Looking Inward: The Key to Improvement in Cultivation

Greetings Master! Greetings fellow practitioners!

I am a practitioner from Germany and have been cultivating here for over twenty years. Although I have always participated in various Dafa activities and have felt that I am a Fa-rectification period Dafa disciple who has found the path to return to my original true self, a recent experience of overcoming a sickness karma tribulation made me realize more deeply that I still have many human attachments yet to be removed.

I. Looking Inward During a Sickness Karma Tribulation

During the Shen Yun performances, I was in charge of the program booklet team. Over the five days of shows at the theater, I persisted in standing at the entrance selling program booklets while clarifying the truth to the audience. Cold winds gusted in and it was freezing, but being able to reach the audience at the first opportunity yielded good results. I felt happy about this and even developed some showing-off mentality—thinking that I sold more booklets than others. However, the very next day I felt bloated and nauseous. A red rash appeared across my waist and abdomen, which turned into blisters that were extremely painful. I couldn’t eat, yet I still gritted my teeth and persisted in completing the five-day task. Later I realized that this was precisely the result of my attachments to showing off, joy, and competitiveness being exploited by the evil.

I had initially thought that I was just experiencing symptoms from catching a chill, but in truth it reflected problems in my heart. When I looked inward, I discovered a strong mentality of comparison and seeking credit—I felt I performed better and contributed more than others. Such a heart should not exist in a cultivator.

Later, while assisting Shen Yun in another city, the pain became unbearable and fellow practitioners urged me to go home and rest. A few days after returning home, I went to another country to help out (since it was already planned). Given my condition, I worried about affecting the work, so I told the coordinator that I was overcoming a sickness karma tribulation. The coordinator insisted that I still come. While ironing clothes, the pain worsened—the heat irritated the blisters. At night the pain was so intense I couldn’t sleep. Although fellow practitioners helped to lighten my load, I still felt physical and mental agony. The coordinator didn’t arrange any break for me. At the time I felt wronged, but after calming down I realized that this was exactly a test to see whether I could truly look inward and cooperate without resentment.

During this period, I reflected deeply on my cultivation issues. I found that for many years I often shifted responsibility onto others. When something happened, my first thought was always to blame someone else. I harbored resentment toward people who had hurt me and was unwilling to forgive them. For example, a fellow practitioner had once obstructed me from joining a Shen Yun support project and even misled the coordinator into misunderstanding me. I held resentment toward her for a long time, and when I saw her I rejected her well-intentioned gestures.

Looking back at the poor ticket sales in our area, I would say on the surface “everyone has a share of the responsibility,” but in my heart I thought it was others who didn’t coordinate well. I never truly looked at myself; notions formed over years had never been shaken.

Not until I experienced the tremendous pain of this shingles sickness karma did I finally start to truly look within. When I let go of my resentment toward others and tried to understand fellow practitioners—and I recalled a line from the film “Once We Were Divine” that said, “We descended together with one heart, and will return to Heaven together,”—my heart felt like everything dissolved, and I gradually became more at ease.

Feelings of broadness and tolerance emerged. During that time, I studied the Fa very earnestly and felt I was truly gaining the Fa. When I read 20th Anniversary Fa Teaching, I realized that Master had long since taught us how to cultivate. Master said:

“So for sure there is a path that you will be able to walk through to completion. It is a path that has to meet the requirements, and only that way will the sentient beings of the cosmos admire you and not be able to interfere; will your path be free of problems; and will your journey go smoothly. Otherwise, if you are carrying all sorts of attachments and human thoughts, you will meet with a great deal of trouble, and that trouble will serve to block your path. When you fail to walk the correct path, one reason for it is karmic causes. Among them is the trouble that accompanies a being in the background; past favors done for others or scores to settle; old promises; all of the different connections one might have with a being, and so on. Another cause is the attachments that come from one’s human mindset. Especially notable are the notions that one forms, or habits of thought that one forms, which make it very hard for a person to recognize when human thinking is unconsciously at work. And if one can’t recognize it, how is one to get rid of it?”

I came to realize that Master teaching us to “look inward” is not just a slogan, but a magic tool for breaking through all human attachments. When I truly let go and changed my notions, my body also showed obvious improvement: I could eat and eliminate normally again, my weight went back up, and my whole body felt light. This is the power of Dafa.

II. Growing Through Coordinating the Waist Drum Team

For years I have been part of the waist drum team and have also served as its coordinator. We went from initially being short of members to gradually involving more practitioners. In particular, when Vietnamese practitioners joined, it strengthened our whole body. Despite the language barrier, they very proactively learned Chinese, memorized Master’s poems and Lunyu, and even helped us repair and donate drums—always thinking of the whole. I’ve witnessed everyone’s cooperation and growth. Their drumming technique has also steadily improved.

On one occasion I went to Athens, Greece to participate in a parade. Because it was my first time taking a waist drum on a plane, uncertainty over luggage restrictions made the process very challenging. That day an episode occurred where a practitioner backed out at the last minute. Nonetheless, I learned to let go of grievances and view everything with righteous thoughts. In the end, I successfully brought the drum on the plane and completed the mission.

On the day of the parade, a Vietnamese fellow practitioner suddenly refused to hold a banner, throwing the arrangement into disarray. She claimed a language barrier as the reason for not cooperating. This made me feel negated and wronged, and it also hit a sore spot regarding my long-standing weakness with languages.

Master’s Fa in Fa Teaching Given in Manhattan reminded me: “Maybe you only get upset when it’s a case of someone saying something that really provokes you or hits a sore spot. And maybe the person really did treat you wrongfully. But, those words weren’t necessarily said by that person. Perhaps they were said by me.”

I realized that I myself had been lax with language improvement for many years—I hadn’t proactively worked on it, nor truly regarded this issue from the Fa.

Thus, I began to actively improve. During the two-day event, I drafted suggestions and translated materials to submit to the local coordinator, helping to adjust the parade order so the waist drum team could better display Dafa’s beauty. I also became more grateful to those fellow practitioners who helped me and accommodated my language shortcomings. They even used Google Translate to convert information into Chinese to communicate with me, truly being considerate of others. Over the course of four parades in two days, the results were excellent. Especially when we passed a very narrow corridor by a restaurant at the Acropolis, we formed a single-file line, waving our drums to the music as we marched forward. That feeling was so wonderful—truly beautiful, like a gorgeous scene. The bystanders were all very appreciative of our performance; some even watched in awe, holding their breath. Some gave us a thumbs-up. Seeing sentient beings saved and bidding farewell to the evil specter, I was happy for them and proud of our waist drum team. No matter how much more we give to this drum team, our hearts remain joyful.

Through this journey I deeply understood that to coordinate is not to command others, but to proactively observe, take initiative, resolve conflicts, and uplift the whole—harmonizing the one body. No matter what misunderstandings, language barriers, or sudden incidents arise, as long as we stand on the Fa and view things from the perspective of saving people, we can transform anything.

III. Conclusion: Removing Attachments with Heart—Looking Inward Is the Key

From the hardship of sickness karma to the grinding process of coordination, I have come to profoundly realize that “looking inward” is the starting point of true cultivation, and the watershed that determines whether one can break through trials and act righteously.

Master said in Fa Teaching Given in Manhattan: “As gods see it, for a cultivator to be right or wrong in the human world is not important in the least, whereas eliminating the attachments that come from human thinking is important, and it is precisely your managing to eliminate those attachments rooted in your human thinking as you cultivate that counts as important.”

In the past I always used human notions in my cultivation, and judged fellow practitioners with human emotions, neglecting the Fa’s requirements for me at each level. Going forward, I will truly put into practice that whenever something happens, I will look at myself first, genuinely remove my attachments and change my notions. I will let the Fa guide everything in my heart, save more people, and fulfill the vows I made before descending to this world.

Thank you Master for your compassionate salvation! Thank you fellow practitioners for your support and help along the way!