Studying the Fa well

I obtained the Fa in 1995, I can be called a veteran practitioner. However this is my first time to have a sharing with you at a Fa conference for so many years, which is very embarrassing. Mainly because I was not so diligent in my cultivation, my cultivation status is not stable, and sometimes it is good, sometimes bad, I don’t have a deep understanding of the Fa. For those Fa principles to which I did not enlighten I am not able to share anything about, for those Fa principles which I have enlightened to, whenever I review them, I felt that what I understood was too shallow to share. Any practitioner can enlighten that way, it may not make any sense to anyone, and it is therefore not worth saying it. I know this is not right, and I am also very worried about it, so I think it is time for me to make a breakthrough.

The title of my sharing today is “Studying the Fa well”. To be honest, this is an outmoded topic. However I feel this is exactly the most important thing for whether we can make progress in our cultivation or not, whether we can reach consummation or not. Without “studying the Fa well”, we have no way to discuss any other things. Without “studying the Fa well”, all we have done does not have a root.

What is cultivation? I think the process of cultivation is just a process of unceasingly and in-depth studying the Fa, a process of unceasingly assimilating to the Fa. In almost all of Master’s Fa lectures, Master mentions repeatedly “study the Fa well”, “study the Fa well”. In the first talk of “Zhuan Falun”, Master told us that, Falun Gong is a practice of "the gong refines the person," which is also called, "the Fa refines the person." Since it is a practice of “the Fa refines the person”, then studying the Fa well is especially essential. In many Fa lectures, such as “Lecture in Sydney”, “Teaching the Fa at the Founding Ceremony of the Singaporean Falun Dafa Association”, “Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Houston”, and so on, Master also clearly mentioned that in “Zhuan Falun” Master has left human beings a ladder with which to ascend to heaven. Look at “Zhuan Falun”, from the First Talk to the Ninth Talk, at the beginning in the First Talk, it is stated “Truly Guiding People Up to High Levels”. Saying that an ordinary person obtains the Fa, and wants to cultivate towards a high level, this means the person’s Buddha-nature has come out. Master will clean the person’s body, install a Falun, mechanisms, as well as the whole set of cultivation system for the person. Thereafter the person can start cultivation at a high level. After that, Master talked about the third eye, and will open the third eye or place things for opening the third eye for the cultivators. Then various situations in the cultivation world are discussed, the relationship between loss and gain, transforming karma and improving Xinxing (character), abilities and potency, Placement of the Mysterious Pass, the Cosmic Orbit and so on. It talks about the different states during the process of cultivation as well as issues of how to cultivate. All the way down to the Ninth Talk, it talks about a cultivator’s final consummation and unlocking of gong. Actually, is not the whole process stated in “Zhuan Falun”, just a process of how an ordinary person can cultivate to an enlightened being? Is not this the entire process of a person ascending to heaven? Is not “Zhuan Falun” a ladder left for human beings to ascend to heaven? Therefore I think that whenever we read through “Zhuan Falun”, we are actually refining the mechanisms of making a person become a god. Whenever we read through “Zhuan Falun”, our Xinxing will be improved; our body will correspondingly change, although perhaps we may not necessary have any obvious feeling for those changes. Whenever we read through “Zhuan Falun”, perhaps many of the extremely microscopic particles under our body have already assimilated to Dafa and reached consummation. During the entire process of cultivation, we have to unceasingly study the Fa, unceasingly assimilate to Dafa, and at the end of the process, all parts are assimilated to the Fa, and then we reach consummation. This is what I thought, but I am not sure whether it is correct or not. As studying the Fa well is so essential in the process of cultivation, I can understand why Master repeatedly urged us to study with a calm mind. We must study the Fa calmly without any distracting thoughts. We know that, apart from the dimension here, our body has its form of existence in many different dimensions as well. Whenever we are studying the Fa in this dimension, all bodies in other dimensions are studying the Fa as well, but the effect of studying the Fa is directly determined by the main consciousness in our dimension. If the body reading the Fa in our dimension is distracted, how will the bodies in other dimensions be refined by the Fa? This is what I think.

What is cultivation? I think that the process of cultivation is just a process of unceasingly getting rid of human notions and a process of unceasingly strengthening a cultivator’s righteous thoughts. After I attended the New York Fa conference this year and listened to Master’s Fa lecture, the deepest impression I got from Master’s Fa lecture was to view things with righteous thoughts rather than a human mindset. This is actually also a fundamental issue of cultivation. Master has mentioned this issue in LunYu in the first paragraph: “Nothing is as profound as BUDDHA LAW. Of all teachings in the world it is the most wondrous and highest science. To open up this field, ordinary people have to fundamentally change their way of thinking. Failing that, the reality of the universe will forever remain something of a myth to mankind, and ordinary people will forever grope around inside the box created by their own ignorance.” Suddenly I felt that cultivation is actually pretty simple, as long as we pay attention to our every notion at every moment, and check whether the notion is from a human mindset or a god’s thinking? If a god comes across this matter, how would the god deal with it or what are a god’s thinking on this matter? Maybe someone will say that, how could I know what a god’s thinking is? I am a human being doing cultivation, not a god. The cultivated parts of mine are immediately partitioned off; I can not get in touch with my cultivated parts even if I wanted to. Yes, it is not possible for a person during the process of cultivation to 100% accurately know how a god is thinking. However, don’t we have the Fa here? According to the Fa, we can inspect each thought we have and judge whether it is a cultivator’s righteous thought or not. Righteous thoughts can only be obtained from the Fa. Now it again returns to the point I mentioned above, that is, the fundamental issue of cultivation, studying the Fa well. As long as we discover whether the notion we have is from a human mindset, we can immediately rectify our thought, and restrain or get rid of the human notion. Through unceasingly Fa study, a cultivator’s righteous thoughts can be unceasingly strengthened, this is exactly what cultivation should be, cultivation is just as simple as this. At the end of the day, all human notions have been removed, and then we reach consummation. I think this is the case, at least in theory.

However, it is said to be simple, but not easy to do. It is not difficult for a cultivator to have a righteous thought at one moment, but the difficulty is to have a righteous thought at every moment. A few days ago I said to my wife: “Doing business is dangerous; it is very easy to lose De.” Of course I am not saying a business person cannot cultivate. Master has said in “Zhuan Falun” that, “So for the portion of us that cultivates in the setting of ordinary people, it doesn’t matter how much money you have, how high your official rank is, or whether you’re self-employed or you have your own business, it doesn’t matter what kind of business you do: do things fairly and act with integrity.” (“Zhuan Falun”, the Fourth Talk) The key issue is whether or not we can have integrity at every moment! Dealing with money all day long, if we do not deal with it properly, at that time we would be short of integrity, and make money which we were not be supposed to make, then we would certainly lose De. Of course, this is only my personal view, and not applicable to anyone else. Practitioners here who are doing business, please don’t be affected by my remarks, please make money as usual as long as you have integrity. I just use this as an example to explain that to have a righteous thought at every moment is not a simple matter. But it is the requirement for a cultivator. Master told us in “Fa Teaching at the 2008 New York Conference” that, “So, as you go about cultivation, you must cultivate your mind, get rid of human attachments, and view things with righteous thoughts.”

What is “viewing things with righteous thoughts”? What is “viewing things with human notions” then? What are exactly a cultivator’s righteous thoughts? I am always thinking about those questions. I think every Dafa disciple should think about these questions carefully as well, because they are directly related to the way we deal with things which we may encounter during the Fa rectification period. Master said in the recent Fa lecture that, “when you, as Dafa disciples, look at something, you have to make sure to view it in reverse since the Three Realms are inverted, and you have to conduct yourselves in a positive, correct manner.” “When the Three Realms was created, it was created in the inverse. There are no positive, correct principles here. If there were, then there would have been no need for a Shakyamuni or a Jesus to come here, and the matter of imparting the Fa would not have happened, much less would the Fa be rectified here.” Think about it everyone, the principles within the Three Realms are in the inverse, but Dafa disciples are to cultivate in ordinary human society, we need to take the format of cultivation that conforms to ordinary human society to the maximum extent, not going extremes. All of our Fa-rectification projects are conducted by using the format of ordinary human society. Therefore, it doesn't matter whether it's for personal cultivation or for Dafa projects, it will certainly conflict with notions in human society. This kind of conflict did exist in the past, and exists now, and will certainly appear in the future. During this conflict of notions, how can we deal with it properly? This is again a cultivation issue. To answer this question, I think we have to once again return to the fundamental point of cultivation – “Studying the Fa well”. As I mentioned above, righteous thoughts can only be obtained from the Fa, but how to obtain them? I think righteous thoughts come from the comprehensive and accurate understanding of the Fa. Only this way can righteous thoughts be established. Only this way can we deal with things properly whenever we encounter conflicts with human notions. I think that, for all those cases of going to the extremes, problems are created due to not studying the Fa well, not having an accurate and comprehensive understanding of Master’s Fa, quoting Master’s Fa out of context and applying to the situation one-sidedly. Speaking the understanding of the Fa, different people may have different understandings; therefore there will be different opinions before we come across a concrete resolution. A solution to solve this problem is sharing on the Fa, which is also the format of cultivation Master left for us. By means of sharing, we can improve together on the understanding of the Fa, and strengthen our righteous thoughts. Recently the UK Falun Dafa Association made a decision regarding the choice of venue for 2009 Shen Yun performance in London. Once the decision was announced, it caused different opinions among practitioners. I would like to suggest that, we can take this as an excellent case study to share what are “viewing things with righteous thoughts”, what are “viewing things with human notions”.

My sharing today is going to end soon. Looking back at the things I wrote, it is very shallow indeed, every Dafa disciple can enlighten in this way. Even though it does not really make much sense I still take it as a breakthrough in my personal cultivation. Before ending my sharing today, I would like to tell you a little story of Fa study during the period of doing 2008 London ShenYun:

After participating in 2008 London ShenYun, all of a sudden I found I became a “protected object”. Firstly, the person in charge of the UK Dafa Association said: “All people who need to go to Roger’s place have to be reported to and approved by the Dafa Association; any others are not allowed to be there.” Secondly, one of my team members said to me: “Roger, we must ensure you can study the Fa well, let you not fall down, I prefer myself to fall down if someone has to!” Thereupon the following scenario occurred frequently:

After the 10:00pm sending forth righteous thoughts, we would study one chapter of “Zhuan Falun” every night. During Fa study, the phone rang; while I was preparing to stand up to pick up the phone, I heard a voice: “don’t move, let me do it.” Then I heard the following conversation:

“Hello, who are you looking for?”
“I am looking for Roger”
“Roger is studying the Fa, he is not available. If your matter is not urgent, please call back tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, my matter is urgent.”
“Ok, you can talk to me then.”
… …

No matter what, they did not allow anyone to disturb my Fa-study. I am very grateful to my fellow practitioners for their help and protection. Under practitioners' “protection” I have tremblingly walked through the 2008 London ShenYun. The 2009 London ShenYun project has started, I promise to commit myself completely to the project and cooperate with the Dafa Association unconditionally.

Dear fellow practitioners, let us together study the Fa well, get rid of human attachments, view things with righteous thoughts and fulfil our great pre-historic vows.

Thank you all!