The Importance of Endurance in Cultivation

Greetings I am a Falun Gong practitioner from Slovakia. Today I would like to take the chance to talk about endurance and it’s role in cultivation.

If there is something new, it usually attracts one’s interest. Man works on it, finds out what is new and takes note of all the details and curiosities. However, this period is normally soon over and there comes a feeling that one already knows enough, and if it is supported by some form of external opinion – e.g. an uncritical praise – it can lead a practitioner to fall into an incorrect state of cultivation.

I would like to illustrate this with a story that I read recently on the PureInsight webpage. In the old days there lived a philosopher named Sokrates. One day he said to his students: “Do you think you can each morning 300 times swing your hand like this? All the students simultaneously answered: “Of course. There could be nothing more simple as swinging the hand like this each morning.” In one month he asked them again: “Who swung their hand in the morning?” A few of them raised the hand. After one year he asked again: “Who swung their hand this morning?” One of them, Plato, raised his hand. He was later his best disciple.

Cultivation in and of itself is not difficult – it consists of persisting in looking inward and removing the attachments we see. Once we slacken in our persistence, the attachments can create deviations in our cultivation.

The role which we play during the Fa rectification period is actually not difficult. Speaking to people about the persecution, sending letters to China, visiting various media, creating of web-pages, writing articles, appealing in front of he Chinese Embassy – all of these are very simple things and if we are in the right state of mind, they will bring their fruits. However, it is important not to stop after the first success or failure, after the first published article or after the first television report.

I would like to demonstrate the endurance and righteous thoughts with an example. Each Thursday evening we hold an appeal in front of the Chinese embassy in Bratislava. At the beginning of this year there was a summit where the American and Russian president would attend. The safety measures were rather severe and as one of these measures they wanted to cancel our protest. One man from the police even visited me personally and tried to persuade me to move our protest to some other day. My argument that they already know us and so it is not a question of security to which he could not reply. I kept the righteous idea that the appeal will take place there. As he was leaving, I asked him as he walked through the door to send us a written statement. He didn’t – my righteous thought didn’t allow him to do so and on a human level he probably felt that it would not be in the line with the law. As we came there on that day, there were many policemen on the street. We unfolded our banners and soon one of the policemen came and asked us to leave. He said he would be sacked if we stayed there. He looked like a good-natured man, but I felt somehow that this was a test. I told him that we are protesting because in China many people are being persecuted and tortured to death for practising Falun Gong and that we refused to leave. This strong thought probably fetched their leader, who declared, that there is absolutely no danger whatsoever from us and that we may stay there. In the end President Putin could see us holding our protest in front of the Chinese embassy. However this wasn’t the goal – I only wanted to show that if one keeps a strong righteous thought, even a difficult situation may be solved in a favourable way. This is one aspect of endurance. Endurance and righteous thoughts were in this case the most important.

Sometimes when I meet with a difficult situation, I say to myself: “unfeasible is feasible, impossible is possible.” When my righteous thoughts are really strong, there is no situation that cannot be solved. With a strong belief in Teacher and the principles taught in Falun Gong, one can overcome any difficulty. Sometimes it is enough to let go of something more – for what reason would I hold on to it? These human things will be over in an instant and what will remains afterwards? The sentient beings have placed their hope in us, so we cannot disappoint them and we must do what we should do up to the last moment.
I will mention one more example of the effect of ones state of mind: It took me a long time for me to find the courage to pass out flyers about Falun Gong and the persecution in trams. I don’t travel by trams often, usually it is only to the Falun Gong exercise learning class and back so my motivation to tell the people riding the trams about Falun Gong was even bigger. I often stood in the tram, with a handful of flyers to give out, thinking, “Will they refuse the flyer? What if somebody knows me? Nobody gives out flyers here...” All kinds of thoughts appeared. In the end overcoming such thoughts wasn’t the difficult thing – it was enough to stop and look inside at my feelings, my impressions, my, my, my... So that I would think about others more than about my self – with that flyer I can really help them. Once someone can overcome something, he can always do it. The only difference is in the endurance – will he persist in overcoming this issue or fall back into old habits when it seems difficult to overcome? I think that the persistence here plays a key role.
Especially during bigger project there often comes about an interference in the form of tiredness, duties, illness karma. In cultivation there often appear doubts, desires, feelings, which are sometimes very intense. This is something that Falun Gong practitioners come across quite regularly. Only by persisting in studying the Falun Gong teachings can the practitioners achieve what they need to and only then will their mind be empty of interference – this is according to my understanding a state of “being in the Fa¹”.

This is just a few views of mine on the issue of endurance, which I could capture in my experience sharing, but the real in-depth understanding of Falun Gong’s principles Truthfulness, Compassion and Endurance still remains out of sight for me. However, I believe that with endurance I will be able to raise my understanding and draw closer and closer to Truthfulness, Compassion and Endurance.

What I stated is only my personal understanding, if you noted some deficiencies, please kindly point them out.