry out their arduous and complicated Fa-rectification duties even when some aspects of their individual cultivation were not solid. When they encountered conflicts during cultivation--especially those who were very accomplished--they tended to resort to a variety of everyday strategies, instead of calming down and looking inward. In fact, under such circumstances, we can very likely open ourselves to karma and notions. If we can truly consider ourselves as practitioners and be strict with ourselves at all times and under all circumstances, even a god will be amazed at the rapidity with which we ascend in Fa-rectification cultivation.

There is another situation that we often see, which is, despite looking inward upon encountering a conflict, due to busy schedules and an unwillingness to really calm down and study the Fa, nothing is found. Very often, it is then cast aside until the completion of the task at hand. I used to do this myself; however, the same problem would recur because I still held on to the attachment that should have been abandoned. And since Teacher is taking care of us, he wouldn't just let us do the work without helping us reach Consummation. Whenever a conflict surfaces, it always directly targets our attachments. Thus, if we can truly look inward without reservation or excuses, the attachments can always be discovered. In addition, Teacher will likely give a number of hints, depending on our enlightenment quality.

After cultivating for a few years, most (Dafa) students have a deep understanding of the Fa; therefore, they are unperturbed by many things. However, when a conflict suddenly surfaces and all we see are others' shortcomings, some students can no longer keep their hearts unmoved. This has become the kind of test we often come across during cultivation. When noticing others' shortcomings, we are still hesitant to look inward ourselves, thinking that if others do not change, the conflict will still remain. This reluctance to look inward is tantamount to not accepting Teacher's guidance in the cultivation process. As Teacher pointed out in A Brief Explanation of Shan, "With regard to Shan alone, when it manifests in human society some everyday people who are attached to everyday people's society might raise an ordinary human social question: 'If everyone learned Dafa and practiced Shan, how would we handle foreign invasions or wars against us?'" To have a clear answer, we have to transcend the level of everyday people's mindsets. Of course, when a problem comes to someone, without exception it is something that we need to cultivate. Therefore, we need to remind them with compassion, and ask them to also study the Fa, look inward, and not miss the good opportunity to improve during cultivation.

Sometimes, I notice that, during the current Fa-rectification period, it seems difficult to tell the difference between an individual improvement opportunity and interference from the evil. As a Dafa disciple mentioned in a recent article: "For cultivators, external interference is in essence directly related to the internal, and is comprised of attachments, karma, notions, etc. With respect to the origin of a life, these things belong to the external; thus, looking within in cultivation practice is actually looking for these 'external' things that exist internally and eliminating them completely. If a Dafa disciple has become pure and upright on the inside, then all external interference will cease to exist." Looking back on my own cultivation, I realize this is indeed so. No matter if it is interference from outside evils or not, looking inward and purifying ourselves is always a process of eliminating outside interference or demonic hindrance. When we become purer by looking inward during tribulations, the righteous thoughts we send forth can effectively eliminate the evil influences behind the problems. At the same time, our pure energy fields will automatically transform the surrounding environment with compassion. In contrast, if this basic requirement of "looking inward" is ignored for a long time, and external resources are utilized to solve the problems, it will usually waste a lot more time, and at some stage, become impossible to proceed. This is because we will have reached the limits of our capacity, making it impossible to overcome greater external interference without further assimilating to Dafa.

By studying the Fa more and being strict with ourselves according to the requirements of Dafa, all problems and tribulations will become improvement opportunities during cultivation. Meanwhile, only by making continual breakthroughs can we keep up with the Fa-rectification.

Above are my personal understandings. Please kindly point out anything improper.

(Clearwisdom.net)

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5. In a Few Words: Inter-relation Between Different Aspects of Cultivation That Ensure Our Diligence
By a Falun Dafa practitioner from Mumbai, India

Greetings to Master and to my fellow practitioners!

Cultivation practice in Falun Dafa is no playing around; it is a very serious matter. It is fundamentally important to keep our xinxing level (moral standard) high at all times. While other people work tirelessly for fame, name and personal profit, practitioners cultivate their mind and body by assimilating to the cosmic principle of Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance (Zhen-Shan-Ren), in order to reach a higher realm of being. What is improvement of xinxing? Gradually incorporating these qualities of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance into all our actions is improvement of xinxing. What is it to be selfless? It is to behave according to this principle of Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance. Caring little for one's own interests, thinking of others before doing anything, being kind to everyone around – all these come only from practicing Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance in our lives.

But how do we stay diligent in our xinxing cultivation? The answer is Fa-study. Only by regularly studying the Fa and reading the books, especially Zhuan Falun, can we hold our heads high at all times. As I understand it, Fa-study and xinxing cultivation complement each other, and both form the fundamentals of our cultivation practice in Falun Dafa. Only by studying the Fa can we maintain a righteous mind. Only with a righteous mind can we have righteous actions. And only by having our xinxing level rise with righteous actions can we have newer understandings from the Fa that we study. All these aspects are interlinked and are all very important. They ensure that we are strong fundamentally. Without diligent Fa-study, and without application of Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance in our behaviour, i.e. xinxing cultivation, it is very easy for one to slack off in cultivation. And slacking off is what practitioners should avoid. So let’s realize the seriousness of these basic, yet fundamentally very important issues, and let’s strive forward together in cultivation.

Corrections on any misconceptions are welcome. Thankyou.

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6. On Enlightenment Quality
By Zhang Dong

For cultivators, "enlightenment" is very crucial. It is a part of xinxing. Master said, "What is xinxing? It includes de (a type of matter), tolerance, enlightenment quality, sacrifice, giving up ordinary people's different desires and attachments, being able to suffer hardships, and so on. It encompasses various things." ("Why Doesn't Your Gong Increase with Your Practice" in Lecture One of Zhuan Falun)

It's very hard for people with poor enlightenment quality to cultivate. Like inferior persons, they don't believe in cultivation of Buddha and Dao at all, so it is very difficult for them to cultivate. For average people, it's also hard for them to reach Consummation, because they tend to go along with the tide and are unable to make diligent and persistent progress by themselves. Whenever a tribulation strikes, they would cringe. Therefore, it's only easier for exceptional people with good enlightenment quality and a strong desire for the Dao to cultivate.

Today, Dafa practitioners who are able to keep up with Fa-rectification may all be called exceptional people, since this test is relentless. However, these practitioners are of greatly different enlightenment qualities. From a certain perspective, poor enlightenment quality can seriously hinder one's improvement in cultivation and even the improvement of Dafa practitioners as a whole. The so-called poor enlightenment quality is characterized by a lack of faith in the Fa in depth and solidity. The actual behavior of such people is that they often judge and treat everything with human notions, and the direct consequence of such behavior is that they often take the detour and suffer more than necessary, which affects the quality of their Fa-rectification work as well as the quality of their righteous thoughts. It's easy for them to yield in their self-discipline, which eventually causes them to slow down in their improvement in the Fa and to have a limited understanding of Fa principles.

Master said, "With a lot of karma and poor enlightenment quality, it is more difficult for this person to practice cultivation" ("Transformation of Karma" in Lecture Four of Zhuan Falun). Indeed it is so. For example, currently some fellow practitioners are interfered with by the evil (e.g. developing scabies). Some practitioners quickly understood it from the Fa principles and destroyed the evil's persecution from the root, while some others could not improve and were trapped at one level for a long time. They suffered much more hardship than necessary and the tribulation occasionally even caused them to waver in their faith of Fa. For instance, some practitioners were arrested and persecuted; some firmly resisted the evil's persecution with righteous faith and righteous understanding of Master and the Fa, and they didn't cooperate with the evil's demands, orders and instructions under any circumstances, and they ended up walking out of the demon's den in an upright and dignified manner, while some others acquiesced to the evil's arrangement and passively endured. In the end, they suffered many pains and were detained for a long time, which in turn also affected their Fa-study and their salvation of predestined people. Although these practitioners endured lots of pains and kept rock-solid faith in Dafa, and they are also outstanding, however, they cannot say that they have no omission in their righteous understanding of the Fa.

Because their enlightenment quality has not improved, these practitioners tend to stumble, and they won't be able to pass the test until they realize their mistakes and improve themselves. The most regretful thing is sometimes the evil would take advantage of these gaps and cause losses to Dafa.

I had some deep personal experience when sending forth righteous thoughts. When my enlightenment quality was good and when I was able to keep one single thought in my mind, my power was penetrating through levels of cosmos and the evil was being completely eliminated; I felt great, -- magnificent, gigantic, calm and rational. When my enlightenment quality was poor, my thoughts would be chaotic and they would be powerless. When my enlightenment quality was at its worst, I would be somewhat relaxed in sending forth righteous thoughts. In fact, when the outcome of our sending forth righteous thoughts is not very good, doesn't that indicate we should improve ourselves in a certain aspect and make a certain breakthrough? Of course, if we have doubts about sending forth righteous thoughts itself, then it only shows that we have poor enlightenment quality.

The better the enlightenment quality, the more we are able to be diligent in the Fa and the more strictly we will conduct ourselves; otherwise we would easily pamper ourselves and become moved by the pursuit of comfort, and we won't be able to keep up with the progress of Fa-rectification.

Poor enlightenment quality also affects the outcome of our Fa-study. In our sub-consciousness, if we somehow study the Fa like studying human theories or reading stories, that would seriously hinder our improvement; however, we are usually unaware of it. In fact, every one of Master's words is worth one hundred times its weight, so why aren't we able to pay attention to certain problems and fail to correct them even when we have realized them? Why would we often treat people and things with human notions? One of the reasons is that we have failed to improve our enlightenment quality.

With strong attachments, plus poor enlightenment quality, we would likely deviate from the Fa and even go to extremes. Not only would we obstruct ourselves from improving, we would also cause losses to Fa-rectification work. The worse our enlightenment quality, the less attention we would pay to Fa-study, the more likely we will have an obscure understanding of things around us as well as Fa-rectification work. Without righteous thoughts, we are more likely to be moved by human notions and even fail to regard the Fa as the teacher, and we would take others as models.

All in all, as a cultivator, there is no benefit in having poor enlightenment quality. So how do we improve it? I think first of all, we must have absolute faith in Master and Dafa, which means we must have true faith and solid cultivation. Secondly, we must study the Fa more diligently, and attentively study the Fa without pursuit. Proper sharing with fellow practitioners is also necessary, including reading articles on Clearwisdom net in a relatively complete and thorough manner, instead of picking out only two or three articles everyday to read. Only by melting ourselves into the larger environment of cultivation as a whole body, can we better keep up with Fa-rectification. In order to do better in Fa-rectification and completely break away the old forces' evil arrangements as soon as possible, and to complete our mission of saving people to the maximum extent, abundant sharing among fellow practitioners and improving together is very important.

Above is only my shallow understanding to inspire more valuable sharing from fellow practitioners.

(Clearwisdom.net)

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7. Motivation and Acts
By a Dafa Practitioner

(Clearwisdom.net)
At Fa conferences, practitioners often ask Master specific questions about how they should do one thing or the other. Master has always said that he only teaches the Fa and practitioners should decide what to do for each specific issue, and that if he tells us everything, there would be nothing left for us to cultivate.

While I understood what Master said at that moment at a superficial level, I now have a deeper understanding.

For a specific matter, several people may do it in different ways but may have the same motivation. For example, in clarifying the truth, some people use words, some set an example by conducting themselves with high standards in daily life, some distribute flyers and some donate money for buying printing equipment. All of them act in different ways but they all have a benevolent heart and the wish to save sentient beings.

Since each of our Dafa disciples is at a different xinxing level, for a particular issue, Practitioner A may do it in one way, which conforms to the requirement of the Fa for him, so what he does is correct. Now if Practitioner B does it in the same way, if it does not conform to the requirement of the Fa for him, what he does would be wrong. For example, say a policeman beat Practitioner A, who had just become a practitioner recently. He firmly believed that he had Master's fashen [Law body] to protect him and so he shouted, "Help me, Master!" Then the policeman stopped his brutality and this practitioner would have passed this test since he firmly believed in Master, which conformed to the Fa's requirement for his xinxing level. But suppose Practitioner B has cultivated for a long time, and his mission is to help Master to rectify the Fa and save sentient beings, but he still has human thoughts. When a policeman was beating him, he also believed that he had Master's fashen to protect him and shouted as well, "Master, help me!" This might not work and the policeman might say, "Isn't your Master a god? Why did he not come to rescue you?" What he thought and did would not conform to the Fa's requirement for his xinxing level. This test was not to see whether he believes in Master or not. If he thinks that he is a Fa-rectification period disciple, he is a protector of the universe and he should eliminate the evil beings in the policeman's body; or if he has the benevolent heart to save the policeman who will be eliminated from the universe for foolishly persecuting Dafa, he would pass this test.

In fact, Master has clearly stated these principles in the article "Expounding on the Fa."

Why has Master told us that there would be nothing left for us to cultivate if he tells us everything? Let us think about it. When a certain matter occurs in front of us, it is to help us to upgrade our xinxing level. If Master told us what we should do, the disciples would have nothing to enlighten to--then how could they improve their xinxing? In the same way, if a practitioner's xinxing level is high, he has good enlightenment quality and his capability is high, and everybody listens to his opinion when things happen, then only he is cultivating, and others are not cultivating.

Thus when Dafa practitioners are doing things together, there should not be any arguments. A single matter can be done this way, but could also be done in another way. As for xinxing, you are at this level and he is at that level. Arguing indicates that we have not studied the Fa well and do not understand well the relationship between improving xinxing and doing things.

The above is my personal understanding. Please correct me if there is anything improper.

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8. Thoughts Inspired by "Searching Inward" and "Sending Forth Righteous Thoughts"

(Clearwisdom.net)
Recently, I felt overwhelmed by a bunch of problems that kept cropping up. My legs started to hurt, my bicycle was broken, and my mother suddenly became sick. I used "being busy with truth clarifying work" as an excuse and tried to deal with these problems in a superficial manner. I thought to myself, "The pain in my legs is caused by my karma, so I need to endure it to pay back the karma. If it had been evil interference, I would have sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate it." I then took the bicycle to the repair shop and asked my older sister to accompany our mother to see the doctor.

Several days passed, and the pain in my legs did not lessen a bit. I suddenly thought about how Master Li told us to search inward when encountering problems. I thought to myself, "It must be that I have my own problems. But what on earth are they?" I thought for a while, but something else came up so I stopped thinking about it.

Late at night, I gnashed my teeth and managed to bring one of my legs over the other to do the sitting meditation. I felt so much pain in my right leg that it felt as hard as a rock. As I reached a tranquil state, I suddenly realized that I was still carrying around the attachments of laziness, dependence on others and the pursuit of comfort in my truth clarifying work. In addition, these attachments were exerting a great deal of influence on me. I was very surprised. I realized that I had searched inward again and again, but I always let the matter drop before discovering the real cause of my problems. I then asked myself, "Is what I am doing really cultivation? Is this truly assisting the Teacher to rectify the Fa?" A feeling of shame and self-blame beyond description arose in my heart.

When I sent forth righteous thoughts right after that, it felt so tranquil and magical. The next day, everything returned to normal.

This experience strengthened my confidence in "searching inward" and continuing to "send forth righteous thoughts." At the same time, I also found the root cause of why I tend to do things with a great deal of fanfare at the start and quickly wind down to almost nothing toward the end. In the past, when encountering conflicts or problems, the first thing that came to my mind was "eliminate the evil, eliminate the evil." I did tell myself to search inward. However, I often only searched for a moment or two, and I would not be able to find the root cause and eliminate it. It was mainly because I did not treat it seriously enough.

"Searching inward" is an important element in Fa-rectification cultivation. "Sending righteous thoughts" is eliminating the evil, and eliminating the evil is doing Fa-rectification work. The two are interconnected, and neither can be neglected.

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