Eliminating Our Laziness

During the past few years, I haven't been able to harmonize my family life with my cultivation. I knew I needed to improve my xinxing (charachter) level, but I didn't have the determination to really do it. When fellow practitioners reminded me of this, I improved for a few days, but then slid back to my previous state. Yesterday, my husband found a truth-clarification disc in my pocket. He then got mad and tore up my Zhuan Falun book and threw away my MP3 player which contained Dafa music. He even reformatted my computer. He claimed that I always wanted to do this "stuff" and therefore it impacted my work. He claimed he could no longer live with me and wanted to divorce me. This saddened me greatly. When I calmed down, I looked inside and suddenly realized that the biggest barrier preventing me from solidly cultivating myself was actually my laziness. This attachment had seriously impacted my duty of saving my family and sentient beings. Therefore, I am writing about my experience in the hopes that fellow practitioners with the same attachment can focus on it and completely eliminate it.

It seems that lazy people tend to pursue comfort. Teacher said in the book Falun Gong,

"Determined cultivators will eventually gain Righteous Attainment if they are prepared to endure great hardships and to face difficulties with a firm mind."

Laziness makes people pursue gains without being willing to go through hardships. Most of the people with this attachment tend to say, "It's good enough." They always find excuses for not taking action. They put more emphasis on their own personal situations. Even when they take action, they only try to finish the immediate task at hand and therefore don't put their hearts into it. When they do something that they should do, they think they have gone above and beyond. They pursue fame and don't like doing actual work. They like talking instead of truly working on cultivation.

Another characteristic of these practitioners is that they always want to take chances. Therefore they often wish for the best results with the least amount of effort. When they encounter conflicts, they try to avoid them and are unwilling to take responsibility. They hope that other people and situations change, instead of fully recognizing their own responsibilities. They don't try to actively resolve conflicts. Others can tell that they don't discipline themselves and are irresponsible. When there are things to be done, they procrastinate again and again and then finish at the last minute. We can imagine they would forget many details and therefore the results are not good.

Teacher said in his poem "Solid Cultivation" (Hong Yin),

"Study the Fa and gain the Fa,
Focus on how you study and cultivate,
Let each and every thing
be measured against the Fa.
Only then, with that,
is it actually cultivation."

Today I finally realized that a lazy person can't become a true practitioner. To be a true cultivator, one must remove his or her laziness. It is extremely important. Today, Teacher made me understand this, and I will be firm and remove it.