Illusions

I have heard a story.

There once was a couple; both of them were cultivators. Both husband and wife cultivated among common people with their third eye and other supernormal abilities sealed. They continuously improved their characters and enhanced their cultivation levels. Common people praised them highly as the best people among the best.

A couple of years later they had a child. The child was very healthy and had never been sick. He was an adorable child; everybody liked him. Though they were very affectionate toward their child, they never slacked off in their cultivation practice. When the child turned one year old, they almost reached Consummation, except they did not know.

One day, when the couple was doing the sitting meditation and feeling their hearts getting purer and purer, the sleeping child suddenly cried out loud as if he were in great pain. Hearing this miserable cry, the wife opened her eyes. She saw her husband still doing his sitting meditation without showing any concern. Then she remembered that their child was never sick, and that he was perfectly well before he went to bed, so she decided it was interference. She resumed her sitting meditation. But the child cried louder and louder, as if he were in great discomfort. Then his voice became hoarse. Now the wife was a bit worried, but she still tried to focus on the sitting meditation. Suddenly, the child stopped his wretched cry and stopped breathing. The wife opened her eyes and saw the child was dead. As if a knife were piercing her heart, the wife immediately got up and held the child in her arms, wailing sadly. At that moment, the husband reached Consummation. He looked at his wife and told her the cause of this incident calmly and benevolently.

“A long time ago during a certain Chinese dynasty,” he said, “We were fellow cultivators as well as lovers in a Taoist cultivation school. Several cultivators were cultivating in the same Taoist temple then. There was another cultivator among us who loved you and bared his heart to you one day, but you rejected him. He knew that you were in love with me, so jealousy made him hate both of us. He said bitterly at that time, ‘So, you want to cultivate! I will stop you from reaching Consummation even if it will cost my life!’ That man was the child you are holding now in this life. Though he failed to stop you from cultivation, he has successfully interfered with your reaching Consummation.” Then the husband used his supernormal ability to show his wife the dead child’s Main Spirit in another dimension. It was their former fellow cultivator who swore to stop their cultivation. He was laughing loudly now, pleased with his work. The wife was overcome with grief and regret.

Cultivation is a serious business. Any attachment could stop the cultivator from reaching Consummation.

Teacher said:

Opportunity knocks but once. Once the illusion that you cannot let go of disappears, you will realise what you have lost.
(From “Practising Cultivation After Retirement” in Essentials of Further Advancement)

Teacher said:

As a human being, you are a good person only if you can follow this universe’s characteristic of Zhen-Shan-Ren. A person who deviates from this characteristic is truly a bad person. In the workplace or in society, some people may say that you are bad, yet you may not necessarily be bad. Some people may say that you are good, but you may not really be good. As a practitioner, if you assimilate yourself to this characteristic you are one that has attained the Tao—it’s just such a simple principle.
(From “Zhen-Shan-Ren is the Sole Criterion to Discern Good and Bad People” in Zhuan Falun [Turning the Law Wheel - a book containing the principle teachings of Falun Gong.])

Teacher also said:

To tell you the truth, the entire cultivation process for a practitioner is one of constantly giving up human attachments.
(From “Genuinely Guiding People Toward High Levels” in Zhuan Falun)

Life is but a dream or a drama. It is when the dream is over or the curtain falls that we realise that everything in the human world is but an illusion. Only cultivation and everything acquired through cultivation practice is real. Let us be more diligent in our cultivation, and pull ourselves out of these secular dreams and illusions.

Note - Zhen, Shan, Ren can be translated as "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance"