Rejecting Negative Thoughts

Sometimes it's hard to keep my mind stable and not disturbed by negative factors. The thoughts in my mind that things are not moving forward the way I wish. The effort I make as a cultivator to save people giving little results, the difficulty to reach people, and to save more people on a large scale are giving me a kind of feeling that I cannot complete my mission like I should.

This is not a correct state, because it gives me a passive manner doing things wholeheartedly.

Cultivating without any pursuit gives the best results. Because of these thoughts in my mind, negative things are also getting an opportunity to enter my field. After a while it can make me feel uncertain about myself, with the question in mind: Is my cultivation going in the right direction? How do I know if I'm doing the right things?

Many times I read stories about practitioners who were very diligent in their cultivation and very active, but still passed away, because many attachments couldn't be cultivated away. Nobody was aware of these attachments not even they themselves were clear. How do we know what we do is good enough?

Not always having a determined heart to cultivate like in the beginning, bad thoughts sometimes trying to give me doubts, whispering to better slow down and use more time to live this life well, do less exercises and so on. This is the result of negative factors entering; they see some doubts at a certain time in cultivation.

When encountering these kinds of thoughts I am aware of them and know my main consciousness must be right. Eliminating the negative factors during the first 5 min FZN is very powerful and helpful. After a while the negative thoughts in my field disappear, and at the same time I become more sure of myself and in my cultivation. I realize that this is also what Teacher mentioned in Zhuan Falun, about how we will be tested time and time again to see if we are determined in cultivation.

In Lecture 6, Zhuan Falun “Your mind must be righteous”: “At a certain point in time, you will be made unable to discern clearly whether something is true, whether your gong exists, whether you can practice cultivation and make it, or whether there are Buddha's and if they are real. In the future, these situations will surface again to give you this false impression and make you feel as though they do not exist and are all false—it is to see whether you are determined.”

I realize now that this is a part of my cultivation. I have to increase my xinxing, so that bad things can be removed, and my level can move up.

Compassion

In this complicated environment of everyday people I cannot always behave like a practitioner.

An example is that I don't always have the compassion to all beings and fellow practitioners. This also makes it hard for me to move on, because it can have the same effect of creating negative thoughts about others and myself. When encountering this, the best way is doing FZN and having more sense of compassion to practitioners and all beings. Sometimes I try to make this sense of compassion a kind of habit so I can always maintain this state, but at the same time it becomes clearer to me how difficult it is to keep myself in that state. Often I forget about compassion, especially when living my life in this world of illusion.

I also know this is because my level has not reached that purity and I should focus on cultivating xinxing. Entering into deep tranquility when doing the meditation is not a problem, but there's not always the sense of compassion I’m supposed to have.

A while ago when doing the last exercise the attachments of another practitioner came to my mind. I couldn't understand why this person acts that way. Right after having this thought I realized this was not correct and my mind should not create any negative thoughts, but must be empty. Right after this thought a child showed up crying. The child was a boy between 7 and 10 years and looked very pure. I wanted to help him, and went closer. When looking at him I could sense everything he was thinking, and he also knew all that was on my mind.

I saw the child crying for the attachments of the same practitioner I had in mind. It was not in a way of condemning this person, but really feeling helpless, not finding a solution or a way to help eliminate the attachments of this practitioner.

When looking deeper in the boy's mind I saw he was even crying more for me, for the negative feelings I had towards this practitioner. He showed me it was creating more karma and difficulties in my cultivation and to the one body. He saw my heart was not a heart of compassion, but one of condemning, and that was the reason he cried.

I could see he was feeling terrible for not being able to help us, really worrying for me. Looking at this boy, so pure and really anxious for us, made me feel ashamed, and tears rolled down my face. The difference between me and the state of that boy was enormous. He had nothing to do with me or that other practitioner, he only worried about both of us, wanted to help us to give up our attachments and return.

The compassion from his side was something I've never experienced. It will be hard to reach in this human dimension, but I must do my best, at the least I have to try to have a heart of being able to forgive everything and everyone, being able to be thankful when being treated unfairly.

The problem in this part of my cultivation is that I need to have a heart of compassion instead of condemning when seeing attachments or things that look not right to me, trying to find a solution to help the other, or let them see this problem. That's real compassion to the other being.

Saving more sentient beings
Because time moves fast I often think of ways to reach more people. Participating in a parade seems a good way to me to let many people know the beauty of Falun Dafa, so I contacted the organizer of the parade held annually in a nearby town. We already participated in this parade 5 years ago. The organizer was very happy to have the Tian Guo Marching band back in the parade. When meeting him he still had 3 lotus flowers hanging on his wall from 5 years ago. It would not be easy to organize this parade, because we also would have Shen Yun one and a half months before this parade. And also because for quite some time I had a strong desire to build a boat on which several practitioners could do the fifth exercise. On the previous parade 5 years ago, we used a small wagon we had to pull and one practitioner was sitting on it. This year I wanted to make it more beautiful.

My wife was not so happy with the idea in the beginning, because we had just bought a brand new car, and I wanted to build this boat around the car. She was worried it would be damaged, but I promised her that the car would not been damaged. It was all new for me and I didn't want to use other practitioners’ time because of Shen Yun, so I started to work on it by myself whenever I had time.

Because there was also promotion work to do for Shen Yun, the work on the boat was delayed. After Shen Yun it became clear how much still needed to be done. There were also many other things like hotel arrangements and food for the marching band that had to be arranged. The involvement of other practitioners was needed. When the deadline of finishing the work came closer I became more anxious. It came to a point that my forbearance was at its end and my state was not stable any more. There were moments I wished I had never started building this boat.

This was an indication of my xinxing level. I regret the moments that I was a little hard on other practitioners, and even everyday people whom I treated not so nicely at a certain point. I hope they can forgive me.

During this difficult time period I had a dream. In this dream a huge ship was waiting a short distance from us. It was so huge I couldn't see the top or the back or front. It was not in the water, but on the ground. Together with my family and many, many other practitioners, we were trying to persuade all people we encountered to believe in Dafa. We tried to convince them to get on this ship that would bring them to eternity. Practitioners were in a hurry, and many people already took their place. We all knew there wasn't much time, once the ship started to leave the opportunity to save the people in that area would be gone. There would not be a second chance. Every person I could persuade to enter, and once they stepped in, gave me an unbelievably happy warm feeling. After a while certainly the ship started to move and nobody could stop it. It was gone in a second, we all felt sad for the people we could not persuade, and who missed the opportunity.

I believe this dream was to encourage me to go on with the work and not slow down. There are still so many people walking around, not knowing the truth.

Looking back at all these troubles, all of it was arranged; all these things came together to test my xinxing, testing how much I could endure. I can see my shortcomings in difficult situations, even during the moments of losing my temper, I'm aware of it. All of it is caused by attachments. Doing things without difficulties is not cultivation. A harmonious state of compassion while encountering difficulties, and staying in that state is what I try to reach.

The parade went very well. When looking at all the happy faces of those many people, smiling and applauding when seeing practitioners making an effort to let them know Falun Dafa, the difficulties and problems I encountered before vanished like they never existed. This is only my understanding.

Please point out to me if I said something not related to the Fa. Thanks to fellow practitioners.