PureInsight | October 20, 2023
[PureInsight.org]
Hello, respected Master!
Hello fellow practitioners!
I am a student of music major at Northern Art School. I would like to take this opportunity to share with you how I dealt with the tribulations and Xinxing tests I experienced during this time.
1. I Understand another Layer of the Connotation of Music
I have always liked listening to music since I was a child. Music can relax me and let me vent all the stress of the day in one song. However, modern music is getting worse, more emotional, and more anti-traditional, but even so, I still listen to it.
In the summer vacation of 2022, I lived in a relative's house, which was not too far from the school. I used to ride my bike to school because it happened to be summer camp at Northern Art School, and I would hang out with my friends. At that time, I was supposed to go to the local Fa-study group to study the Fa together, but I didn't go to the Fa-study. I continued playing with my friends and didn't go home until late.
In the third week, I went to school to play again and stayed later than usual. At about nine o'clock, I rode my bicycle home quickly. It was very dark by then. I was wearing all black that day, so it was hard for others to see. I was riding really fast and listening to rock music.
As I was getting close to home, I saw a van at an intersection. It stopped, and I thought it was going to let me go first, so I picked up speed. Unexpectedly, it suddenly started to accelerate, and by the time I found out, it was too late to brake, and my brakes had failed. At that moment, with a "bang", I collided with the truck.
I flew more than two meters high, but I was conscious when I was thrown to the ground. My first thought was to recite the nine-character mantra, silently saying, "Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good." At that time, my body did not hurt at all. However, when I tried to get up, I could not. Finally, a passerby called an ambulance.
I went to the hospital and waited for a long time. While waiting, I listened to Master's Fa lecture recordings in Guangzhou. I heard it all the way through the morning and waited until the morning before the doctor showed up. The doctor said my collarbone was broken very badly, and told me I needed surgery. After that, I went home.
My family members all practiced Dafa, and they didn't have any big emotional fluctuations. After understanding the incident, they communicated with me, and I returned to my room. But when I saw my double bass, I couldn't help it, and the tears kept flowing.
I thought about how Master gave me hints during these three weeks. However, I have never paid attention to them. My dream and goal have always been to go to Shen Yun. However, in these short weeks, see how I have degenerated into? Back to the state before cultivation, I continued to play games, watched anime, read manga, and continued listening to ordinary people's music, chatting with the opposite sex. Finally, I do not practice the piano, study the Fa, or do the exercises.
Master gave me hints many times, but I did not realize. Some things can be said to be knowingly committing crimes.
In the beginning, my mobile phone was broken, and I was not allowed to use it again, but I did not think about why it was broken, so I bought another one. When I listen to mutant music, I get headaches and ear discomfort, but I keep listening. Every day when I practice the piano, I always think about my mobile phone. The sound of the piano is very vague and weak, and I have no interest playing at all. In the end, a road accident happened... Where is my original goal and dream? Where did my cultivation mind go?
I thought a lot during those few days and realized that Master still gave me opportunities and eliminated many of my karma. When I was in a car accident, I didn't feel any pain or itching, and I didn't feel anything. The nurse at the hospital told me: "You must take painkillers every day. Otherwise, it will be excruciating." During those few weeks, whenever I felt pain, I would recite the nine-character mantra or send forth righteous thoughts, and in the end I did not take a single pill.
I know there is no accident in the world. I have some attachments but don't know how to change them. Every morning I wake up thinking: Will there be a miracle? Like, suddenly, my bones spliced back on their own, and so on. I wanted to do the exercises but couldn't lift or move my left hand.
Suddenly, I thought that Master said in Zhuan Falun, " Some people ask me: ‘Teacher, will I be able to practice qigong? I had a sterilization operation,’ or ‘I’ve had something removed from my body." I said to them, "It doesn’t matter since your body in another dimension didn’t have an operation, and in qigong practice it’s that body which is acted upon.’"
I practice with one hand every day, and slowly I try to raise my left hand, and find that it is much better than the beginning, but it is still not good enough. One day, when I was doing the first set of exercises, I was very quiet and didn't think about anything. I was listening to the exercise music, and suddenly Master said "stretch". I opened my eyes and found that my hand was stretched! Very straight and very good-looking! Since that day, my hands have gotten better and better.
I am a double bass player, and this bothered me a lot. I could not hold the instrument in my left hand and I had not played it for six weeks. I went to the website of Shen Yun's works and watched a video about "Traditional Culture and Music". I was very touched. At that moment, I suddenly realized: Why do we have so many different instruments? Why does the art exist? Because this is what God left for mankind. Sometimes, people say that a piece of music, a dance, or a painting cannot be expressed in words. People connect with God by playing melodies, performing dances, and painting orthodox paintings.
I started to send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate all demons that interfered with my piano practice and faced everything with the purest heart.
When I picked up the instrument again, I suddenly felt that the instrument was very light, and so I tried to practice. Unexpectedly, within two days, my hands were fully recovered!
I found that when you put your heart into doing things, God will help you. Most of your own improvement is because you have this upward heart. Master said in Lecture Given at the Conference in Sydney, "This is because spiritual practice emphasizes emptiness and being free of intentions. You should want to do spiritual practice but not desire to gain things from doing it; you should want to do spiritual practice but not desire to gain higher energy from it. This is the kind of state you should be in when doing spiritual practice.”
With these improvements, my understanding of music has changed. Sometimes, I will be completely immersed in the music. The feeling is so wonderful that it is difficult to express it in words. Sometimes the school will organize activities and let us perform. I will seize every opportunity and hope to bring out the best in myself. I would think that as a Dafa disciple, I would play music with a compassionate heart, hoping that the audience could feel the greatness of Dafa.
2. Having a Good Impression of the Opposite Sex Is also a Desire for lust
When I first started writing this sharing article, I never wanted to write about the issue of lust. The excuses were that I didn’t have time to write, and I didn’t dare to speak out because I was afraid of being laughed at by others, and so on. But a few days later, I read several sharing articles and Master's lectures in various places, I enlightened to new understanding.
The ancients said: Men and women do not give or receive. This is a requirement and standard for the ancients to treat the relationship between men and women, and it is also a moral standard. There are etiquette and requirements for men and women, such as: restricting frequent contact, not sending and receiving items directly with hands between men and women, not being too close to each other, keeping their distance, and being restricted by various factors such as time and place, etc., is the proper behavior. It is also the standard for men and women that God has established. If they deviate from it, it is a problem of moral integrity, and they may even commit sinful pornography.
I found that some of the things I did before were very bad. I tried to change them, but sometimes I couldn't change them. Some of my behaviors have become natural, and sometimes I will be disturbed to do wrong things without knowing it, such as walking too close to girls, chatting, etc. I know I still do some wrong things unknowingly to this day, but many times I have been able to recognize and distance myself from the opposite sex. I hope my sharing can help fellow practitioners with the same attachments as me.
The above is my understanding, and there are still areas that need to be improved in understanding, please correct with compassion.
Thank you Master! Thank you fellow practitioners!
(Exchange of cultivation experience among students of Northern Academy of Arts in 2023)
Chinese version: https://www.zhengjian.org/node/283609
