Returning to the Group

By Jimmy McMullan

In my two short years of cultivation, I have enlightened to many things but there are many, many things that I still need to enlighten to. I will try and convey what my understandings are of some of the tribulations that have appeared in my cultivation, for both myself and for the group as a whole.

Probably the most import thing that I have learned is that there is no “I” in Falun Dafa. To explain this more clearly I will give some examples:

At various times during my cultivation I have stayed away from group practice or study, for various reasons. Maybe missing practice and study for a week or two weeks.

I had been deluding myself, saying that I will study at home, and I will practice at home. No matter how good my intentions were, I would neglect one or both of these things. In neglecting Study or Practice, I found that I was not clarifying the truth so much either or sending forth righteous thoughts.

I found that when I returned to the group, I was back to where I should be, and the group gave me the energy to pick myself up and get back on track again.

I also found that I was not the only practitioner that was having difficulties, and there seemed to be a knock on effect that I was not aware of. I think that sometimes we do not realise how important each one of us is to each other and to the Fa.

By doing what we are supposed to do, we can help other practitioners, just by example, and in that way we can all work together to save sentient beings and clarify the truth.

In studying together and sharing, we can help each other to raise our levels. In doing Dafa work together we are working as one, and can make the most impact.

In our everyday lives we should strive to see the Fa in everything around us, so that we can always have righteous thoughts uppermost in our minds.

In one of our group sharing experiences the question came up about whom we are cultivating for. Some of the answers that were put forward were as follows:

Do we cultivate to reach consummation?
Is this selfish

Do we cultivate to save sentient beings?
If you say that you cultivate to save sentient beings, how best can you do this?

Study the Fa, clarify the truth, and send forth righteous thoughts.

To do these things well you must, have all sentient beings in mind and have a heart of compassion, so when things are not going well in your cultivation, and you need to get back on track, you think whether I reach consummation or not is not the major concern, it is that I am here to save sentient beings and I must do these three things well in order to fulfil what I am supposed to do and not have the selfish thought of, I must reach consummation. So all the things that are supposed to be done will follow on automatically without thinking about it.

These are only my understandings and I welcome any comments or clarifications.