(Minghui.org) Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
Looking back, I can now see how fortunate I am to have grown up in a family of cultivators. I was introduced to Falun Dafa when I was young. I followed the adults as they practiced the exercises, sent righteous thoughts, and read the Fa. Since I grew up in this environment, I considered myself to be somewhat of a practitioner.
However, whether I was truly cultivating or not was a whole different story. In my heart, I found the Fa principles to be very reasonable, but since all I wanted at the time was to have fun and enjoy life, I didn’t apply them in my daily life. So, without giving cultivation much thought, I was quickly swept up into the current of everyday people and developed many attachments.
One of the my strongest attachments was to video games and videos. My parents strongly objected to this and tried all kinds of things, such as locking up the computers, to break my addiction. However, since they didn’t give me a reason that made me want to stop, my addiction to electronics continued for several years.
Even with such poor enlightenment quality at the time, hope for me to awaken to the truth was not lost. By reading Master’s recent teachings and listening to several sharing articles, I was enlightened to how sacred this time period we’re in really is.
Master taught us,
“The Fa’s rectification of the Cosmos has finished, and now a transition to the Fa’s rectification of the human world is taking place. Most of our Dafa disciples will join me as the Fa rectifies the human world.
“However, during the course of it numerous lives with enormous karma as well as members of the wicked Communist Party will be weeded out and annihilated. And along with this, there are those among Dafa practitioners who have not made good on the vows they signed with their lives at the time of coming to this world—such as, for example, by not having done well what Dafa disciples are supposed to do or not having worked on saving people—and who as a result have strong human thinking and have long had a negative effect on the environment for spiritual development among practitioners. And still others have followed certain individuals who have gone awry in their understanding of the Fa, or have followed undercover agents of the CCP who pose as practitioners, and have been seriously disruptive to others. For all of them there will be consequences in keeping with the vows that they made.” (“Wake Up”)
After some serious consideration about my future, I couldn’t bear to waste my life any longer. I knew that my Internet addiction had to go. I was determined to fulfill my historic vow and make the most of this precious time. During last year’s spring break, I finally decided to stop. After enduring several days without going online, I broke free from this addiction.
I found that life wasn’t as dull as I thought it was. Instead, I saw how meaningless my addiction was. My mind also opened up and life became a lot simpler. One day, I finally decided to accept myself as a true cultivator. This one thought changed my entire life. Gradually, I was able to remember that I was a cultivator more and more, until I could treat every situation with a practitioner’s standard. At first, I couldn’t properly react to conflicts as a cultivator would, but with Dafa’s principles as a base, I knew where I had to improve.
Before, I thought that cultivation was a very boring and hard process. This was mostly because I tried to force myself to accomplish tasks, while not daring to let go of my attachments. But after being able to let go of many attachments, I found that my life is now very straightforward, and when I meet with hardships, dealing with them is no longer painful. Most importantly, the feeling of fulfilling my life’s true purpose is better than the feeling I once had while using attachments to cover up the truth.
With the publication of How Humankind Came To Be, the Fa’s rectification of the human world has just begun. During this time period, more everyday people will start to cultivate. How could we young practitioners, who have such strong predestined relationships, not truly start cultivating yet?
Regardless of how we may have behaved before, we still have an opportunity to establish our mighty virtue in the next few years. For those people who are still deciding whether or not to cultivate, this moment in history is a precious opportunity not to be missed. Once the truth is fully displayed, it will be too late to fulfill our vows, so let’s not have anything to regret.
Master taught us,
“Even though from time to time there are people doing foolish things, the title of “Dafa Disciple” is something even divinities admire and wish they could have.” (“Wake Up”)
My wish is that practitioners can cherish every opportunity given us to learn and improve from each other. May we all walk ever more diligently on our paths to do the three things well in order to fulfill our historic vows.
These are some of my personal experiences and understandings. Please kindly correct me if there is anything that doesn’t align with the Fa.
Thank you, Master! Thank you, fellow practitioners!
(From the 2023 Northern Academy Experience Sharing Conference)
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