Looking Inward–A Mechanism for Cultivation

By Jie Jing

PureInsight | October 27, 2008

[PureInsight.org] In the lecture “Fa-Teaching Given to the Australian Practitioners” (video, 2007) Master repeatedly emphasized looking inward. However, I have found that many practitioners, myself included, have not learned how to look inward. Whenever there is a conflict, we always look at others and point our fingers at someone else, or we just go through the motions of looking inward but really insist on behaving as usual and are unwilling to change! Perhaps this is because we are unable to make ourselves tranquil and really look at our own shortcomings.

A few days ago, something happened. I had just bought a new digital media player and was watching the lecture “Fa-Teaching Given to the Australian Practitioners.” When it was almost over, the player’s battery ran out of power and it stopped. How unfortunate! I took out the battery charger and plugged in the player, but there was no response at all. My wife was a bit angry and complained, “You should not put so much Dafa related stuff on it. Now it is corrupted and you cannot take it back!” I saw myself becoming anxious, so I slowly calmed down and looked inward, “This little player contains all the Dafa music and is my Fa implement. It is not working, so there must something wrong with my xinxing.” I sent forth righteous thoughts and at the same time looked inward. I let go of my fear of the device not working and needing to take it back for repair. I realized that when they found the Dafa materials on the device, I could clarify the truth to them. Then I found my problem: I had not put the files on the device in a neat orderly manner, which showed my careless heart towards Dafa. In addition, sometimes I was half naked when using the device to study Fa, which was disrespectful to Master. My behavior had a lot of shortcomings. After realizing this, I turned on the computer and studied one last paragraph of the lecture. I learned something every time I studied that lecture and every word registered in my heart. When I was almost finished, the digital media player flashed once and returned to normal! Finally, I truly understood the key to looking inward!

From this experience, I realized that I should turn looking inward into a mechanism. Whenever I encounter any problems, conflicts, or obstacles, I need to look inward first. It must be me who has a problem. When I am moved, feel I’ve been treated unfairly, become excited, depressed, angry, afraid, or worried, I need to look at my heart. It must be my attachments or human notions that are the cause. Cultivators should not be moved by anything. A solid cultivator’s heart is open, calm, and kind! Not being able to look inward and change oneself is the cause for the degeneration of the universe. In other words, it is selfishness. I feel that cultivators should only treat others, including our fellow practitioners, with kindness and tolerance, and we have no right to blame others or judge others! We can only cultivate our own heart, let go of our attachments to fame, gain, and sentimentality, and assimilate to truthfulness, compassion, forbearance! We must measure everything with the Fa, do the three things well, and be truly worthy of our Master’s salvation!

Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2008/9/4/54707.html

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