Enlightening to the Fa: Think Calmly

After I finished my meditation, I sat there quietly. My ten years of cultivation seemed like yesterday. It was like a movie playing: for those tests that I had thought I had already passed, I actually hadn’t passed them completely. For those things I thought I had done very well, I could now clearly see my human mind at that time. For those attachments I had thought I had already removed, I see that they still exist. I thought I had cultivated very well, but now I find that I have just started to understand what true cultivation is.

I don’t think one needs to wait until the great disclosure of the truth. Even now, when one understands what true cultivation is, one should be ashamed about their bad behaviour and words. If these days anyone says he cultivates very well, he must not understand what true cultivation is.

Think about it. Gods in the past only dared to save assistant spirits. After the assistant spirit succeeded at cultivation, the gods at a higher level placed a cover around him in order to not pollute the heavens. How could a human being, who accrues karma heavily and whose body is full of karma, achieve such a degree of purification within ten years? Moreover, a human being is still living in the contaminated big dye vat. Forget about today. Even when one is at the last step of the cultivation, he still would have human attachments and impure elements.

The course of cultivation is the course of understanding cultivation. In the past ten years, it happened many times that I felt like I was waking up from a dream: “Wow, so this is cultivation! What did I do in the past?” Now I sigh again with great regret about not cultivating well in the past ten years and about wasting time.

The course of cultivation is also the course of removing emotions layer by layer. In the eyes of cultivators, human emotion is low-level and dirty. Meanwhile, many attachments and desires that come from emotions cause people to act crazily. If one doesn’t cultivate diligently, he may not be able to realize these shameful attachments.

The course of cultivation is also the course of learning to look inside at one’s own weaknesses. If one claims he is a cultivator but keeps criticizing and condemning others, it must be the case that he hasn’t begun to cultivate genuinely. The truth is that ordinary people look at others’ weakness and feel that they’re doing well, while cultivators look at others’ good qualities and look inside at their own weaknesses.

The course of cultivation is also the course of understanding the purpose of life. Although I know the purpose of life is to return to the origin, I see that I’ve wasted so much time on everyday chores. I realize that life could be very simple, and that all the hard work is just to make a living. As far as making a living is concerned, as long as one has food and a bed, it would be enough. Why make it so complicated? Living is to cultivate, but many times one has the order reversed such that it looks like cultivation is to make a better living.

Time flies and the celestial phenomena urge people to hurry up. Cultivators can’t be as anxious like ordinary people, however, and cultivators need to make the best use of their time and calm down to study the Fa, cultivate their xinxing (heart and mind nature, character), and save sentient beings solidly. Only by doing this can one not be confused by the delusion of the human world and walk well the final path.