Western Practitioner: Giving Up Personally Set Limitations and Wholeheartedly Participating in Fa-rectification

Greetings Master, greetings everyone,

After attending Teacher Li's 9-day lecture in September 1998, I decided to try this newfound practise of Falun Gong for six months to see if it was something I should follow for keeps. After all, I reasoned, I had tried just about everything the spiritual world had to offer and nothing really seemed to fit. Six months passed quickly and in that time I realised that it wasn't a question of whether Falun Dafa met my expectations, but whether or not I could step into the consciousness of a genuine cultivator. During those first six months, I failed my first big test and decided I needed to see a doctor for the "flu" that I had contracted. Of course, this flu didn't respond to the medication prescribed for it, since it wasn't really an illness. It finally went away after five weeks, only to return within two weeks. I was given a second chance. This time I passed the test and in three days I was back to normal.

But it was also in those first six months that, in retrospect, I can see that an insidious pattern was working in the background of my mind and heart. I remained cautious about the practise and needed to see if this or that was true, if things were really like Teacher said in Zhuan Falun (the core text of Falun Dafa teachings), and if I really qualified as a practitioner. It was like I was willing to go only so far.

After July in 1999, everything shifted into a higher gear, it seemed. Our practitioners in the Greater Boston area were suddenly faced with the sobering reality that the persecution of Falun Gong was real and we had to deal with it. The big question was how. In a way, we were like un-seasoned recruits who needed to shape up into soldiers in a hurry. So, we met more often and our group studies were usually followed by discussions on what we could do to let more people know about the persecution. We were starting to work together as one body but this proved to be quite a challenge for me.

The comfortable atmosphere of talking about cultivation issues after studying the Fa (Law or Principles, the teachings in Falun Gong) was replaced with Fa study followed by long, long meetings, with a lot of talking and seemingly no concrete plan at the end of the evening. I knew I needed to be a part of this, but I only wanted to go so far. I used to think, "I'll just follow instructions after they come up with a plan." Yes, I participated in a lot of activities, but was I really 100 percent involved?

Of course, I don't mean to imply that one has to do a lot of talking whenever an event is being planned, or be involved in every single phase of it. Sometimes, due to circumstances, you may only be able to show up at the event itself and just follow instructions. But I think we need to be there 100 percent in our minds and hearts. We need to have the feeling that we are part of a wonderful team of practitioners. We need to contribute our wisdom when it is needed. We need to respect each other's ideas. We need to cooperate well and follow the plan. Above all, in any project or activity, we need to make sure that we are validating the Fa and not ourselves. This is easier said than done, I know, but this is the way it is for us. This is how we walk our path.

There is another area in which I have seen myself falling short and not going all the way. Quite often there have been occasions where someone's particular attachment became irritatingly apparent to me. I tended to take a quick peek inside myself to make sure that I didn't have the same attachment and then I would turn my attention to their problem. I convinced myself that I was OK and that it was the other practitioner who needed to get rid of his or her attachment. What usually happened is that the other practitioner never seemed to improve - their attachment was still there! For the longest time, I never went any further than just waiting for improvement in other practitioners. I never really went back inside myself to take a good look to see if the same attachments were inside my own heart.

Recently, I was working on an assignment with a fellow practitioner who I felt hadn't made much improvement in his particular set of attachments. We often worked together, and here we were again, and things were not going that smoothly. On the surface, we were doing just fine, but inside me, things were not going that smoothly. But this time, I consciously decided to shut off my critical attitude and simply do what needed to be done. In a very short time, I noticed that I was becoming attuned to this practitioner. I started to read his body language and listen to how he was talking. For the first time, I was not criticising him. I was able to see that this practitioner was under a lot of pressure. He wasn't trying to do things to irritate me; he was just reacting to pressure. A third practitioner who was with us must have also noticed this too, because she turned the conversation around to talking about how not to let pressure take control of him. We chatted briefly about how a practitioner doesn't need to have stress in order to function well in society and then went back to work.

After our assignment was finished, this practitioner shared with us a tribulation that was really bothering him. The three of us talked quietly for about an hour. When it was time to leave, I felt that a major breakthrough had occurred in my heart. I was experiencing and manifesting genuine compassion. That's something that's hard to describe but it is a priceless treasure that comes when we improve in our cultivation.

So after six and half years, on this occasion at least, I finally broke through and went all the way. Now it's time to make going only so far a thing of the past. In every aspect of my cultivation and doing the three things well, I need to go all the way! If my short report has struck a common chord in your heart, then let's all help each other to go all the way!

Thank you.

Heshi to Master, Heshi to everyone.